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I've known kids who would rather get a beating than a B. The methods of coercion we use in schools today are at least as hurtful as the "barbaric" methods of the past. I argue here that any coercive teaching is an act of aggression--from the viewpoint of the teacher as well as the student. Read More
proper "punishment" can be beneficial
I have very vivid early childhood memories and one of them was the first time I remember feeling anger and hatred. I was not yet 3 and my sister was 5 and I remember watching my mom spank my sister -- pants down over her lap -- probably not hard but nonetheless traumatizing. I watched and remember the anger that seethed within me watching my mom do that to my sister. It also really affected the trust I had in my mom after that and I did have some fear. Did it make me keep in line... yes, but it also damaged that relationship somewhat and it just taught me "don't get caught". I don't think punishment administered that way ever teaches a lesson other than resentment.
I do think that "punishment" in more of a teaching form is necessary, though, to help learn. My 2 year old threw food on the floor, I quietly removed her from the table, handed her a tiny dustpan and brush and showed her how to clean it and put it in the trash and told her when she was done she could return to the table. She didn't cry. She sat for a while and pouted, but eventually cleaned it up and came back. I think a punishment that directly relates to the behavior ( not just some random timeout, etc. ) is beneficial. It is so easy to give a timeout... it is really much harder to come up with a useful consequence but worth it.
BTW, I also hated the coercion in my school experience and have chosen Montessori for our child.
"It is so easy to give a
"It is so easy to give a timeout... it is really much harder to come up with a useful consequence but worth it."
I've always thought this type of thing is the reason why punishment, in my experience, has always been so useless and ineffective. If someone does something "wrong" you have to convince them its wrong and they shouldn't do it, generalized punishment doesn't do that, showing them the consequences of their behavior, and making them deal with it (like the food cleaning incident) is far more logical and rational, I've always wondered why it wasn't the standard way of doing things, it always seemed like a very obvious option.
Responsibility
Thanks, Juliette, I agree completely with your comment here--and with Anonymous's response to it. Two years old is not too young to begin to learn to take responsibility for at least some of your actions. -Peter
French Class
There is a scene in Pontocorvos’ classic film "The Battle of Algiers" in which a literally demoralized French soldier rages at a recalcitrant prisoner he is torturing for forcing him to do it. This character is easier to understand than than the record-keeping German schoolmaster.
The current system is a very expensive way of achieving unimpressive results. A Sudbury approach might or might not do better, but there is something to be said simply for making the K-12 years more pleasant.
grade is information, not punishment
Giving a grade is providing feedback, it can be an extremely positive way to coaching student. I am convinced that grade is only punishment if it meant as such by the local culture.
If there is a culture that promotes grade as a way to evaluate your aptitude in a certain domain, i.e. that grading is a service given by the teacher to the student, then it is useful, always positive (independently of the grade), and has none of the emotional drawbacks associated with punishment.
Maybe learning how to receive a low grade as information on your aptitude (and not as a judgment on your overall dignity) is a prerequisite to using grades.
Grade as information
Part of the reason that grades are automatically associated with punishment is that there are negative sanctions attached to them that have nothing to do with what went into getting the grades. It may be theoretically possible to achieve a culture in which grades can be used in the way you describe, but that would require the symbols given as a grade to become unambiguously attached to specific objective performance criteria. That is an uncommonly high standard to achieve and in practical terms I suspect it rarely, if ever, happens because of the learning process that is, as you mention, needed.
If the teachers are going to provide the service of giving feedback to students for informational purposes then it makes more sense for them to do it in a more informationally rich format than a small set of arbitrary letters or numbers. It seems to make a lot more sense to just give students the information they need rather than go through the extra effort of training them to associate arbitrary symbols with the information they need first.
--
Enjoy,
Don Berg
Site: http://www.teach-kids-attitude-1st.com
Free E-book: The Attitude Problem in Education
Grading
Feedback is valuable. Helping a student overcome difficulties and improve their performance is what teachers should be doing.
Giving a grade in the usual way 3/10 or even 10/10 doesn't do this. I think feedback would be improved by doing away with grading.
I'm saying that grading gets in the way of learning and so teaching too.
grades as information
That might work if the person receiving the grade was using it for information only. The problem is that people, kids in school, receiving the grades have zero say in whether or not they want to be graded let alone even BE there.
Something that I've come across more times than I can count now, is that more and more parents ONLY care about the grades. Not only is it THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in school, it gets extended out of the classroom and into every aspect of a kid's life. Parents use grades as a method of controlling what a kid can and cannot do. If a kid gets bad grades, then they are grounded or punished. The grade itself ceases to be it's own method of judging a student's performance and becomes a measure of a person's worth in all aspects of their life.
That, to me, is the most tragic part of our school culture.
