Lae School Fights III: Fighting Bad Habits Vs Fighting Bad Students

This is part III of Fight Against School Fights series. 

The article is about identifying and dealing with students’ bad behaviour in schools. Many school administrators do fear students’ reprisal when dealing with students. 


Fear lingers mainly because admins and school boards tend to fight students instead of their behaviours. Students' way of doing things against guided principles - negative students culture -  when not monitored and corrected can lead to other chronic bad behaviours. The key word is chronic as such is contagious and spreads among students. 

But, how does a one-off bad act becomes chronic? I will discuss how to correct one bad act and contain it before it established tentacles among students. 


Below are five ambiguous areas where school administrators can exploit to contain bad students’ habits effectively.

Adapted: EMTV 

I am going to use the words act, habit and character. To make readers understand them, I am putting them into context below.


Plant a thought, reap an act

Plant the act, reap a habit

Plant the habit, reap a character

The character determines a destination




1.      Discipline Vs Behaviour

Discipline is about moulding students’ behaviour. It is not the end, it is always the beginning of a process. Every student who enters a classroom whether they are from the street, village, middle class or upper class has to be seen equal by teachers and school admin.

Educators often identify students’ abilities by academic capabilities (bright and not-so-bright), leadership roles and behaviour. What is important here is the fact that regardless of the student, school has a responsibility to develop every student to live a happy and fulfilling life – many call it the integral development.

Schools are there as institutions for moulding and shaping minds and hearts of young people,  hence systemic discipline is a vital element.

2.      Home Discipline Vs School Discipline

Many have a preconceived idea that discipline starts at home. A line must be drawn between discipline at home and at school. Discipline always starts at home. This is true for those who have decent family upbringing where parents are there to drill into their children good habits.

Starting to learn about the world at home is always effective (for sure) and that is where discipline starts by default. But, this can be a ‘dead argument’ for students who do not have a place call home. What about student living with 'wantoks, or students from broken and violent homes? And what about students who have good homes, but are influenced by peers on the streets?

As long as students are in the school, school takes responsibility on all matters pertaining to shaping good habits. School as learning institution must instil good attitude in young men and women. School has the ultimate duty to ensure this happens.

Classroom is WHERE a parentless child sits with the privileged. School is where a violent dad does not exist for the day. School and classroom are neutral grounds where character-shaping can take place unobstructed.


3.      Protecting Students

Welfare of every student and teacher within school precinct take precedence. More often many school administrators concentrate on fixing fault instead of proactively building barrier to prevent it.

By this I mean school admin and BoG often overlook a few ‘rotten apples’ in school. That does not means those students are rotten. It is their way of acting contrary to school’s norm and ethos that is rotten.

In order to protect the integrity of school and majority of students who are good, those behaviours have to be clearly IDENTIFIED, MARKED and DEALT with.

4.      Targeting Behaviour Vs Targeting students

I mentioned the difference briefly above. Most school administrators and BoG often target students instead of their behaviour. This is where the problem is!

Bad habits, actions and behaviours are always common year on year in every school. This can be an effective way to discover students because you never tell from students names. Having an idea about bad habits, bad actions and bad behaviours can help to solve students’ behavioural issues forehand.

The point here is to fight the actions and behaviours that are bad, instead of fighting with students. If it means revising school disciplinary policy, by all means, do it!

5.      Discipline Within Classroom Vs Discipline Within School

This is a major challenge for Lae city schools. This is where classroom/subject teachers, class patrons, deputy principals and principals are pivotal in application of discipline.

In behaviour management, there has to be clear communication all throughout the process. Communication with student and parents is the key; starting with verbal warning, referral to deputy principal, punishment, warning letter to parents, facing BoG, etc. Expulsion/termination should ever be considered as the last resort.

Discipline is always the start, not the end. Applying discipline is about reinforcing good habits, getting students into a good school culture and ensuring prudent behaviour exits the first time, every time.

END: Following a clearly outlined disciplinary process is the best way to control and contain bad habit before it takes stronghold in students.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my next post I will undertake to concentrate on principals and deputy principals as the pillars of discipline and what they should do to foster good school culture ....