My guess is that the Biblical authors understood that children would learn on their own, without teaching, most of the skills and information they needed to know, but wouldn't learn obedience on their own--at least not obedience of the unquestioned, subservient sort that Biblical and societal injunctions demanded. So obedience had to be taught, and punishment was the means for teaching it.

The church-run schools of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, which served as the models for subsequent state-run compulsory schools, were clearly meant to be correctional institutions (see A Brief History of Education). They were built on the assumption that children are natural sinners. To save their souls and turn them into good servants, children had to be taught to suppress their willfulness and obey their superiors. The explicitly stated purpose of many of those schools was to teach the fear of God, and, as a corollary, to teach the fear of teachers, fathers, and other earthly lords and masters. As I noted in an earlier post, one German schoolmaster proudly kept a record of all the beatings he administered in 51 years of teaching: "911,527 blows with a rod, 124,010 blows with a cane, 20,989 taps with a ruler, 136,715 blows with the hand, 10,235 blows to the mouth, 7,905 boxes on the ear, and 1,118,800 blows on the head."

Perhaps that schoolmaster, like the author of Proverbs, would contend that all those beatings were altruistic. Perhaps they were administered purely for the good of the children, not to satisfy a sadistic craving. Perhaps each blow was preceded, quite genuinely, with the statement, "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you; it's entirely for your good." Hmmm...

Even today, obedience is the main lesson of schooling, and punishment is the main vehicle for teaching it.

What about the teaching that goes on in modern schools? Surely we have made progress. Or have we?

The lessons in schools are still mostly about obedience. Children must obey the school rules, which they have no voice in creating, and must obey all of the "requests" (which are really demands) made by their teachers. They must do their assignments, all in accordance with the teachers' precise directions on how and when to do them, whether or not the assignments seem reasonable or worthwhile. The children who get into trouble in school today are still the ones who don't obey. In fact, today's children must spend far greater portions of their lives obeying schoolteachers than did children of any time in the past. We rarely admit it, but teaching in schools today is at least as much about breaking children's wills, and getting them to follow the teacher's will, as it was in times past. In fact, if children are too willful in school today we drug them.

Beating is no longer the choice mode of punishment in schools (though corporal punishment is still permitted in 20 US states). Now the primary tool of school coercion is the grade. Teachers, parents, and society in general drill into children's heads the idea that high grades are essential to success in life. You need at least minimal grades to pass from one level to the next in school and eventually get out of it. You need higher grades to get into college. You need the highest grades to get into any of the "best" colleges; and many kids are made to feel that if they don't get into one of those "best" colleges they will be lifetime failures, disappointments to all who know them. I've known kids who would far rather get a beating than a B. Brutality of punishment is in the eye of the punished.

Hmm.... Are we really more humane in our methods of schooling now than we were when beatings were the norm? Perhaps we feel better about administering grades than beatings, but do the kids feel better? Our method of punishment in school today seems to create more anxiety, more depression, more anger, more cynicism, and more cheating than did the beatings of times past. You got the beating and it was over; but grades and the anxiety they create never end, at least not as long as you are in school. Hey, I'm not for going back to beatings. I'm for chucking out the whole system, as those of you who've read my previous posts know.

Any coercive teaching is an act of aggression

Now, to the question posed in the title to this essay: When is teaching an act of aggression? My answer is that any coercive teaching is an act of aggression. Any teaching that that is not wanted by the student, but is forced on the student, is an act of aggression. Any educational use of rewards or punishments to make students learn is an act of aggression.

Why do I say that use of rewards, not just use of punishments, is an act of aggression? Because rewards are rewards only if they can be withheld, and their withholding is no different from punishment. Is a "B" for "good performance" a reward or a punishment? For the student who feels she "desperately needs" an A, it's punishment. A trophy is reward for the one who gets it, but punishment for the one who doesn't. Some psychologists have long argued, quite simplistically, that reward is good and punishment is bad as motivation in teaching, but, the truth is, reward and punishment are two sides of the same coin. You can't use one without the other. The carrot is reward for the one who gets it but punishment for the one who doesn't; the stick is punishment for the one who gets it but reward for the one who doesn't.

Let me be clear in stating that I am not against all uses of punishments and rewards. Every society in one way or another punishes people who violate the serious rules of that society. I'm not against punishment for crimes. Even hunter-gathers, who are so reluctant to use violence (see my last post), have ways of punishing people who violate the core rules of their society. If a hunter-gatherer adult engages in some taboo act--such as trying to boss other people around, or having sex with a first-degree relative or with someone else's spouse, or refusing to share food, or striking a child--the whole social group may, in concert, punish that person. The first round of punishment involves ridicule. The group will talk loudly, in belittling terms, about the person, or they may make up and sing songs designed to shame the person; and the ridicule will continue until the appropriate apologies are made and the behavior is corrected. If ridicule doesn't work, the next step is shunning. People will act as if the offending person no longer exists. That is severe punishment, and it almost always brings the offender around. Either that, or it causes him to leave the band and try his luck with another. Ridicule and shunning are clearly acts of aggression (even if they are not acts of violence), but they are justifiable acts of aggression, aimed at correcting truly antisocial behavior.