Grades
I'd like to mention that the entire concept of grades is a subjective one. A teacher must assign arbitrary amounts to homework, quizzes, test questions, class participation, attendance, etc... and then score the students on their own personal arbitrary scale. This is how one teacher counts class participation as Most Important and the teacher across the hall prioritizes Homework and the one on the next floor down is hell bent on Tests. Students have to figure out what each specific teacher considers important & try to give them what they want - not actually learn - to get those "good grades." Grading is purely subjective. How else does someone fail Art?
arbitrary grading?
HawkEcho: In my state's public schools, teachers don't decide on their own what percentage of the grade comes from homework, what % from quizzes, what % from class participation, etc. The decision, which is just as arbitrary, as far as I'm concerned, is based on school policy, not based on each teacher's subjective whim. They all have to follow certain guidelines set by the school system. This lack of even the possibility of being flexible with grading policy is even worse than the subjectivity you mentioned, as it is one more step in standardizing and dehumanizing students, and leaves no room for a teacher to grade a student according to his/her own individual efforts, talents, knowledge, etc.
Of course grades are meant to
Of course grades are meant to be information, and they are information, but they also mean other things according to context in which they were given. When a person receives points for getting the right answers in a game, it is fun because the game was a voluntary pursuit, and the points symbolize how well that person is playing. But in most schools children do not want to be tested, so the grades take on a fearful quality instead of a fun one. T
I bookmarked this because is
I bookmarked this because is a nice amplified external expression of something I've already known. I've always felt like school ruins lives, for what I consider obvious reasons (legal temporary imprisonment of children on a massive scale, violation of free will, etc.) but so many people blindly accept it as the 'the way it is' as if stating something is how it is, is some sort of justification. Hopefully future generations won't have large portions of their lives stolen from them, its deeply depressing to think of how much more advanced we all would be if we spent time learning PROPERLY and about the things that are relevant to our lives. Not to mention that fact that most the knowledge schools teach is essentially useless in the real world beyond the 'real world'. A class on food and growing food, or how to make clothes, totally understandable, forcing kids to learn how to play the made up job game when their older? Not so understandable. If learning is to be mandatory, it should at least be useful knowledge on a realistic level, not something thats going to be of no use to you when you decided to go after a different kind of career, which apparently its very common for people to not get jobs relevant to the degree they worked towards. What a waste.
Hi! I see mandatory schools
Hi! I see mandatory schools the same way, as part-time prisons. I also think of them as part-time orphanages, because if children suddenly weren't forced to go to school, many parents would have a hard time taking care of them(at least at first). Whenever I tell someone I don't believe in mandatory schooling, and it shocks them, I think they partly can't imagine what we would do with the kids if they weren't in school! And that is a very real question, since extended families do not live close to each other anymore, and very often both parents are dependent on time-consuming jobs that do not let children come along. So many people also believe that children will go crazy and destroy things if left to there own devices, and that is a self-fulfilling prophesy, not necessarily the truth, and as such many adults are overwhelmed with what they imagine or experience child-raising to be. Oh, the problems these little people create!! And they didn't even ask to be here:(.
The child care problem
Aelizabetht, I agree. A lot of the support for schooling, I'm sure, comes from the fact that we depend on schools for child care. Even our comic strips tell a truth, when they show the joy of children and tears of their parents on the last day of school (and the reverse on the first day of school). We have become a culture that doesn't know what to do with kids--that doesn't want them around. This is something that we really need to figure out. At present our solution is to put them into longer an longer hours of school and other school-like settings, and deprive them ever more of freedom. -Peter
I'm convinced institutional
I'm convinced institutional education has outlived it's use.
I have a 10 year old who's performing excellently at school. I've noticed in the last couple of years that she is questioning her own joy. Media influences continually reinforce that she shouldn't enjoy school, directly and indirectly via peer groups... We often have conversations about why it's alright to be different than others, perform well and enjoy learning. It's an uphill battle! As
I have a 15 year old that has never performed well. He is a classic candidate for Ridlin if I were so inclined as to drug him for compliance. His creative brilliance is stifled by the rigidity of the daily forced feeding. School is a task that bares no relevance to his existence save the avoidance of shame and guilt. That is simply sad!
I'm a 43 year old forced into my own post graduate educational hell. The lack of relevance of the knowledge transferred pulls very hard at my Edison gene.
Every effort should be made to make learning as relevant, deliverable, retain-able and enjoyable as possible.
Learning as relevant...
Anonymous, I agree with your last sentence, except that it really doesn't require "effort" on the par of the teacher to do this. When children are free and simply allowed to be themselves in a setting where the culture is represented, they do learn in a way that is relevant, retainable, and enjoyable. They deliver this to themselves. -Peter
What I'm about to say in no
What I'm about to say in no way affects Dr. Gray's points. He used the scriptures in the same context as most "religious" people have historically. What I'm about to say is to shed further light and truth on how the poetic proverbs of the Old Testament SHOULD be understood.
