Rethinking Discipline in the New Normal

Building Emotional Response to Cultivate Community

After a year of pandemic teaching, I believe it is time to view discipline through a different lens, one where discipline becomes the practice of failing and growing together by holding one another accountable to habits, thoughts, words and actions that grow not just our own best self, but our community’s best self. Rather than seeing it as punitive, transactional and static, we might define it as a discipline for thinking in which we hold ourselves accountable to habits, thoughts, words and actions that grow our best self. There are five principles to the post- pandemic definition of discipline:

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1. We are sitting in this discomfort together.
2. We are connected to one another when we choose our behaviours.
3. We are called to improve ourselves to improve our community.

4. We must share our successes and our failures in a safe space.
5. We must make room for a future we design together and commit to the pathway forward that is responsive and not reactive, which means a slow and intentional pace.

Being uncomfortable is, by definition, not a good feeling. We want to move out of that space as quickly as we can;
however, if we choose to stay, we can learn how to silence our panic and discomfort by listening to what it has to teach
us about ourselves and others. For instance, when I sit in my own discomfort, I have learned that I do not listen with
open ears but with bias. What I hear and what others say is not often the same thing because I do not understand the
intention. After sitting in the discomfort I am able to ask myself, what is the intention in sharing these words with

me and how can I hear what they are trying to say? This moment is where empathy occurs, the space to practice
empathy for myself in my deafened state and empathy for others in an effort to define my more accurate listening.
Often this means recognising a past trauma or abuse that seems divorced but feels connected. I ask myself what am
I feeling in my body and when have I felt this way before. Then when it connects, present to past, I release it and I
become present in a way I was not present before. We know that our minds are not programmed with emotional response, rather they are trained. We may have instilled habits of mind that do not serve our larger purpose, our larger good. Could we not instill another habit of mind?

One for our greater good and purpose, for ourselves and our community? We could cultivate a responsive way of
thinking, learning and growing that would calm our minds and calm our classrooms. Imagine if our students had this
knowledge? If they understood the control and power they innately possess? As educators we can work with them by
meeting them in our shared discomfort and being present to witness for one another the realisation that something that
may be uncomfortable now may not feel as uncomfortable in a moment or two. If we challenge them further to wait
a moment or two, to manage impulsivity and become inquisitive, the outcome will have no other recourse than to change.

We are connected to one another when we choose our behaviours. The work of understanding what drives different behaviours with our students is another place to pause and reflect. If we can connect for our students that their actions and words do not just impact themselves, but impact the community then we can show them moments where this relationship between self and others can be leveraged for good. When we practice thinking interdependently, we form relationships based on trust and that trust is the foundation of strong relationships.

We must model for them in our own interactions a deep seated respect for one another, regardless of the past or
possible future. When we choose a behaviour that does not serve our intentions, we hurt our community because we
put ourselves first. Leaving a mess on the cafeteria table is a choice that communicates a lack of respect for those
who eat after me, for those who clean the space when the lunch session is over and invites others to do the same.
Without thinking of those who eat after me or those who clean after me, I am isolating myself from my community.
A school relies on a sense of community to craft a learning environment and this action does not support that shared
vision and a membership to the community and that hurts us all.

We are called to improve ourselves to improve our community. Healthy communities are made up of individuals with a shared purpose. Our shared purpose

means that we care for ourselves and those around us in a respectful and appropriate way. To fully understand and
live my commitment to my community, I need to take care of myself. This can mean many things, but assuredly means
that I sleep well, eat well, exercise regularly and grow educationally. It also means asking for help when I am in discomfort and trusting that a role model – which could really be any member of my school community regardless of position and title – will meet me there and help me take space to respond in ways that benefit me and in doing so
benefit the community.

Trial and error, successes and failures are part of the job, but we must do so with clear intentions. Educational spaces are
organic because people are organic. Built into organisms is a need to be curious and our teaching and learning needs
to model this. We need to allow for a mess. Success is not also clean and failure is not always dirty. I love to make a
mess of my classroom as long as it serves a purpose. For many years, each spring I would have my students write and design a new version of a classic fairy tale. I would then have them construct Javanese shadow puppets, intricate puppets that are projected as shadows on a screen to tell a story. At the end of every day my classroom floor would be littered with scraps of paper cut away from a series of carefully constructed failures until just the right puppet emerged on the screen. I never minded wielding a broom pre-janitor to sweep away the learning. Each pile and mess was just mistakes that fit in the trash can. Nothing to fret over. Nothing to regret. The students, too, would go home with small paper cuts and frustrations, but never seemed to mind and would come back the next day to try it all again. Classrooms need to be this safe space, where we sweep up at the end of the day without regrets and move forward to make more mistakes together the next.

Building and executing an intention is really slow and steady work. The pandemic held educators accountable for
time undefined in a Google Meet or Zoom meeting. The work became incredibly pointed and sharp, every moment
of the school literally catalogued on the Internet. As we climb through the moments of what I hope are calmer spaces, the work needs to slow down and be intentional. A response is not firecracker quick. A response is an emotion tempered with intelligence. We must cultivate a discipline in five ways to best inform our educational practices and they must be informed with trust, kindness, love and respect for the community in which we all belong.

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Jennifer Anderson Norman


Jennifer Anderson Norman is an English instructor at H.H. Ellis Technical High School in Danielson, Connecticut, USA. She holds degrees from Smith College and Sacred Heart University. When not teaching, she may be found
working on her doctorate at the University of South Carolina, dancing with her ten-year-old daughter in the kitchen, kicking the soccer ball with her twelve-year-old son or chasing the cows on her family’s three-hundred acre dairy farm.

Jennifer can be reached at jnbrowncow78@gmail.com