Научная статья на тему 'Implementation of the restitution in the contemporary teaching practice in the Republic of Macedonia'

Implementation of the restitution in the contemporary teaching practice in the Republic of Macedonia Текст научной статьи по специальности «Науки об образовании»

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Ключевые слова
DISCIPLINE / RESTITUTION / BEHAVIOUR / STUDENTS

Аннотация научной статьи по наукам об образовании, автор научной работы — Pandiloska Grncharovska Svetlana, Stankovska Gordana, Osmani Fadbi

The discipline of students is a problem for which there are as many different approaches as theoretical concepts and legal regulation of these issues. It is too often based on procedures which are used to prevent undesired behaviour. The dominance of such discipline treatment, which often puts the teacher in a position of a conductor and the student as an executor, perhaps is the simplest but not the most proper way. Viewed from this perspective the discipline should deny repressive and aggressive methods. This actually represents an attempt to overcome the historical understanding of the term pupils` discipline which carries an emphasized negative connotation. This does not mean removing of all rules, regulations and procedures, but an attempt to increase students` accountability and considering this fact, since the nineties of the twentieth century, in the world intensively appear strings of pedagogical leadership models, which treat the issue of studentsdiscipline. Stressing their extraordinary importance, we decided to study the pattern of restitution and the effects of its application in establishing school discipline.

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Текст научной работы на тему «Implementation of the restitution in the contemporary teaching practice in the Republic of Macedonia»

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RESTITUTION IN THE CONTEMPORARY TEACHING PRACTICE IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

Dr. Svetlana Pandiloska Grncharovska, Study program in Pedagogy, Faculty of Philosophy, State University in

Tetovo, Tetovo, Republic of Macedonia E-mail: spandiloska@hotmail. com Dr. Gordana Stankovska, Study program in Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, State University in Tetovo,

Tetovo, Republic of Macedonia E-mail: gorstankovska@yahoo.com Dr. Fadbi Osmani, Study program in Pedagogy, Faculty of Philosophy, State University in Tetovo, Tetovo,

Republic of Macedonia E-mail: fadbi. osmani@unite .edu.mk

Abstract: The discipline of students is a problem for which there are as many different approaches as theoretical concepts and legal regulation of these issues. It is too often based on procedures, which are used to prevent undesired behaviour. The dominance of such discipline treatment, which often puts the teacher in a position of a conductor and the student as an executor, perhaps is the simplest, but not the most proper way.

Viewed from this perspective the discipline should deny repressive and aggressive methods. This actually represents an attempt to overcome the historical understanding of the term pupils' discipline which carries an emphasized negative connotation. This does not mean removing of all rules, regulations and procedures, but an attempt to increase students' accountability and considering this fact since the nineties of the twentieth century, in the world intensively appear strings of pedagogical leadership models, which treat the issue of students' discipline. Stressing their extraordinary importance, we decided to study the pattern of restitution and the effects of its application in establishing school discipline.

Keywords: discipline, restitution, behaviour, students.

1.

INTRODUCTION

The restitution is an idea whose time is present, even though it is not part of our ethical culture, where the greater attention is on the behavioral consequences, and the students are left with no opportunity to correct their mistakes. The restitution can never be achieved by using traditional discipline methods where the professor is presented as an authority.

The pedagogical practice analysis often claim the right that in the educational process we come across many serious difficulties or obstacles while establishing positive relations between the students and the professor.

In this case, the reasons can be found in both sides. For instance, among the reasons caused by the teacher, the following are listed:

a. Insufficient communication competence: lack of capability so establish contacts with the students, not being familiar with the methods of organized mutual relations with the students, lack of skills for studying , being introduced and understanding of the students' condition and relations.

b. Personal qualities: reticence, coyness, incommunicativeness, nervousness, negative attitude towards the profession, subjectivity in communication, alienation from the students and their behavior.

c. Lack of emotional stability.

Among the reasons caused by the

students, the following are listed: lack of communicational need, not being disciplined, aggressiveness, low cultural level, lack of emotional stability, nervousness, fear, impulsiveness, low-level of intelligence, lack of knowledge, abilities, incapability to give evaluations and opinions, poor vocabulary as well as negative personality qualities, not being responsible, selfishness, unreal self-evaluation (overes-timation, underestimation), (Hibs, G. & Forvert, M., 1996).

Each of these obstacles in a way makes more difficult and suppresses the mutual relations between the subjects in the educational process. As a result of that, conflict situations occur.