The word of God can only be truly understood by the Spirit of God. I am convinced of this. The scriptures given at the beginning of the article were used to wrongfully justify corporal punishment in parochial schools, churches, and homes. But the Spirit of God tells me that the "rod" was originally a euphemism that referred to God's word, and that man distorted it to take it literally. By holding to the "rod," one is holding to God's true words and following Him. By sparing the "rod," one is withholding God's word from someone else.
Thus, in the first given scripture, "beating with the rod" should be taken to mean that you should teach God's word whenever possible. Use God's word in a practical way to teach life's lessons and morality.
The second scripture would then mean that the word of God will lead a child into paths of wisdom, if used properly.
The third scripture does not use the "rod." It does use a poetic device to compare the steps of repentance is as painful (if not more painful) than being beat with a rod. Indeed, this is why so many people will deny wrongdoing--because they do not want the pain of taking responsibility for what they did wrong. (As a side note, repentance is only necessary when one does something evil. To repent, one admits what one did is wrong, one apologizes to whomever one hurt, one does all one can to correct what one did, one asks forgiveness from both God and from the person(s) one hurt, and one tries to never repeat what one did wrong)
The fourth given scripture can then be turned into saying that he who keeps his son from the word of God, hates his son. Also, the chastening spoken of in this scripture should be done the way God would do it--not with beatings, but with love. Make it a direct result of behavior. Juliette talked about how she chastened with love and appropriate punishment. This is exactly what should be used and is a great example of using God's word appropriately.
What is God's word? Christ summed it up with two simple laws: Love God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor (includes your children!) as yourself.
Yes! I was unsure how to
Yes!
I was unsure how to address the use of the scripture, because it is true that many people take it literally. Through some very painful periods of crisis, I learned some things that allow me to be able to understand the words in a spiritual way, so I can't outright say they are wrong, either. It is almost impossible to explain to other people who are convinced that they know what it means! Did the ancients experience this misunderstanding, as well? Or were people back then just more capable of understanding the spiritual meaning? I wonder. But then, if there is any question about it, there is always the rest of the bible, and all the other wise teachings in the world, to help us out. The truth is the truth.
confusing Proverbs
Here is a nice summation of Proverbs based on original text and Hebrew culture that defines very nicely how modern culture has misinterpreted this text.
An answer to Proverbs 23
I've come to realize that
I've come to realize that school is simply preparation for the adult world of work. In both situations:
1. You are shown tasks to perform and are expected to achieve a minimal mastery of them.
2. You must do what you're told to do when you're told to do it.
3. You deal with cliches.
4. In school you get grades; at work you get paychecks.
5. When you've come to the end of both education and work, they give you accolades and throw you a party.
In fact, the main difference between work and school is that at work you get to go to the bathroom without first asking permission (but only if you're fortunate enough to not be tethered to a machine or telecommunications device).
School as parallel to Workplace
What other workplace do you know of in which you are told to work for a company that you did not apply to, cannot quit, and cannot be fired? As a workplace it would be illegal in any place that protects the rights of workers to fair and equitable conditions.
It might improve the situation if children had as much right to choose their bosses as workers have in choosing theirs. In many cases the choices of bosses are narrow, but that's better than what many children face now.
--
Enjoy,
Don Berg
Site: http://www.teach-kids-attitude-1st.com
Free E-book: The Attitude Problem in Education
so off base
Quite the opposite:
1. Other than blue-collar jobs, you are not shown tasks and asked to perform them... you are given goals and told to figure out on your own how to meet them. Traditional schooling you are told what to do and how to do it with no thought for how to solve the problem yourself.
2. Again, usually not told what to do and when to do it. Usually you have choice and freedom and have to realize the consequences of your choices and actions.
3. ?
4. Yes, I get a paycheck. Luckily I have never had a boss say, "hey, you 50 engineers all go do the exact same work and then I'll pay you based on how well you did." No... each person is different and does different projects. Oh, and if I invent and patent something outside of what I usually work on, I get rewarded, unlike school where you get chastised for straying from the assignment.
School in no way prepares you for work...
- As you said, do you raise your hand and ask your boss to go to the bathroom during a meeting?
- Are you forced to solve the same exact problem 50 times in a row even though you got it the first time? ( useless math homework )
- Do you really work completely alone competing against everyone else? No! Most of us work in teams on projects.
So, in essence, traditional school may prepare you for work... if you have blue-collar industrial job. Perhaps that was what these school methods were preparing students for originally... industrialization. We are not that world any more, though, and education has not changed to fit the dynamically changing landscape of job opportunities.
not as off as presumed
Both of you are right! I think the outcome of a person's experience in school relates to the context of school in the child's life. If home life is just like school and there isn't support from family, what is learned in school won't get you much more than blue-collar work or maybe a prison cell or a prison-like marriage. If you come from a family that is compassionate and supports you despite whether or not you do well in school, or find another source of inspiration and motivation, there are plenty of interesting jobs or other careers with more challenging expectations. Does that make sense? I don't think a school can fix a person, but a people can help each other overcome obstacles like poverty and depression and lack of motivation and desire, whether they are a family member or a school teacher.
