Zero Tolerance Policies in Learning Institutions Are Not the Best Way of Instilling Discipline in Students - Coursework Example

Author’s name Professor’s name Task Date Zero tolerance policies in learning institutions are not the best way of instilling discipline in students because they ignore the explanatory situations. Zero tolerance policies refer to the harsh punishment to the students and sometimes staff, without regard to ignorance, unintended mistakes, and explanatory situation in schools. These policies were introduced to prevent and reduce cases of violence and drug misuse in schools. The strategy was also established to reduce cases of possession of firearms and weapons in schools. Pioneers of the strategies intended to make schools an appropriate site to learn. However, recent outcomes from schools reveal that the zero policies are not a solution to curb violence in schools. Strict adherence to the zero tolerance rules have resulted into children being expelled from schools and this is raising concerns for parents and other civil rights activists. This is because; children are getting severe punishment regardless of the circumstance under which the students committed the crime. This system is so inflexible, in that, the learners do not get an opportunity to explain themselves. Children are expelled for very small mistakes like bringing eyebrow trimmers to school. Children considered as good and respectful get severe punishment for a single mistake. The result of the strategies is the disproportionate punishment to mistakes (Hanks 98). The application of the zero tolerance policies are based on force myths that has made children suffer under them. The first myth is that violence in schools is rising at an alarming rate and the schools are in a crisis because of the violence. It becomes necessary for schools to adopt no-nonsense strategies to deal with the violence problem. Recent studies show that cases of violence in schools have remained stable and in some schools, it has gone down. Therefore, the schools do not have to assume that the violence cases are on the rise, and thus, need for zero tolerance strategies. School administration need to come up with other strategies to deal with violence and not necessarily apply the zero tolerance strategies. One of the reasons why the strategies were introduced was to reduce violence in schools. The truth is that expulsion and suspension does not change the students' perception towards violence. In fact, punitive punishment inculcates the 'go for broke' attitude, where students do severe crimes because they know that they will be suspended without question. The students can even commit additional crimes since they view the punishment as lighter. This implies the learners may refuse to fear the punishment and will do actions they think is proportionate to their mistakes (Gurian 65). The other myth related to the application of the strategies application of compulsory punishment for specific mistakes improves discipline consistency and ensures students get disciplinary messages clearly. However, there is no direct relation between the school discipline and strict punishment. Consistency in discipline is largely determined by other factors like the school philosophy and governance. Zero tolerance strategies do not improve school discipline in any way. The other myth about zero tolerance strategies is that expulsion and suspension of undisciplined children will create an appropriate and safe environment for studying for the remaining schools. Recent researches have shown otherwise. Schools with high levels of suspension and expulsions have poor ratings of the school environment. The schools tend to have poor governance structures sand spend most of their time dealing with disciplinary cases. This shows that the suspensions and expulsions of disruptive students do not give any information to the remaining students. They continue doing mistakes despite knowing that other students have been expelled for the same reasons. More importantly, the strategies result into poor academic performance. The schools dedicate a lot of efforts to transform schools into a good environment that they forget about academics. The result is poor academic performance for the students. The students left in school fail because of neglect from the teacher. The suspended students, on the other hand, are left out of academics during the time they are serving their punishment (Bardes 87). The other myth about the strategies is that specific punishments improve a student's conduct and discipline. The zero tolerance strategies hold that effective punishment should have a positive impact on the future behaviour of the child. The strategy aims to deter future misbehaviour through applying severe punishments that will stop the misbehaviours. However, the strategy results to increased cases of misbehaviour among the expelled and suspended students. In addition, after expulsions, the children are likely to drop out of school. In the long-run, the strategy results to increased high school dropout rates and delayed graduation. Researches show that over 31% of the school dropouts had gone for suspension as compared to only 10% of the dropouts who had not gone for suspension. The strategies have failed to achieve their objective of deterring any future misbehaviour and, therefore, school administrations should stop using it as a disciplinary measure. The other