It is undeniable and confirmed on a daily basis that a successful educational job depends on the quality of the established relations among the subjects in the educational process. A successful relation cannot be built on mistrust and negative emotional attitudes. According to Bush, all the teachers cannot establish relations with all the students on the same way. The quality of the established relation depends on many factors: personal affection, mutual understanding, interests, attitudes, intelligence, social background and working methods (Bratanic, M., 1987).

When the students behavior is completely regulated by discipline requests, the teachers lose their meaning and the need to take care for the overall educational process and their job is reduced to processing planned lessons of their subject. In that case, the education of a whole person becomes someone else's problem which leads to losing of the integrality in the educational process.

The discipline model used in many schools relies on the delinquency and bad behavior, with which the student has no opportunity to learn to behave better.

The conception of restitution is an approach with which the teacher is allowed to redirect the student's behavior, while the student is helped in the evaluation of his/her abilities for compensating of the bad behavior consequences.

Actually, the restitution is a key for a constructive and more human approach in the students' educational process. For the one who made a mistake it gives an opportunity the same one to make the situation completely right, the best they can, instantly or in the nearest future.

The improvement of the techniques of pedagogical education of students in a class is needed in order to make a positive

ground for a restitution. That process includes the following steps:

a. Field opening

This means reducing the number of the interventions conducted by the teachers who are prone to use traditional discipline methods, constantly giving feedback and positive strengthening of students. Too much control of the students may produce blind obedience, where there is no chance for making good solutions based on right decisions or it may lead to student's inattention, meaning that in situation when the teacher's requests are of essential importance, the student will not listen anything.

b. The second step is reaching approval and agreement. It is necessary to obtain an agreement inside the class in the framework of the following three areas: between the teachers and students for their classroom roles, for the values respected by the group and for the rules based on those values. These agreements enable meeting the needs for freedom from one side and the need for belonging from the other one.

c. The third step is setting and maintaining the boundaries. This is based on the previously mentioned agreement on the students and teachers' roles. They make a mutual agreement for their behavior boundaries.

The restitution may refer to financial compensation, time or working activities compensation. It is important to compensate the harm made to the injured party.

How can we recognize if the restitution is being applied in conducting the process of students' discipline or not?

The answer to this question can be obtained if we are familiar with the restitution's features. They are:

• The injured student thinks it is an appropriate compensation

• It requires making an effort by the one correcting the mistake

• It does not motivate further mistakes.

• It is relevant for the overall area where the violation Is made

• It is connected with the high values , attitudes and life

• It strengthens students' personality

The successful restitution is characterized also with avoiding some of the negative adults' behavior, such as: criticizing, accusing, irritation, feeling burdened, etc.

2. RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHOD

Subject of this research is the restitution model and the effects on its appliance on the classroom discipline.

According to the complexness, the subject of research is being studied through the following components: applying of restitution, interpersonal relations among the subjects in the educational process before and after the appliance of the restitution, the way the teacher reacts on the problems appearing in the class, the most common mistakes made by the students as well as the consequences acquired by the restitution appliance on the students' personality.

To be more concrete, the research objective is to acquire qualitative awareness for the usage of the restitution model in the educational process as well as its effects on the school discipline.

The research objective is specified through several objectives:

• To examine the relation between the teacher and the students within the framework of the educational process before and after the restitution implementation.

• To assess if there are differences in the social - emotional climate in the class, before and after the restitution implementation.

• To become aware for the methods used by the teacher when the problems occur in the class.

• To assess the types of mistakes made by the students most often.

• To acquire qualitative data about the influence of the restitution on the students' personality.

The Studying of the problem is carried out by an empirical research from a descriptive character. It is a kind of an action, field and qualitative research. Because of the fact that qualitative research are characterized by studying the intensity of the phenomenon the sample being observed is consisted by one class, where 60 visits are realized in a period of one year.

The following quantitative techniques are applied as additional: socio-metrical test used twice, first at the beginning of the research, aiming to get an inside in the socially emotional climate in the class and the second time at the end of the research, aiming to find out the effect of the usage of the restitution model. Also, the graphic evaluation scale is applied, for self- evaluation of the primary teacher's working, thus providing data for the level of success of the restitution application.

It is hypothesized that the restitution application as a model in the pedagogical realization of the educational process causes positive effects on the school discipline.

3. RESULTS AND A DISCUSSION

In a function of a better understanding, analysis and interpretation, we group the researching results in several categories:

The relation of the teacher towards the students

The situation that we came across at the beginning was an incarnation of the traditional discipline method. The teacher insisted on gaining the students favor by using the persuasive method, thus establishing control through long moralization and accusation. As a result of the absence

of an inside control, the students constantly needed support.

