Spare the Rod

Punishment and the Moral Community of Schools

Campbell F. Scribner, Bryan R. Warnick

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780226785844
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

Spare the Rod traces the history of discipline in schools and its ever increasing integration with prison and policing, ultimately arguing for an approach to discipline that aligns with the moral community that schools could and should be. In Spare the Rod, historian Campbell F. Scribner and philosopher Bryan R. Warnick investigate the history and philosophy of America's punishment and discipline practices in schools. To delve into this controversial subject, they first ask questions of meaning. How have concepts of discipline and punishment in schools changed over time? What purposes are they supposed to serve? And what can they tell us about our assumptions about education? They then explore the justifications. Are public school educators ever justified in punishing or disciplining students? Are discipline and punishment necessary for students' moral education, or do they fundamentally have no place in education at all? If some form of punishment is justified in schools, what ethical guidelines should be followed?

The authors argue that as schools have grown increasingly bureaucratic over the last century, formalizing disciplinary systems and shifting from physical punishments to forms of spatial or structural punishment such as in-school suspension, school discipline has not only come to resemble the operation of prisons or policing, but has grown increasingly integrated with those institutions. These changes and structures are responsible for the school-to-prison pipeline. They show that these shifts disregard the unique status of schools as spaces of moral growth and community oversight, and are incompatible with the developmental environment of education. What we need, they argue, is an approach to discipline and punishment that fits with the sort of moral community that schools could and should be.

1

Punishment: Its Meaning and Justification

When considering punishment and discipline in schools, two preliminary sets of questions demand careful consideration. The first set involves questions of meaning. What counts as “punishment” in schools? How are the concepts of “punishment” and “discipline” different, if they are? What purposes are punishment and discipline supposed to be serving in schools? And what can punishment practices in schools tell us about our broader assumptions about education? The second set of questions involves the justification of punishment and discipline in schools. Are public school educators ever justified in punishing or disciplining students? Are these things essential to, say, moral education? Or, are punishment and discipline fundamentally opposed to education? If punishment (or some specific form of punishment) is justified in schools, what ethical guidelines should direct the administration of punishment?

In this chapter, we offer a preliminary sketch of the conceptual, moral, and educational terrain of discipline and punishment in schools. The conceptual and justificatory questions broached in this first chapter highlight some areas of interest that will be addressed in subsequent chapters. This chapter also introduces critical issues to consider in constructing an ethics of punishment. The goal is not to raise questions for the sake of abstract understanding but to ask questions that can serve as “reflective tools” that educators and citizens can use in thinking critically about school punishment. These inquiries will help those interested in schools to achieve a greater degree of clarity about the nature of punishment, when and how it might be appropriate, and what reasons might justify it.

The Nature and Meaning of Punishment

What types of actions constitute a “punishment” in schools? Consider the following cases:

1. 1. A student does not study and is given a low score on an exam.
2. 2. Students vandalize a soda machine, and as a “natural consequence” the machine is not replaced.
3. 3. A student is moved to a different seat, away from a group of friends where disruptive talking occurs.
4. 4. A student violates the protocol on a chemistry experiment, setting something on fire, and the student is then required to write an essay on the danger of chemical reactions.
5. 5. A student is suffering from mental illness and lashes out violently against other students and is separated into a special classroom.

Which of these cases count as “punishment,” if any? In addressing this question, perhaps it might help to think about what punishment might mean outside of school contexts. Various definitions have been proposed in the scholarly literature. In what has been called the “received view” of punishment, punishment is defined as the authorized and intentional imposition of something unwanted (a pain, hardship, or burden) on an individual (namely, the offender) because that individual has violated a socially sanctioned rule (committed an offense).1 Nearly every word of this definition is important in understanding what punishment is and what it is not. It involves a hardship, administered to an individual by the social authority, because of undesired conduct by that individual. Thus, a student berating another student on social media is not “punishing” the other student, according to this definition, because she lacks social authority. This might be an act of vengeance for a past disagreement, but it is not punishment. Likewise, implementing hardship on another when no offense has occurred is better thought of as persecution of some sort, not punishment. The imposition of something unwanted must be for the offense and not simply occasioned by the punishment.2 That is, the punishment must be because of the action that was performed.

