Labeling Theory and schools

When I read the labeling theory in the Rist‘s “On understanding the processes of schooling: the contributions of labelling theory.”, I started thinking from my childhood to very present. The thoughts about some of my primary school class mates really match with this theory. I have a class mate in 3^rd standard and one day he took some of his class mate’s pen without asking him and kept it with him. The child who lost the pen complained to his teacher and she decided to check all children’s bags. The child who took the pen was found and was punished by the teacher in front of every other child. He again did such things later in class and was punished by teachers also. The children started calling him ‘thief’ and even teachers showed a kind of different attitude towards him. This led his transformation from a primary deviant to a secondary deviant and he was always trying to keep his identity as a kind of negative person in the class from that age. The punishments to the children when they shoe deviance are most of the times cerate negative results. The teachers’ labeling most of the times affect the children in many ways. The punishments to the children when they shoe deviance are most of the times cerate negative results. It is similar to the way our prisons, mental hospitals make the people reinforced to their deviance which we are seeing all around us. When we went to a Government school in Bangalore, the teacher asked the students to come and sit down on floor when they couldn’t answer the questions. She told us , after the class, that in this way she was giving more attention to those children. But she also said that most of these children are getting labeled as ‘not good in studies’ students and it leads them to be like that only. So it is very important that teachers should understand their students and not to label them since there is always the possibility for betterment or any other change. Teachers should observe their students to help them grow rather than put them in a very fixed frame. In some classes the teachers directly pointed some students are weak and strong in studies in front of everyone. So I believe that it may really make in impact on their future performance. It is very well shown in the Hollywood film “Dangerous Minds”. Initially the students from the Afro- American communities were labeled as they are notorious and good for nothing. The students were also trying to keep that image others have about them. There is tremendous changes happened after one teacher tried to break that ‘labeling and the students started showing their real potential. The movie really well communicated this ‘labeling factor’ in schools. If all the teachers in our country realize the consequences of labeling their students in front of everyone and modify their behavior to students it will make a great change in the performance level of our school children.