Punishment at Elementary Schools
Yesterday I was given another reason why I could never teach at an elementary school. My mom works at the grade school I used to attend. Yesterday she was telling this story about how the 4th grade boys had gotten into shooting pens. Evidently they were building rubber-band-powered sling-shot devices that allowed them to shoot pens across the room. Teachers caught on and they were explicitly banned. As with most bans in grade school, this didn't actually stop the practice.
A couple days later one of the boys shot a pen and it hit a girl in the arm drawing blood. Although I'm sure he wasn't intending to harm her (he probably wasn't even aiming at her, but I don't know), this is fairly serious. The class had a sub that day and he said something to the effect of "Well, this isn't good. We're going to have to do something about this." It was almost time for lunch and the sub said "We'll meet after lunch to discuss the repercussions of your actions."
The kid goes down to the cafeteria and is crying his eyes out. He has no idea what is going to happen to him. Is he going to be suspended? Will he be expelled? Are they going to call the police? What will his parents do when they find out? If he gets expelled will he ever see his friends again? I know when I was in 4th grade I would have been terrified. If you haven't seen a similar situation before, you have no perspective on what's going to happen. You have no idea what actions are reasonable for the adults to take.
After lunch and recess the kid was called to the office and given a warning. The whole purpose of making him wait 45 minutes to make him sweat it out; as my mom put it "to understand the full implications of his actions." She says that it's part of the "Love and Logic" discipline system that the school subscribes to. I don't see the logic in it.
Assuming that the kid isn't a sociopath (and my mom described him as a good kid, just a bit of a follower, so I don't think he is), he probably felt pretty bad about hurting the girl for the first couple seconds afterward. However, once the teacher started talking about some mysterious punishment I'm sure all he could think of was his fate. The unknown punishment had the exact opposite effect as the supposed intent. A more productive punishment would have been to tell him his punishment as soon as possible (this probably would have still taken a trip to the principal's office, but it could have been dealt with in under 10 minutes) and then have him do something symbolic for the girl he hurt (eg write a letter of apology and wash off the surface of her desk).
My mom said that the emotional pain the kid went though was "self-inflicted." I believe this is fallacious thinking. It was self-inflicted in the sense that it was his doubts, uncertainties, and worries that caused him the pain. However, by the same logic, the anguish of watching someone torture someone you love is self-inflicted because the only reason you feel the emotional pain is the feelings you have for the victim.
I have a hard time dealing with "sub-persons". Most people don't treat 4th graders the same way they treat adults. On balance this is probably a good thing. 4th graders don't have fully formed consciences yet and are very irresponsible. As a result adults treat children in ways that they wouldn't even imagine treating adults. Can you imagine your boss locking you in a room for three hours? Can you imagine your boss hiring Shaq to spank you? What if your boss told you he forbade you to eat anything for lunch unless you are a bowl of broccoli first?
Now, I don't believe that children should be treated as adults. Children need to be taught the concepts of discipline, respect, responsibility, development of healthy habits, etc and due to incomplete socialization the only recourse frequently is the application of coarse punishment methods.
Obviously this applies to both parents and teachers, but I think teachers are more likely to overstep the bounds of reasonableness (which one of the reasons why teachers are much more legally constrained with respect to how they treat their students than how parents treat their children). Parents typically only have a few children and they (usually) have a very strong emotional bond with them. Parents also (typically) know their children very well. These factors tend to lead to tailored, well-thought-out punishments. A teacher, however, with many students whom he knows for only a short period of time is much more likely to give inappropriate punishments either because he does not fully know the child, his other responsibilities prevent him from implementing a proper punishment, or he simply doesn't care enough.
I think adults frequently understate the effects of their punishments on their children. Adults have tens of years of experience in dealing with various circumstances, while children don't really understand what's going on. How many forth graders have a good feeling on the legal limits of what a teacher can do to them?
When that sub told the student "we're going to have to do something about this", the sub knew that only a small subset of punishments were possible (and probably knew the kid would only get a slap on the wrist). For the kid (who may have never gotten majorly in trouble before) he was entering a unknown world where almost anything could happen. For an adult to understand this, I think the circumstances need to be scaled up. They need to uncertain and frightening enough to cause the adult to cry heavily in front of his peers. Here is my proposed hypothetical:
My mom is driving down the street with my sister in the passenger seat. Her phone rings in her purse and she thinks it might be an important call. She knows that rummaging through a purse while driving isn't good, but she wants to answer her phone. As she's going through her purse a girl steps into the road. My mom is only going 20 mph and she only clips the girl. My mom stops and sees how the girl is. The girl is scraped up and a little bruised, but otherwise fine. The girl's father runs out and says, "Well, this is serious, we're going to have to do something about this. You hurt my girl and that's unacceptable." He then grabs my sister, throws her into his car and drives off (with his daughter in there too). My mom kneels down on the road sobbing. Who knows what this crazy man will do to my sister? Will she ever see her again? Can the cops find him?
At first, I'm sure she was horrified that she hit a girl while she was negligently driving, but after the guy kidnapped my sister I'm sure she barely thought about it again.
