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Being good by enforcing good
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PRIMARY students the whole nation wide are accustomed to being told what to do by teachers and class monitors. But this tradition is being challenged at Luoling Primary School in Luohu District, where every kid takes turns maintaining discipline, no matter how he or she performs in school.
Every week, a different class is responsible for the daily discipline of the whole school. According to Principal Du Xiaoyi, students of the class on duty will chair the national flag raising ceremony and patrol the schoolyard, keeping an eye out for misbehaving students and even teachers.
The speech preceding the flag raising ceremony, previously the prerogative of the principal herself, will now also be delivered by a student representative. Everyone of the class on duty can prepare for that speech, and by fair competition the best speaker will represent the class to speak before the 1,600 students of the school.
Wearing red banners marked with “school discipliner”, Gan Cuiyan from the sixth grade seemed to take her job quite seriously. She patrolled the corridors of the teaching building with several classmates, stopped a quarrel, and took down the name of a boy who littered after urging him to put his rubbish into a garbage can. To facilitate the task, her class was divided into four groups, taking turns patrolling during morning exercises, between class sessions and before and after school.
The practice has apparently given students a deeper understanding of good behaviour. “I wouldn’t listen when they told me 'do this' and 'don't do that' in the past,” one boy said. “But during the patrol as I tried to keep others from misbehaving, I suddenly realized how wrong I was.” Another boy who used to fight and quarrel with others behaves much better now after serving as a “school discipliner” for a week.
“Giving each of them a chance is an effort to show respect for and confidence in them,” said the principal. “They want to behave better and learn more once they feel trusted and encouraged.”
(Dawn Li)
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