Breaking all the rules: Radically reinventing moral education through compassionate discipline

Abstract

As schools struggle to address student behavioral challenges, the moral nature of discipline in schools emerges as a factor that can strengthen approaches and responses to student disciplinary issues. Given, discipline is an essentially moral act, this paper seeks to explore the ways in which schools can overcome resistance to moral and spiritual aspects of discipline. Ultimately, we contend, schools must revision a new approach to discipline that would not only result in more appropriate behavior from students but also support staff approaches to discipline in a radically different way, through compassion.