Using the restitution principles the teacher at first had to reduce the intervention number and by doing that he/she started to become free of part of the responsibilities. This kind of relationship enabled the students to start recognizing their own needs. They got bigger freedom of choice and an opportunity to learn based on their decisions.

As a result of the respect of the restitution principles the teacher started to emphasize more the students' success than their failure. Instead of manifesting power when a disobedient student had to do a given task, the teacher didn't react personally, but through his / her role. This led to avoiding many confrontations.

Also, characteristic was the avoidance of the rhetorical questions because they break the students' independence. By using these questions, the student might confirm the teacher's hypothesis, but the one won't take any responsibility.

Part of the students who hardly satisfied their need for power, gave sarcastic comments quite often. Instead of moralizing and punishment, the teacher started to reply with a humor or he pretended not to listen to them. The absence of negative emotions and threats from the teacher led to development of a mutual honesty and trust.

Following the restitution principles, the teacher offers the students support and encouragement. He was listening to them actively and was trying to see every situation from their point of view. The active listening contributed in avoiding the anger among the subjects in the educational process and it had a positive impact on the development of the patience. This kind of a relation enabled decision making without a pressure, which led in a responsibility development and changed the quality of life and classroom relations greatly.

The results gathered by the graphic scale for self-evaluation of the teacher confirm the following connotations.

Differences in the reaction of the teacher when the mistake occurs

Before we started to introduce the model of restitution, the reactions of the teacher were intensively observed when a problem occurred. The teacher usually involved directly in the situation through locating the guilty student and also by connoting a solution. Through criticizing, he was looking for a responsibility and persistence from the students and was constantly focused on the consequences, emphasizing the guilt and establishing an outside system of control over the students.

With the adoption of the restitution principles, the teacher accepted the fact that we cannot change what is already done, but only what follows. That resulted in moving the gravity from the problem towards the solution.

That is to say, when a problem occurred, the teacher tried to approach the students without any negative emotions and nonverbal phrases, without losing the privileges and without any freedom restrictions.

Aiming to establish collaboration with the students, the teacher approaches using one of the following phrases:

It is normal to make mistakes, but what will you do to fix it.

• It is good to say I am sorry, but what will you do to fix it.

• It is ok to make mistakes, you are not the only one.

• I know you didn't want to be so.

• I am not interested in your mistake, I am interested what will you do about it.

In the same time while he was trying to conciliate their cooperation, he explained that rectifying the error requires effort, time, and the impaired student should be satisfied with the result. Rectifying the error should be honest and the correction should be addressed to the same area as the error. He reminded the students of the previous successful solutions and

paid attention the solution of the error not to be too easy.

Considering the fact that the students met the concept restitution for the first time, at the beginning teacher's help was necessary. In order to achieve a full effect, it was necessary to indicate them in which direction should they seek the solution. Because the mistake was always connected with disrespecting the rules, the teacher was indirectly indicating the student that disobeyed the rules by asking the following questions: Which was the rule that you should have obeyed?, Can you do that?. In the same time, he was not insisting on verbal response, it was enough if the student gave an affirmative response, or just nods the head.

In this way it was contributed the rules slowly, but surely to become an integral part of the life in the classroom. The absence of negative emotions and threats, the shift of the focus on the success's side, which helps in avoiding moralizing, blaming, and displaying error led to the development of personal responsibility among students.

As a result of careful leadership by the teacher, the students were willing to solve the problems. The biggest difficulty was to make the solution to correspond to the error, meaning to be in the same area as the error.

istic that they were avoiding the naughty students, those who tease and mistreat them, and those who were underachieving and talking during class. The boys who were accepted by the girls were characterized as excellent and peaceful students who do not fight, who are fair and assist them in learning.

The boys on the other hand, were "duty culprits" for every problem. As a result of that some of them felt rejected by the teacher, believing that the teacher is more inclined towards the girls. They were avoiding those girls who considered selfish and the ones who do not assist them in learning, but they also expressed their affection for those girls who are honest, exemplary and provide with the necessary assistance in learning.

In addition to these findings, there is a socio-metric test that was applied at the beginning of the research, before inducting the restitution.

Table 1.

The thing that is also concerning, is the small difference between the number of positive (232) and negative opinions (171).

The same test was applied at the end of the research whereby the following results were obtained

Socio-emotional climate in the classroom Table 2.