The guy comes back 45 minutes later and my sister is unharmed. He tells my mom, "I hope you learned your lesson about distracted driving. Don't blame me for your anguish over the past 45 minutes, that was all self-inflicted."
A couple days later one of the boys shot a pen and it hit a girl in the arm drawing blood. Although I'm sure he wasn't intending to harm her (he probably wasn't even aiming at her, but I don't know), this is fairly serious. The class had a sub that day and he said something to the effect of "Well, this isn't good. We're going to have to do something about this." It was almost time for lunch and the sub said "We'll meet after lunch to discuss the repercussions of your actions."
The kid goes down to the cafeteria and is crying his eyes out. He has no idea what is going to happen to him. Is he going to be suspended? Will he be expelled? Are they going to call the police? What will his parents do when they find out? If he gets expelled will he ever see his friends again? I know when I was in 4th grade I would have been terrified. If you haven't seen a similar situation before, you have no perspective on what's going to happen. You have no idea what actions are reasonable for the adults to take.
After lunch and recess the kid was called to the office and given a warning. The whole purpose of making him wait 45 minutes to make him sweat it out; as my mom put it "to understand the full implications of his actions." She says that it's part of the "Love and Logic" discipline system that the school subscribes to. I don't see the logic in it.
Assuming that the kid isn't a sociopath (and my mom described him as a good kid, just a bit of a follower, so I don't think he is), he probably felt pretty bad about hurting the girl for the first couple seconds afterward. However, once the teacher started talking about some mysterious punishment I'm sure all he could think of was his fate. The unknown punishment had the exact opposite effect as the supposed intent. A more productive punishment would have been to tell him his punishment as soon as possible (this probably would have still taken a trip to the principal's office, but it could have been dealt with in under 10 minutes) and then have him do something symbolic for the girl he hurt (eg write a letter of apology and wash off the surface of her desk).
My mom said that the emotional pain the kid went though was "self-inflicted." I believe this is fallacious thinking. It was self-inflicted in the sense that it was his doubts, uncertainties, and worries that caused him the pain. However, by the same logic, the anguish of watching someone torture someone you love is self-inflicted because the only reason you feel the emotional pain is the feelings you have for the victim.
I have a hard time dealing with "sub-persons". Most people don't treat 4th graders the same way they treat adults. On balance this is probably a good thing. 4th graders don't have fully formed consciences yet and are very irresponsible. As a result adults treat children in ways that they wouldn't even imagine treating adults. Can you imagine your boss locking you in a room for three hours? Can you imagine your boss hiring Shaq to spank you? What if your boss told you he forbade you to eat anything for lunch unless you are a bowl of broccoli first?
Now, I don't believe that children should be treated as adults. Children need to be taught the concepts of discipline, respect, responsibility, development of healthy habits, etc and due to incomplete socialization the only recourse frequently is the application of coarse punishment methods.
Obviously this applies to both parents and teachers, but I think teachers are more likely to overstep the bounds of reasonableness (which one of the reasons why teachers are much more legally constrained with respect to how they treat their students than how parents treat their children). Parents typically only have a few children and they (usually) have a very strong emotional bond with them. Parents also (typically) know their children very well. These factors tend to lead to tailored, well-thought-out punishments. A teacher, however, with many students whom he knows for only a short period of time is much more likely to give inappropriate punishments either because he does not fully know the child, his other responsibilities prevent him from implementing a proper punishment, or he simply doesn't care enough.
I think adults frequently understate the effects of their punishments on their children. Adults have tens of years of experience in dealing with various circumstances, while children don't really understand what's going on. How many forth graders have a good feeling on the legal limits of what a teacher can do to them?
When that sub told the student "we're going to have to do something about this", the sub knew that only a small subset of punishments were possible (and probably knew the kid would only get a slap on the wrist). For the kid (who may have never gotten majorly in trouble before) he was entering a unknown world where almost anything could happen. For an adult to understand this, I think the circumstances need to be scaled up. They need to uncertain and frightening enough to cause the adult to cry heavily in front of his peers. Here is my proposed hypothetical:
My mom is driving down the street with my sister in the passenger seat. Her phone rings in her purse and she thinks it might be an important call. She knows that rummaging through a purse while driving isn't good, but she wants to answer her phone. As she's going through her purse a girl steps into the road. My mom is only going 20 mph and she only clips the girl. My mom stops and sees how the girl is. The girl is scraped up and a little bruised, but otherwise fine. The girl's father runs out and says, "Well, this is serious, we're going to have to do something about this. You hurt my girl and that's unacceptable." He then grabs my sister, throws her into his car and drives off (with his daughter in there too). My mom kneels down on the road sobbing. Who knows what this crazy man will do to my sister? Will she ever see her again? Can the cops find him?
At first, I'm sure she was horrified that she hit a girl while she was negligently driving, but after the guy kidnapped my sister I'm sure she barely thought about it again.
The guy comes back 45 minutes later and my sister is unharmed. He tells my mom, "I hope you learned your lesson about distracted driving. Don't blame me for your anguish over the past 45 minutes, that was all self-inflicted."