We don't need the kind of quick-fix solutions offered by break-out centres for disruptive students, writes Jim Gleeson
The recent proposal to introduce "break-out" centres for disruptive students deserves careful consideration. Will they become centres of excellence for learning deviant behaviour? Do we really want further educational apartheid? Are educational concerns being overridden by political and industrial relations considerations? Where are the necessary physical and human resources to staff such units?
The interim report of the Minister's taskforce on student behaviour in second-level schools expressed strong reservations about such units - "there is a risk that, in the long term, the best interests of students referred to those units may not be served". But favourable media reaction to the idea of break-out groups places the taskforce in an invidious position as it prepares its final report.
School discipline transcends individual students, teachers and schools. In its interim report the taskforce called on "the total education community to contribute to the solution of the difficulties" and encouraged schools to "join up the dots that link student behaviour, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment issues". The equivalent ministerial advisory group of the 1980s argued that "the curriculum should be sufficiently flexible to cater for the needs and interests of children of varying natural endowment and from different cultural and social backgrounds".
Scottish education minister Jack McConnell established and chaired his country's discipline task group "in response to concerns expressed over discipline in Scottish schools". The ensuing report, Better Behaviour - Better Learning (2001), is markedly proactive in tone, with the first three recommendations encouraging schools to take advantage of curricular flexibility, review existing policies and guidelines relating to learning and teaching and prioritise the use of additional resources to support social inclusion and positive discipline strategies. The report, devoid of any reference to "sin-bins" or break-out centres, identifies actions to be taken by the Scottish executive and local authorities as well as individual schools.
From an Irish perspective, it's time to look up for a change, to scan the wider horizons of national curriculum and assessment policy and practice and to consider alternative approaches. This calls for strong leadership at a time when the taskforce is seriously constrained by the narrow focus of its terms of reference.
While the Leaving Certificate (established) enjoys a high level of public support, there is little confidence in its potential to achieve the desired holistic outcomes. The excellent NCCA proposals for a more adult school culture, greater curriculum flexibility, reduced syllabus content and assessment reform had the potential to significantly reduce levels of student disaffection. But these important proposals are being watered down in response to political pressures.
In any event, senior cycle may be too late for many young people and their teachers. If the inflexibility of today's junior cycle curriculum is to be redressed, teachers and schools must take ownership of the curriculum through the school-based development of more relevant and motivational programmes for validation within a common framework.
While the taskforce has engaged with school communities, its interim report skirts around the issue of classroom pedagogy. There is no mention of important contributory factors to student disaffection such as "streaming" or of the challenges of mixed-ability teaching. Yet, the research indicates that socially disadvantaged students are disproportionately represented in schools that practise streaming and in lower streams. Control systems in high-stream classrooms focus on productive work, while behaviour-related control is the norm in lower streams. To what extent have teachers been prepared for effective mixed-ability teaching? Does not current national policy of having two/three syllabus levels at junior-cycle constitute an invitation to stream?
Curriculum inflexibility is compounded by the dominance of the State examinations, which militates against the provision of motivational and challenging learning experiences. Minister for Education Mary Hanafin's proposals to spread the exam load may well reduce stress levels, but will do nothing to reduce the influence of external examinations on schooling. Curriculum flexibility and more "authentic" forms of assessment are necessary if we are to rescue education from the credentials race, where "getting ahead" often interferes with "getting an education".
The OECD's Schooling for the Future project challenges us to rethink the "robust bureaucratic school", originally designed in the 19th century for "select" groups of "analytic learners" (20 per cent of Irish post-primary students) well endowed with logical-linguistic intelligence. In an age of mass education schools must cater for the needs of all students. Creative, systemic thinking is required if we are to accept Robert Putnam's advice about the role of education in the development of social capital, eg the use of parent-teacher meetings to promote home-school partnerships and develop contracts for learning rather than raking over past failures.
Policy makers must come up with an integrated response rather than quick-fix solutions such as referral units. They must transcend single-issue debates and re-evaluate the effectiveness of schools in providing skilled workers, developing rounded, critical individuals, forming active citizens and transmitting the "story of the good life" to future generations. The Educational Disadvantage Committee has shown the way with its proposal for a systemic approach to inequality. Given the narrowness of its terms of reference, it seems unreasonable to expect the task force to adopt a similarly holistic approach to school discipline.
• Dr Jim Gleeson lectures at the department of education and professional studies, University of Limerick