General discussions of squadron discipline, including carriage and access to mobile phones for cadets and staff alike, can continue here.
The digression into why somebody’s employer might possibly expect them to be contactable 24/7, and how that might interfere with cadet duties, should take place in the new thread. This has been placed in the staff area as it is most applicable, but it is reasonable to expect that a cadet’s employer may be placing similar demands, so it is not exclusive to CFAVs.
Life can be boring, people get bored it’s a fact, why should cadets expect to be any different and why should it be allowed to be an excuse or reason for poor behaviour or fiddling with phones.
The ATC is not a 24/7 entertainment provider.
May be cadets could be encouraged to talk to each other rather than reaching for the electronic pacifiers.
If they are getting bored, get them outside for some drill. Immediate control.
If cadets are doing nothing except waiting, I don’t see an issue with them being on their phones. I’m sure you’ll disagree but you can still socialise and use your phone.
I never once suggested that the ATC is a “24/7 entertainment provider”, infact i’d suggest it’s a 2/2 entertainment provider. If you can’t keep cadets busy and engaged then they’re going to get bored and find other ways to entertain themselves (and that includes both socialising and using phones). Drill isn’t always the solution though. For a start it is weather dependant but also things like classification training can be (and i’d suggest is 99% of the time, but thats another debate) boring, you can’t just stop that.
If you are having trouble controlling them, it brings the control immediately. It doesn’t necessarily have to be drill just bring them to attention in the room. This one of the thing we did as cadets and I remember being made to stand in the corridor lined up in silence in school when classes didn’t settle down. Same thing.
You don’t say “this being used as a punishment”. If they regard it as a punishment so be it, the solution can be pointed out.
I agree with part of that but if you treat them like a school it won’t be as enjoyable. I understand cadets need to be under control and all but one of the reasons I love cadets so much is because you can have a laugh in lesson and not get into trouble or something similar. Something my squodron’s NCO’S and SNCO’S use for discipline is drill and it works very affectively and improves our drill allot. I’m not saying for every 5 minutes but if you really can’t get cadets to concentrate it works even if it’s just 10-20 mins of drill and even if they don’t like it well they can put up with it untill they learn how to behave.
Have a laugh by all means and I do my best to lighten things in the classroom, although I have to temper things as my humour around double entendres and word play misses cadets and can be a little risque, but it has to be remembered that it stops, or else get treated like a 5 year old. We could treat them like young adults, but that might not go down very well at all.
But what seems to be mentioned is the general low level disruption which the NCOs are unable to get a handle on. Unfortunately as staff you can only do so much other than remind them, step in too much and it does them no favours and defeats the object of having NCOs.
All of these "what do we do about “discipline”’ seem to believe there is a magic bullet and there isn’t. It’s about being consistent and constant reminding, there is no magic bullet, as a CO if there was I’d deploy it, but my hands are tied to reminders about expectations and not doing things, which only has any relevance if it’s something they wanted to do.
Although like I said I throw the “what were you like” at them, which makes them think, if nothing else.