A Review of Classroom Management Systems

The article, “Conventional Systems of Classroom Discipline: The Patriarchy Speaks” by Donald S. Blumenfeld-Jones, written for the Journal of Educational Thought, discusses with what the author thinks are the three main problems with the conventional systems of discipline as outlined by Canter & Canter in “Assertive Discipline Program, Glasser in “Control Theory”, and Curwin & Mendler in “Responsibility Model”. Blumenfeld-Jones argues that the “feminine perspectives of process, caring, connection, and meditations” (3), must be used to reevaluate the patriarchal mindset with which the conventional models of discipline were created. The three main problems with these models, “hyper-individuality”, rules, consequences, and principles, and the focus on the teacher as the ultimate authority are argued as such because they invalidate the importance of the connection students must be able to make between their lives and their behaviors and because they do not “allow those who benefit from the status of the oppressed to learn their intimate connection with them and act in socially responsible ways toward and with them” (7).