teachers ("Infourok", "Pedsovet", "Nsportal", etc.)
contain many materials from the experience of
teachers, offering specific rules and techniques for
establishing discipline: do not shout, do not humiliate,
do not get angry, formulate rules of behavior during
lessons, involve children in conducting lessons in
elementary grades, impose additional responsibilities
on violators, ignore children who break the rules (do
not ask those who do not raise their hand); involve the
noisy and restless children as teacher assistants;
organize a "minute of silence", etc.
It is possible to attract mythological knowledge
through pedagogical reflection of mythological
constructs, social and personal mythology.
Artistic and imaginative knowledge about the
pedagogical reality of the teacher can learn from
novels about education, school stories and movies
about school.
In domestic and foreign cinema, a wide layer of
so-called "school movies" can be distinguished, in
which the action takes place at school, and the
characters are teachers, students and their parents. In
many of them, one of the central themes is the
teacher's discipline, constructive interaction with
students in a "difficult" class, gaining authority: "Till
Monday" (Russia, 1969), "Big School-Break"
(Russian, 1973), "Night School" (the USA, 2018),
"Freedom Writers" (the USA, 2007), "The Ron Clark
Story" (the USA, 2006), "The Chorus" (France,
2004), "Renaissance Man" (the USA, 1994),
"Detachment" (the USA, 2011), "Dead Poets Society"
(the USA, 1989), "The Class" (France, 2008), "The
Teacher" (Russia, 2015), "The Geographer Drank His
Globe Away" (Russia, 2013), "Dear Yelena
Sergeyevna" (Russia, 1988), "Correction Class"
(Russia, 2014) etc. No less interesting in this matter
are literary works, primarily novels about upbringing
and school stories: "The War with an Axiom" by L.
Insarova, "Flags on the Battlements" by A.S.
Makarenko, "Kondouit and Schwambrania" by L.
Kassil, "The Republic of ShKID" by G. Belykh, L.
Panteleyev, "Essays on the Bursa" by N.G.
Pomyalovsky etc.
The movie "The Chorus" shows that the methods
based on the "carrot and stick" approach, training do
not work for "difficult" teenagers - a more effective
way is to involve them in activities that the teacher
himself is keen on. One of the characters of the movie
(the director of a boarding school for difficult
teenagers) advocated the "action-reaction" method,
but did not succeed, and for the other one (music
teacher Clement Mathieu), discipline became a
natural consequence of involving students in the thing
that the teacher loved himself, which were music
lessons, singing in the choir, which allowed many of
the students to become worthy people.
In the movie "The Ron Clark Story", the main
character began his work with a difficult class by
putting up posters with rules that can make your stay
at school more pleasant: "We are a family", "School
should awaken feelings", "We respect each other",
"Go in and out of the class in turn", "Throw gum in
the bin", etc. It is true that during the first lesson these
posters were torn down by the students, and the rules
were broken. However, gradually, by explaining the
importance, the personal significance of following
these rules in order to successfully pass the exam,
graduate from school, become the best class, and
building friendly relationships with students through
showing interest in their hobbies (for example, a
teacher asked children to teach him to jump through
a rubber band), Ron Clark managed to achieve both
discipline and high learning results. At the same time,
Ron did not punish his students because he knew that
they would start protecting themselves and the
connection with them will be lost. He did not accuse
children of not understanding something or not being
capable to do yet. He did not treat worse those
teenagers who stole, sold drugs etc. He created
success situations, visited families, convinced parents
that their children needed to learn.
In the movie "Freedom Writers", Miss Grewel, a
young teacher, managed to cope with a difficult class
of African-Americans, many of whom had committed
crimes, by showing them the prospects of a different
life. Sure, she had to spend a lot of time, money and
patience on this: she bought books for them, took
them on excursions, talked to them patiently.
Such movies as "The Key That Should Not Be
Handed On", "Detachment", "Big School-Break",
"Renaissance Man", "Dead Poets Society", "The
Class" can serve as an example of establishing
discipline through the assertion of personal authority,
charisma, building informal, human relationships
between teachers and students. And, on the contrary,
such movies as "The Teacher" (Russia, 2015), "Dear
Yelena Sergeyevna" (Russia, 1988) shows those
qualities of teachers that diminish their authority in
the eyes of the students and lead to violations of
discipline ("softness", liberalism, ignorance of
interests of modern youth). One of the ways that a
teacher can gain authority among teenagers and high
school students is to experience an extreme situation
together, in which they supported each other, "did not
back down". In the movie "The Geographer Drank
His Globe Away", the main character tried to create
such a situation, but the addiction to alcohol did not
allow him to adequately withstand the test.