In this research, it was extremely important for us to see how the application of restitution affects the socio-emotional relations between the students.

The socio-emotional climate that we saw in the classroom could not be characterized as positive. Part of the reasons for that lie in the fact that the class had 20 boys and 11 girls.

It was obvious the grouping of the girls who openly avoided most of the boys. While talking with them and observing their reactions, it was especially character-

Socio-metric criteria M F N IGT IGK

Mutual friendship 0.35 0.26 31 3,161 4,744

The total number of positive choices (425) significantly increased in the expense of the negative choices (98), which were significantly reduced.

Based upon the data obtained with t-test, it was tested the significance of the difference between the arithmetical means in small samples. The resulting value of t=-3,2.

According to the table N-1 degrees of freedom, the limit value of t=2,75 on the

significance level of 0,001. Because p<0,01, the null hypothesis is rejected. The difference between the arithmetic means is statistically significant at significance level of 0.01

It was obvious the improvement of the communication between the students, and the respect for other opinions, which resulted with reduced prosecution and better collaboration between the students. This led to the development of friendship, cooperation, respect. All this improved the atmosphere in the class.

The differences in students* reaction when they make a mistake

Before the application of restitution, in a situation when a mistake is made, as characteristic we can point out two types of students' reaction.

In the first case, the students were reacting in the following way: they were confused, usually bent their head and rarely had the courage to respond the teacher's accusations. There were also cases when they were starting to cry.

In the second case, they were indifferent, absent and totally ignored the teacher's reaction, as it was not addressed to them at all.

These reactions were a result of the fact that the students didn't have the opportunity to participate in solving the problems and fixing the errors. Their attempt to influence the teacher's decisions resulted with new problems that disrupted the discipline in the class.

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This attitude contributed the punishment to be seen by the students as the only solution and way out of the problems.

The induction of restitution led to the following reactions:

• The students precisely knew the problems that were occurring in the class,

• They knew the reasons why were the problems occurring,

• They knew when, in which period of the class and the day were usually oc-

curring these problems, and who causes them, but

• They did not know how to overcome those problems.

The changed attitude towards the correction of the mistakes, led the students to recognize the need for change in their own behaviour.

The practice of restitution led to changing the students' attitude towards mistakes. As a result, they were willing: to accept their mistakes, to correct the mistakes, to recognize the needs and assess the impact of their behaviour on others, which means to associate their behaviour with the consequences.

Strengthening students * personality

The application of restitution, was positively affecting the strengthening of students' personality. As a result of the cancellation of punishment, blame and coercion, the students began to turn over towards themselves, which was the basic prerequisite for behavioural change. The absence of negative emotions motivated them to assert themselves.

They were ready clearly, and without fear to express their opinions.

Also, the students were ready to admit that they were trying in different ways to escape from the problematic situation.

The thing that is very significant in this situation is the courage that the students had to oppose the teacher's opinion.

The possibility that the students had, to participate in fixing the errors and redressing the damages, strengthen their self-confidence. As a result of their direct involvement in the situation and the respect of their suggestions, they felt free to express their opinion.

Putting them in a position to correct their mistakes, allowed them to evaluate their current behaviour and decide for its change. This was especially effective for those students who approach the teacher

silently or responded with ''no'' and ''I don't know". Active cooperation with these students was achieved by asking them the following questions: What do you like in what you did?, What was easy?, What was difficult?, How did you perform it?

The application of restitution is a creative work. Neither the teacher nor the students are always clear what should be done, but they should constantly bear in mind the realization of the objectives that should be achieved with it. They are: strengthening the student who made a mistake and satisfying the impaired student.

In this way, the class becomes a place where students can supply their needs.

4. CONCLUSIONS

The results of the empirical research indicated the possibilities the restitution offers. The usage of the restitution, as a contemporary model of pedagogical leadership, means requiring from the students to establish intellectual and moral qualities, strong will and readiness for action. That means that students should establish:

• Skills to use the acquired knowledge and experience, and their expansion or enhancement while assessing their own options for compensation the damage caused by their bad behaviour.

• Problem solving interests.

• Striving to achieve mutually acceptable solutions.

• Thinking and attention development.

• Habits to appreciate, to cherish and respect the opinions of the others, which refines the feelings and strengthens their will.

For realization of this model, it is necessary to implement it:

• According to a plan and long -

term.

• Unobtrusively, in order students to receive it as an internal self-belief.

• To be a result of a personal example of the teacher and his humane qualities.

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