§ 4. Discipline in the Classroom.[1]
The effectiveness of a teacher as teacher will depend largely on his success as a disciplinarian. This holds especially of the lower classes, where the pupils are livelier and act more from their animal propensities. A few good regulations concerning order in class, as well as to the manner of entering and leaving the class room, are to be firmly insisted on. Determination is here the great factor. A classroom yields, keeps silence, remains quiet, is attentive and studious, if it learns that the professor means to insist on these points. Of course, firmness can be overdone. Too great persistence takes on the appearance of tyranny and challenges opposition. On the other hand, mildness easily gives place to weakness. The teacher has to strike the mean, which is golden here as in other things. However, it is a maxim of Jesuit educators that it will be good to be more reserved, and also stricter as to discipline, in the beginning, until the teacher knows his class and has it under perfect control. It is easy then to loosen the reins a little, whereas it is nearly impossible to draw them tight after a spirit of levity, noisiness and general disorder has started through the teacher's easy-going manner.
The following words of a French Jesuit educator on this question are most instructive. The master in charge of the boys, in his first intercourse with them, has no greater snare in his way than taking his power for granted and trusting in his strength and knowledge of the world. That master who in the very first hour
- ↑ Jouvancy, Ratio Docendi, ch. 3, art. 2. – Kropf, Ratio et Via, ch. 6, art. 3. – Sacchitri, Paraenesis, art. 19.
