Positiewe Dissipline in die Hande van die Opvoeder

Abstract

Research into the quandary of learner discipline in South African schools has exposed teacher-educators’ lack of (sufficient knowledge of) efficacious methods of maintaining discipline as a problem. In the relevant scholarly literature, positive discipline has been identified as a method with a proven success record. This article investigates positive discipline more closely. Its main purpose is to provide educators with a number of guidelines through which they may maintain and justify effective discipline. To begin with, a literature review about learner discipline supplies the contextual background to this study. The discussion deals, amongst others, with the disciplinary problems that schools have to contend with. Secondly, the concept “positive discipline” is outlined, with particular attention to its possible trussing in a reformatory approach to and contemplation of education and the state of humanness and of being human. This grounding provides a (pre-) theoretical framework from which the (psychological and philosophical) roots of positive discipline may be evaluated. From the subsequent discussion emerge a number of practical guidelines for the teacher-educator. The purpose of these is to assist with the implementation of positive discipline in his or her classroom. The article concludes with a number of recommendations towards possible further research.