Yellowknife (Oct 15/04) - School discipline has come a long way from the ruler across the hands and the strap that were once the norm.

Today, students are guided by their own conscience and when a rule is broken, they are taught restitution rather than punishment.

"Discipline has changed radically," said Anne-Mieke Cameron, principal at Sir John Franklin school.

"Everyone makes mistakes and we try to help them understand how to move on from there and make amends."

According to Cameron, schools today have more social stresses than they once did.

"Swearing is an issue; bullying, threatening, harassment, interfering with other students' learning.

"We have no tolerance for violence, fights, alcohol or drugs," she said.

Detentions keep order in halls

With over 750 students enroled at Sir John Franklin, detentions and suspensions help keep order in the halls. The security cameras don't hurt, either.

"We have less than one suspension a week, unless it is a special case. For example, if six students are caught drinking at a dance, there will be six suspensions that week," Cameron said.

But if a student is late for class, a teacher will give a detention or set a task of restitution."

However, according to assistant principal Al McDonald, even detentions are becoming a thing of the past.

"Things like restitution, wise choices and flexibility are replacing detentions," he said.

"Today's students have many more stresses on them and the chance to make poor choices is there. It is about flexibility for them. Thirty years ago the discipline was group punitive and now it's individual restorative."

Amount is reasonable

But is the new system working for the students or just allowing them more room for error?

"I think that the level of discipline is pretty reasonable," said Chelsea Heide, a student at St. Patrick high school.

"If we litter, they shut down the vending machines for a couple of weeks. For swearing, we get a warning first, then are sent to the office the second time around. The principal talks to you there and they call home."

"The rules aren't too bad and the punishment is mostly lectures and suspensions," agreed Kyle Henderson, a student at Sir John Franklin.

"Last year there was vandalism and graffiti but it's better this year because of the cameras."

Cameras are proactive

Security cameras were brought into the school to monitor sections of the hallway and stairwell that were not within plain view.

"We put the cameras in as a proactive step," said Cameron.

"Whether it's the cameras or the culture that we've developed, we have kept good behaviour in our schools."

Along with the general drinking and drug infractions that seem to be normal teenage experimentation, students have done some inexplicable things in school halls.

"A situation escalated once where a student took a framed work of art off of the wall and smashed it on a rock," said Sean Daly, who has been a teacher for more than 15 years.

"That student was eventually suspended, and later expelled, but there needs to be quite a paper trail before an expulsion."

McDonald once witnessed students with misdirected pride paint a car in their school colours and park it at another school before a hockey game.

Incidents sometimes trickle in

Cameron recalls an incident where a group of boys lit a girl's frayed jeans on fire.

"Things happen outside of school that trickle in and many incidents are seasonal," Cameron said.

"But our golden rule is, take care of yourself, take care of each other and take care of this place. If students truly do all these things, then all else follows."

The idea is really to replace punishment for misdeeds with rewards for good behaviour.

"If you catch them being bad, they will repeat that behaviour because it gets attention," Daly said.

"But if you catch them being good and reward them for it, they will repeat that behaviour.

"It's a proactive approach to discipline."