I talk about discipline alot with my NJROTC students; not because of the obvious connection that the word has to military life, but because I don't want them to fear it.  I like how Peter Boonshaft speaks to this point in his book: Teaching Music With Purpose.


"Reactive discipline is the one with the terrible reputation, and deservedly so. It is had, always had. It is putting out the fires of poor behavior after they have started to burn. It is reacting to bad behavior, placing the teacher in the position of trying to "catch up" to those hehaviors, leaving little time or energy for moving the group along the path of learning, because we spend so much of it just keeping them on that path.


Proactive discipline, however, is good. It is positive and necessary. It is how we control and focus an ensemble so our students want to move, let alone have no choice but to move, along that path.
Proactive discipline is how we determine outcomes, set the stride, control the classroom. Surely we will encounter, and must be capable of handling, both types of discipline. In fact, the skills and techniques used to manage and deal with both types of discipline are identical; it is only the context that differentiates them."