The demands of modern k-12 make it difficult for children in dire circumstances to find the help they need, and it makes it almost as difficult for teachers to really reach the students they would like to help. Another strange thing has happened now...parents and extended family are being pressured to behave like school teachers! It's partly because we don't want to make the mistakes our parents made, and the new teaching methods seem friendlier. But parents also will pick up on this need to control and have their kids obey even if it means they have to constantly badger them or offer incentives or threaten time-outs.
I know. It is so sad.
I know. It is so sad.
I taught high school students
I taught high school students for one year. I always tried to "be real" with the kids - making it clear that this stuff wasn't important for real life, but they're stuck in school, so they might as well learn how to play the game so they're not always getting punished. I also tried to demonstrate that despite all those truths, learning just for the sake of learning was also a joy, and I encouraged them to not let school get in the way of the things that really interested them. I was quite a popular teacher with the kids, but I couldn't do it any longer for myself - I just couldn't be The Man and chafed against the rules myself - and now my own kids are unschooled, and doing great.
Influence versus control...When is Teaching an Act of Agression?
I would like to see your essay presented to Japanese teachers and Japanese parents for their consideration and comments.
The core values of the Japanese culture is based on harmony and conformity and they are "taught" to their children from day 1. When the parents teach these values to their children; are they using methods of coercive teaching? Do their teachers use methods of coercive teaching?
And what values do our parents teach to their pre-school children?
I would like to see our nation's teachers focus more on the teaching of values that will influence our children to want to learn for the simple enjoyment of learning.
The few people who crafted and promoted NCLB have ruined "the roles of play and curiosity as foundations for learning".
From what I've discovered,
From what I've discovered, harmony and conformity are what children want, too, although we are so afraid to believe this that we make it into a duty performed under threat of punishment! What a waste of effort! Read "The Continuum Concept" by Jean Liedloff for an amazing view of this fact.
When I had my own child, I decided not to parent him the way my own mother and father parented me. It was so much more difficult than I imagined it would be, mostly because of fear, and a mistrust of children that I and almost everyone else has, despite the enormous amount of empathy we have. Can I trust my 3 yo not to run away from me at a store? Or a 5 yo or a 10 yo? Without threat of punishment or promise of reward or a guilt trip? Everyone has their own comfort level with this, I observe. The most instinctive way for a child to respond the situation of being in a noisy, crowded store where they could easily get lost is to stay as close as possible to the parent or caregiver. Imagine ducklings following the mother duck! But modern adults struggle to believe that their kids will follow this instinct. Because...that is the way we were parented, because we don't imagine that we have time slow down for our kids, to rescue them when they stray(which very well might happen to a child if they aren't used to being trusted), because other people won't understand. Sigh. So, in a way, the "Japanese" values make sense, but but are useless in terms of happiness unless there is trust. I'd like to know what traditional Japanese elders would say, too...
Japanese teachers and parents
RW, thanks for your comments. I have spoken with a number of educators in Japan who tell me that people there are very concerned about the damage that their rigid schooling system is doing to children. The amount of pathology among Japanese schoolchildren even exceeds that in the United States. Many people in Japan have become interested in the Sudbury Valley model of education and several new schools along that line have been developed. Concerning Asian approaches to education generally, you might find the comments and discussions on my blog essays concerning Amy Chua's Tiger Mother book interesting. -Peter
Punishing anger
Thanks, Peter, for your clear good sense. The Arbinger Foundation may be able to shed some light on our tendency to get angry with those we hurt. I reccommend their book Leadership and Self-deception. Briefly, they posit that we often instinctively have a sense of the "right" way to treat others. If we ignore this sense (which Arbinger calls an act of self-betrayal), we immediately have to justify ourselves and in doing so we find ways to blame and devalue the person (or rat) concerned.
Juliette, I love your dustpan and brush story, and I don't feel you need to call it punishment - it is simply a reasonable request to your daughter to clear up the mess she has made, demonstrating to her the way to act as a family member. I am trying to learn to be so respectful with my own son.
RW - we don't need to teach or influence our children to "want to learn for the simple enjoyment of learning" - all we have to do is get out of their way. It's a basic human instinct to learn and enjoy doing so, unless it is twisted and spoiled by coercive teaching.
Punishing anger
Your point is well taken, the climate and techniques of educating children must change. The one size fits all mandate of NCLB must end. Until that happens coercive teaching will continue to be commonplace in our nation's public and charter schools.
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