Today's classrooms are much more complicated than in years past. Discipline,
now known as classroom management, has added factors. New dimensions to classroom
management were born with the advent of inclusion, bilingual classes, and students with
disabilities. An analysis of the past fifty years of educational research as noted by Wang,
Haertel, and Walberg (as cited in Conte, 1994) revealed that effective classroom
management increases student engagement, decreases disruptive behaviors, and makes
good use of instructional time.
The demands made on teachers have grown significantly in the past few decades,
which also makes classroom management more difficult. In the later part ofthe 2 0th
century, the reality was that:
(a) Teachers do not receive the respect from parents that they once did.
(b) More students come to school with behavioral problems than ever
before.
(c) Teachers are not sufficiently trained to deal with today's behavioral
problems.
(d) The myth ofthe "good" teacher discourages teachers from asking for
the assistance they need.
(e) Relevant curriculum content is not always enough to motivate students
to behave as once thought (Canter & Canter, 1976).
All ofthese factors have combined to diminish a teacher's real or perceived
ability to influence students' behavior. It is that loss of influence that has made it
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more difficult for many teachers to effectively maintain discipline in the
classroom (Conte, 1994).
Statem