teachers can disrupt an entire class" (p. C05).
The contemporary classroom usually has many more than one agitator. In addition to purposeful misbehavior, teachers must confront an entire range of challenges to an orderly environment. Sandy Kleffman (1996, June 12) notes, "Crowded classrooms often contain students who speak little or no English, have serious learning disabilities or home lives racked by poverty, abuse or instability" (p. 6).
Teaching therefore requires more skills than the ability to impart knowledge and inspire young minds. It also requires a fairly sophisticated ability to manage a classroom of diverse individuals, many of whom bring with them inherent obstacles that prevent them from being open to learning. Some of these barriers can be broken down with innovative teaching methods and a healthy dose of empathy. However, some require the use of disciplinary measures that help the student to change his or her behavior and response in a more appropriate way to the teacher, to other students, and to the academic experience.
Some educators would argue that strict discipline is central to learning. Otto Friedrich and Ezra Bowen (1988, February 1) quote legendary New Jersey principal Joe Clark as saying, "Discipline is the ultimate tenet of education. Discipline establishes the format, the environment for academic achievement to occur" (p. 52). Clark used a rigorous and firm hand to bring order to halls of his school, expelling a record number of troublemaking students and establishing an environment in which the slightest infraction was noticed and punished.
Clark's approach, while lauded by some, was also severely criticized. While order was restored, academic scores did not rise dramatically; the students Clark did not throw out were safer and better behaved, but they were not necessarily better educated as a result. More disturbing, many of the students who were forced to leave the school we...