A few things to notice about the “received view” definition of punishment we are using. First, the intentions and perceptions of the people involved matter a great deal. Identifying cases of punishment requires interpretation. The idea of a “hardship,” for example, is somewhat subjective. Opinions differ on what a hardship is and is not; thus, what is considered a punishment to one person might not be considered punishment to another. This difference in perception might be particularly pronounced across cultural differences and age discrepancies. Some actions of a teacher may be perceived as a hardship by students, but for a teacher they count more as a learning exercise (extra homework for poor performance on an exam, for example). The role of intentions also makes a difference in understanding punishment and discipline in school settings insofar as punishment constitutes an intentional imposition of suffering or hardship on another. Nathan Hanna states, “To punish an offender, one must aim to hurt or harm her in some way; the treatment to which she is subjected must be used at least in part as a way of making her suffer.”3 While the explicit intention to hurt others may be justified in some rare cases (e.g., self-defense), critics see this intention to harm as a reason to consider punishment as something intrinsically objectionable, a persistent remnant of past barbarism in human life, and believe that deliberately causing harm to others is something we should always try to avoid.4 For the critics, this intention is particularly troublesome in the cases of youth and children in schools. An explicit intent to cause children harm is even more objectionable because of children’s vulnerability and lack of full moral responsibility. Others would counter, and we would agree, that some forms of hardship are much more objectionable than others—the critics’ blanket condemnation of intentional hardship is much too blunt. Requiring someone who has vandalized a school to pay a fine or clean the school intentionally imposes a hardship or burden, but it hardly feels like a relic of barbarism. Still, the critics have a point: it is important to take the nature of children into account, which is something we will develop throughout this book. Abstract philosophical theories of punishment need to take children seriously.

Another thing to notice about the definition of punishment is that the notion of social authority can be fairly complex, particularly in schools. Theories of punishment tend to focus on the state legal apparatus as having the only legitimate authority to punish for the violation of law.5 In reality, though, what we call “punishment” occurs in many settings, including in families, religious organizations, schools, and so forth. The relationship between punishment and legitimate social authority is an important one, which we will revisit. For now, we can point out that the authority to punish is constructed in different ways in different educational environments. In some cases, schools may, for better or worse, relinquish a degree of social authority to parents, law enforcement, or even students themselves. An interesting case is Summerhill School in Suffolk, England, where student punishment is decided by a student and teacher deliberating body. In other cases, as we will see, educators have relinquished control of disciplinary matters to law enforcement and policy makers, often with troubling results.

The Expressive Function of Punishment: Moral Communication

When thinking about the meaning of punishment, we should also note what has been called the “expressive function” of punishment. One of the defining features of punishment is that it is expressive—it sends a message of disapproval of an action or actor. It is an act of blaming or, perhaps, of moral education.6 This function connects punishment quite strongly to the tasks of teaching and learning. Punishment transmits a message of judgment against the offender and condemns what the offender has done. Punishment is, in other words, an act of communication, conveying what words alone cannot. Joel Feinberg notes that there are some forms of social control that do not involve this element of moral blame and judgment. For this reason, he distinguishes a punishment from a penalty.7 A punishment expresses moral blame against an offender, while a penalty seems to lack this element. Generally speaking, no moral statement is made against someone who is missing a license plate on their automobile. A license plate is itself not a moral concern. Rather, the penalty of the traffic ticket is a form of social control meant to efficiently manage what can be a messy and contested social circumstance. In schools, similarly, we might separate students who are talking during class (a penalty), not because socializing is morally wrong but because it impedes the goals of the larger social situation.

In education, a related distinction is often made between “discipline” and “punishment.”8 Similar to a penalty, discipline typically involves correcting a behavior that is inappropriate to a classroom, without concern for judging or changing the moral character of the student. For example, for those who use this distinction, delaying recess for students who leave their chairs during class time would be an act of discipline. The act of leaving one’s chair is not a moral failure; rather, it is breaking a rule that allows classroom work to proceed efficiently. In contrast, “punishment” occurs when a moral offense has transpired that goes beyond school rules. A true punishment is intended to express moral disapproval of the action and, perhaps, anger and disgust at the actor.9 Bullying, sexual harassment, and racial targeting would be moral offenses that might deserve punishment in this sense, because the wrongness of these actions involves more than simply breaking school conventions that preserve social efficiency.

Determining whether the distinction between discipline and punishment is tenable requires further exploration. On one hand, it does seem like the distinction between an action that violates moral norms and an action that violates school conventions is an important and helpful one. The distinction may suggest different reactions and distinct forms of response depending on the level of “morality” that is involved in an action. On the other hand, school norms, school conventions, and efficient school operations are themselves not without moral weight. If violating class rules by leaving one’s chair impedes the learning of other students, then this action has in some sense harmed those students or perhaps even violated their rights in some way. The action might be disrespectful to these other students and to the teacher in a morally troubling manner. Indeed, it might be intentionally insolent, explicitly meant to denigrate a teacher or classmate. In this way, a violation of classroom rules certainly enters into a moral calculus and, thus, the distinction between discipline and punishment may break down under close scrutiny, particularly when we consider the moral status of the school community.