myth is that most parents support the system so that their children will be safe in the schools. The parents will support the implementation of these strategies to ensure that the students who threaten their students' safety in schools are dent out of school. However, when their children become the victims of such strategies, then the parents feel the strategies are unfair and ineffective in dealing with disciplinary issues. The communities around the school, on the other hand, feel that such strategies are a threat to the children's education. Such strategies, should therefore, not be used as disciplinary measures (Regoli 105). The system has led to increase in the use of juvenile justice system. The number of students being referred to the system has increased since the introduction of the zero tolerance rules. Some of the disciplinary cases referred to the juvenile justice system were initially handled by the schools and corrected effectively. This creates a pipeline from school to prison. The best way of dealing with indiscipline is dealing with the causes and reasons why children get into indiscipline cases and not putting them in prison. Most of the children become more indiscipline when they leave the juvenile prison. For this reason, the zero tolerance strategies should no longer be used in schools if children's discipline is to be improved. A task force given the responsibility of determining the effectiveness of zero tolerance strategies revealed that the strategies do not have any positive effects on the punished children, their families or the communities around them. This is because, the system do not give any guidance, advice or instructions to the victims. Their focus is on direct punishment and making the victims suffer. These actions may create confrontational attitudes between the students and the teachers resulting to more defiance. As such, school administrations should stop using the zero tolerance strategies, and device other ways of punishment that will create trust between teachers and students (Gardner 641). With regard to students with disabilities, they are prone to be expelled inversely proportional to their numbers in the school. The same thing applies to students with emotional and behavioural problems. Some of the children engage in mischievous behaviours due to the disorders they possess. The zero strategy measures do not take into account such situational factors and so such children will always be having problems with the schools. The problem with this punishment is that the children will not stop from this conducts and may end up dropping out of school. This strategy, therefore, does not improve the discipline for such children and may make it worse when they drop out of school. The zero tolerance strategy is particularly inappropriate for young students. These strategies counter the child's development. This is because; the children are at the stage characterized by delinquency and punishing them may affect their development. Children may suffer from low self-esteem after the punishment. Consequently, this affects the normal development. In some cases, some children are punished for some very small mistakes that they may fear doing anything in school. The strategy has a negative impact on the development of the adolescents. When adolescents are at the age of 15, they show great characteristics of immaturity. They are not able to resist peer pressure, and they are willing to undertake any kind of risks. In addition, the students' brain are not fully developed explaining why they engage in some silly behaviours and misconducts. Learners hardly have time on their own to think about the consequence of the actions they undertake. The students will, therefore, take part in actions that they regret afterwards (Califano 154). The application of Zero tolerance policies will greatly affect the development of these adolescents. This is because; most of the actions result from poor judgment by the students. The teachers and school systems need to develop strategies to deal with the adolescent challenges instead of punishing them for the unconscious actions. In this case, the zero tolerance strategies will not be effective for dealing with adolescent problems. The zero tolerance strategies result to cases of students being punished disproportionately to the offences. School administration fail to use common senses in the judgment of what the students have done, and expel them because it is written that such an offence carries a punishment of expulsion. Sometimes, Students do certain actions not with the intention of getting into the wrong side of the school laws but circumstances land them there. In these cases, children get punishment for actions they did not intend to do. These children end up being bitter with educators and whole system. The result of this is that the good children who get such punishment tend to do more so that they punishment will be proportionate to the offences. In this case, the zero tolerance strategies fail to fulfil their aim of reducing cases of future cases of indiscipline. The strategies should, therefore, not appropriate as a corrective measure. Cases of racial discrimination have been reported in the application of the zero tolerance policies with the African-American students having high chances of being expelled or suspended from school. Recent studies show that The African-American students two to three higher chances of facing punitive punishment from schools. The white learners receive mild punishments as compared to the blacks. This is despite the fact the black students are mostly charged with mild misbehaviour like littering, noise making, and issuing threats (Williams 132). The white students, on the other hand, are charged with more serious crime like vandalism, possession of weapons and vandalism. This has caused more delinquency among the black students since they know that they will still receive harsh punishment. When the disciplinary system fails to be applied equally to all children, then the system should not be used in schools. Disproportionate application of the zero tolerance strategies have been reported to be higher and harsh on the low-income students as compared to the high-income students. Students from low-income families are likely to receive harsh punishment from teachers and sometimes from the school administrations. Researches show that teenage students from both low-income and high-income agreed that the strategies were more inclined to the poor students. This is unfair for the students, as they receive punishments not proportional to the offences they undertake. When this happens, such students become bitter with themselves and teachers and may end up being more indiscipline. When disciplinary practices are based on socio-economic backgrounds, then such a practice should be scrubbed from the school. The success of the use of expulsion and suspensions in school systems as a way of improving discipline has been controversial since the zero tolerance measures were introduced in schools. Recent research shows that over 40% of suspensions resulted from repeat offenders, i.e. the students receiving suspension had already been suspended before. These findings were consisted across different schools leading us to the question whether suspensions acted as a punisher or as a reinforce for further suspensions (Gardner 90). When a student has gone for suspension, there are very high chances that the student will repeat the same mistake so that they can go home again. This means that the strategies do not work to improve discipline for the children. For this reason, the zero tolerance strategies should be reviewed. While school administration sees the strategies to be learners’ opportunity to go home and change their behaviour, the students see the strategies as unfair and unjust. As a result, the students will do more annoying deeds so get back to their teachers. An interview with a high boy showed that after he got into trouble, he vowed to get into trouble again to get to the teachers' nerves. These counter- reactions towards punitive punishments increase instead of decreasing misbehaviour in learning institutions. When the disciplinary measures inculcate counter-reactions from students, then they need to review them (Carpenter 87). This is because; the result of the measures will be increased indiscipline instead of increasing discipline levels. In conclusions, the zero tolerance strategy is a means of getting rid of the trouble some students instead of instilling discipline in the children. For disruptive students, suspension leads to another suspension and eventually expulsion or dropout. The expulsion and dropouts leads to more problems as the children are idle and get to the streets where there are no strict laws to be followed. For schools to instil discipline in the students in the present and in the future, the administration should open up communication channels between the students, teachers and parents so that the causes of delinquency can be dealt with. Learners should understand the reasons for the punishment. Zero tolerance strategies have failed to establish the communication channels and only focus on direct punishment. The schools should establish a system where teachers and students can discuss the mistakes, this way; learners would understand why they are being punished and will take the time to thinks and correct their mistakes. Therefore, school administrations should stop using this strategy to instil discipline and correct delinquency behaviours in children, unless they want to get rid of the delinquent students from their schools. The school administration has the role of ensuring that the learning institution is a secure atmosphere for learning. Works cited Bardes, Barnards. American Government and Politics Today 2008: The Essentials, Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2008. Califano, Jerson. How to Raise a Drug-Free Kid: The Straight Dope for Parents, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2009. Carpenter, Dickson. The Everything Parent's Guide to Dealing with Bullies: From Playground Teasing to Cyber Bullying, All You Need to Ensure Your Child's Safety and Happiness, London: Everything Books, 2007. Gardner, Mich. Peer Influence On Risk Taking, Risk. Developmental Psychology, 2008. Gurian, Michael. Boys and Girls Learn Differently! A Guide for Teachers and Parents: Revised 10th Anniversary Edition, London: John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Hanks, Jack. School Violence: From Discipline To Due Process, New York. American Bar Association, 2004. Regoli, Richards. Delinquency in Society: The Essentials, New York: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2008. Williams, Kingston. Socially Constructed School Violence: Lessons From The Field, Beijing: Peter Lang, 2005. Read More