Teach English in Lǚliang Zhen - Huai'an Shi

The subject of punishment in the classroom is something that is hotly debated around the world. In the past, school punishment even up to the extent of corporal punishment was fairly common. But corporal punishment has been on a sharp decline with many countries outright banning it, though some, including the United States, South Korea, and Australia, still allow it to some extent.1 There is now also debate for whether teachers should punish students for bad behavior at all. Personally, I strongly believe that they should. Punishment in an important tool in a teacher’s arsenal for class management. A teacher spends a great deal of time with students and should be allowed to have leeway to discipline them as necessary in order to best maintain a conducive learning environment for the entire class, but I do believe that students should be involved in the process. For the purpose of this discussion, the definition of punishment will follow the Oxford definition of “The infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense.”2 The loss of privileges is included. Teachers are like secondary parents to students, especially younger students, and should be allowed to punish them if they misbehave. The Latin phrase in loco parentis, “in place of a parent,” is occasionally used in reference to a teacher’s role as a secondary parent-figure. School students around the world spend six or more hours in school. This means that at least one fourth of a student’s day will be spent at school, possibly with a single teacher. Some students will see their teachers more than their own parents, especially younger students who do not have multiple teachers for different subjects. Having said that, it should only be natural that someone who spends that much time with a child should have some say in the discipline of that child while they are with them. The child’s true parents/guardians do not see what goes on in the classroom; teachers do, and they must be able to respond accordingly. Parents/guardians should, of course, be knowledgeable of the potential punishments that could occur, but it should be up to the teacher to implement them when needed and on the spot. A key tool of classroom management is taken away if a teacher doesn’t have the ability to use punishment in the classroom, and the entire situation becomes unfair to the other students who are not misbehaving. Unfortunately, if even one student acts up in a class, the entire class’s education can suffer for it. And while positive reinforcement will encourage students to repeat good behavior, it does nothing to stop bad behavior while it is happening. Punishment has the ability to do so. Using and escalating punishments, up to and including the removal of the student from the classroom environment are necessary to maintain an effective classroom. Outside of extreme situations, the needs of the group must be given more weight. The implementation of punishments will also help to prepare students for a life outside of school. There are laws and other rules that adults must follow or incur punishments, some of which can have life-long repercussions; students need to be prepared to face this reality. However, speaking from something personally witnessed, there are parents/guardians who have an aversion to punishment even when it is wholly warranted which leaves their children ill-equipped to dealing with the reality of punishment as adults. Allowing teachers to punish will ensure that these students are not ambushed by the realities of the world later on. While teachers should be allowed to punish students who break the rules, I believe that students should be involved in the process of defining those rules and punishments. Ideally, this should be done with students sitting down with their teachers at the start of the year or course and discussing the rules of the class and what punishments will occur should those rules be broken. This will give them some ownership of the rules. The students’ involvement can be as little as simply agreeing to follow the rules and acknowledgement of the punishments should those rules be broken, or it could be as involved as the students creating the rules and punishments themselves with the teacher’s guidance. I do believe that the more control students have in creating the rules, the more likely they’ll be to follow them and the more likely they’ll be to accept the punishments. What should be avoided is applying a punishment that students weren’t aware was a possibility. For example, a student must know that if they fail to turn in an assignment, that they run the risk of not being allowed to go to recess. Punishment is an important aspect of discipline and a necessary tool in education. It allows teachers to more effectively engage with students as the secondary parent figures that they are, and to help ensure that that the rest of the class’s education does not have to suffer due to one student not following the rules. It also helps to prepare students for the realities of life after school. However, rules and punishments should not be a one-way street that is completely controlled by the teacher and should be instead something that students have say in determining. Teachers need to have the ability to control their classrooms and punishment is a critical component of that. 1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5560991/ 2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/punishment?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld