Embarrassing Students Isn't "Discipline"

Children learn when they are taught through kindness and example, combined with
clear expectations. Imagine the stupidity of anyone thinking that humiliation
teaches children anything other than hurt, anger, and how to treat others who
have less power.

LaVonne

Poopie Diapers wrote:

No it sounds like pure military discipline. You know in the military
they do much worse. Imagine carrying a bucket with your crap around for
a day. Thats discipline...

Imagine a teacher telling a student for punishment he will need to take
a crap/pee in a bucket and carry that around school.

They do that in the military and sometimes much worse.

Imagine being forced to walk around with your pants down wearing a
diaper and sucking your thumb for a day of discipline.

Sounds like some teachers are preparing students for tyhe military.

In article ,
Chris wrote:

Such a shame: school humiliation
Education experts say embarrassing students isn't good discipline


06/01/2003

By SCOTT PARKS / The Dallas Morning News

A teacher bounces a tennis ball off a high school kid's head to wake
him up in class.

A coach uses the word "stupid" to describe a seventh-grade athlete
who wants to leave the studs in her newly pierced ears despite a safety
rule against wearing jewelry during workouts.

A teacher makes students who don't turn in homework assignments
refer to themselves in writing as "losers."

A lot of people see nothing wrong with using punitive measures,
including corporal punishment, against students who break rules or show
disrespect.

Their thinking goes like this: Some kids just don't listen to
reason. They respond only to tough and decisive punishment.

But school psychologists and counselors say there is a line between
effective discipline and humiliation - a line that parents should
understand and that schools shouldn't cross.

In each of the incidents described above, "I would consider them
humiliation," said Roger Herrington, a former teacher and counselor who
serves as executive director of human resources for Garland public
schools. "That includes anything that depreciates a student, makes them
feel unworthy or singles them out for negative attention, something that
makes a kid feel like, 'There's something wrong with me.' "

Mr. Herrington and other veteran educators say they believe most
teachers like children and are well-trained in effective discipline
techniques.

Still, teachers have bad days or fall into bad moods. And,
sometimes, they react without thinking when a student misbehaves or clowns
around.

Enter humiliation.

"Often, when a kid has misbehaved, one of the smartest things a
teacher can do is ask himself, 'How do I want this to turn out?' " said
Dr. Scott Poland, director of psychological services for the
Cypress-Fairbanks school district near Houston. "A barometer teachers can
always use is to ask themselves how they would want their child
corrected."

Separating deed, doer


The coach called the girl "stupid" for piercing her ears but still
allowed her to participate in afternoon weight training while wearing
the new studs - a violation of the rule prohibiting jewelry. But the
girl was still unhappy about being called stupid.0
"I was just really upset and mad," she said. "For a while, it kinda
made me not want to do athletics anymore."

Dr. Poland suggests the coach should have told the girl that she had
a choice to make. She could take out the studs or sit out the afternoon
workout.

Instead, the coach used an insult and let the girl escape
consequences for violating the no-jewelry rule.

"What happened is like a global attack on the girl and really
unnecessary," Dr. Poland said. "The coach could have asked the girl how
she could have avoided the situation. A basic part of all of this is that
we want to separate the deed from the doer."

Wrong focus

Dr. Stephen Brock, who trains school psychologists at California
State University at Sacramento, warns against punishing students in a way
that teaches them to hate things they should love.

Dr. Brock, who taught for 18 years before becoming a school
psychologist, remembers a coach who made his students run laps and do
push-ups for being late. It became a classic case of ineffective
discipline that makes no connection between the bad behavior and the
consequences, Dr. Brock said.

"The message to those kids was that exercise is punishment instead
of promoting exercise as a way to be healthy," he said. "The focus should
have been on how to get the kids more organized so they could get to class
on time."

The same is true, he said, of the teacher who made her
seventh-graders write "loser sentences" when they failed to do their
homework.

While the other students reviewed and graded their assignments in
class, the "losers" would have to write and rewrite their mea culpa on a
sheet of paper. "Not only is it humiliating," Dr. Brock said, "it punishes
kids by making them write. And this is supposed to encourage them to write
more?"

'Do things respectfully'


Tim Hayes, a first-year teacher at Little Elm High School in Denton
County, had already submitted his resignation by the time he bounced a
tennis ball off a sleeping student's head May 8.

The 14-year-old boy was not hurt, and some people might say the
incident was amusing and might be justified for an adolescent population
that lacks respect for authority.

But John Kelly, a high school psychologist in Commack, N.Y., said
effective discipline is not as quick and easy as beaning a teen with a
tennis ball.

"Why not nudge the kid on the shoulder and take him out in the
hall?" Mr. Kelly said. "Does he need to go to the school nurse? Has he
been up until midnight playing video games and you need to call his
parents? Does he work until midnight and come to school tired?

"You do things respectfully."

Corporal punishment


Inevitably, the conversation about what constitutes effective
discipline will turn to corporal punishment - usually, spanking with the
legendary paddle, the "board of education."

Data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education show a nation
divided over corporal punishment. Twenty-seven states have banned it.
Texas and 22 other states allow it.

Some academic studies suggest that light spanking can be beneficial
when reasoning and nonphysical punishments haven't worked. And a lot of
families believe that spanking is beneficial because it enhances respect
for authority.

Even so, the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Bar
Association, American Medical Association, National Association of School
Nurses, National Association of School Psychologists and other prominent
groups are against corporal punishment.

Diane Smallwood, an elementary school psychologist in New Jersey,
said spanking is never an appropriate discipline. "There are times when a
teacher may have to physically restrain a student for safety reasons," she
said. "But corporal punishment is, in fact, teaching kids that it's OK to
hit other people."

Keep an eye out


So, how can parents who rarely set foot inside their kids' schools
keep track of whether teachers are disciplining students or humiliating
them? How can they tell if the school environment is benevolent toward
kids or tolerant of teachers who use their power over students to no
productive end?

Be vigilant, Ms. Smallwood advises. Talk to other parents about
their experiences with the principal and teachers. And, she adds, be
sensitive to what your child says or doesn't say.

"If you have a youngster who's been coming home for five years all
excited about school and then he goes into a new grade and all of a sudden
doesn't want to share information about school, you need to make further
inquiries about what's happening."