For these reasons, Joan Goodman helpfully divides the universe of discipline into three categories: the moral, the derivatively moral, and the conventional.10 Student behavior that violates school conventions should be handled through management tactics, like sanctions and penalties, or may simply point to the need for joint problem-solving. In contrast, student behavior that violates moral norms requires punishment, which involves this expressive function of disapproval. Goodman, however, recognizes the complexity with the category of the “derivatively moral.” This category involves behaviors that are not in themselves immoral (like being tardy) but are performed on the part of students with the intention to show contempt or insolence for others. Sometimes the violation of school rules and conventions can become an indirect vehicle for immoral action. In many cases, perhaps even in most cases, no disrespect is intended by such behavior—violations of school rules like tardiness may occur for valid nonmoral reasons, and these can be figured out as educators adopt more of a problem-solving mode rather than through moral criticism. Determining whether a behavior like tardiness is a violation of school convention or an indirect, derivatively immoral action involves delicate interpretation of the will and intent of the student, which are not always obvious.11

A problem in schools, Goodman states, is that these distinctions are ignored. Simple violations of convention are taken as moral failings, worthy of punishment, when no morally problematic intention was behind them. Or, sometimes, even plainly moral offenses, like cheating, are taken as issues of management—that is, as Goodman says, a time for “disciplinary response,” “interventions,” “options,” and “measures”12 (we argue later that, historically, the trend has been in this direction, moving away from addressing these issues as moral problems). Goodman rightly calls for greater clarity on the part of educators. A thoughtful distinction between discipline and punishment opens up productive lines of inquiry: What is the nature of the behavior—is it a violation of school convention or of moral norms? If it is a violation of convention, how can the underlying cause be addressed? If it is a violation of moral norms, how can the proper message be sent, from the perspective of moral education? If there are suspicions of disrespect and insolence behind conventional rule breaking, are they grounded in solid evidence? And how might the educator’s response—in terms of severity, tone, and explanation—be tailored depending on the answers to these questions? An ethic of punishment requires that immoral action be addressed differently than violations of school conventions.

The Role of Hardships and Burdens in Moral Dialogue

For now, we will focus on immoral student behavior and turn to the important question of why messages of disapproval in education would entail the “hard treatment” of punishment. Why not just use words to criticize the behavior of students, explaining to them why their actions were morally wrong? Perhaps the rough treatment involved in punishment is, after all, just a relic of barbarism that we should seek to eliminate in education. For proponents of punishment, the answer is that punishment communicates disapproval in a way that words alone cannot. Christopher Bennett, for example, argues that punishment expresses disapproval in a way that is “symbolically adequate” to the wrongs that have been committed.13 Suppose it was decided that society wanted to condemn sexual assault on campus and further decided to punish the offenders by writing them a strongly worded letter alerting them to the gravity of what they had done. The letter outlines the harm that has been caused and chastises the offender. For most people, sending such a letter of disapproval would not be a statement of sufficient strength, given the nature of the offense and the gravity of sexual assault. A letter would not be symbolically adequate to speak to the harm that has occurred.

Bill Wringe, for his part, takes a “denunciatory” view of expressive punishment.14 He argues that the burden or hardship imposed by punishment alerts the community that certain kinds of norms are important and serious. A strongly worded letter does not sufficiently alert the community to the seriousness of sexual assault. Something more is needed. In an educational context, R. S. Peters suggests that the burdens imposed by punishment in schools might bring adolescents “to their senses” by “focusing awareness on social realities.”15 Educators concerned about, say, bullying might want to send a stronger message about bullying or sexual harassment than words of reprimand alone can capture, to underscore the importance of the “social realities” that students may not be privy to. After all, we learn the seriousness of our social actions not simply from what people say in response to what we have done but also from what they do in response. The hard treatment of punishment is an action that, going beyond words, conveys moral gravity. Such treatment constructs a community message. It highlights and emphasizes, underscores and accentuates.

The notion of an expressive function of punishment, we believe, illuminates a possible role of punishment in educational settings. To state the matter a bit more formally, we first recognize that education is fundamentally a communicative process, a dialogue between developing children or youth and the larger community. Part of what should be communicated through education are norms governing the moral life of the community. For some wrongs, however, words of explanation alone cannot demonstrate with sufficient strength the community concern; therefore, some sort of action on the part of educators is required to convey the proper message. An action that is fully adequate to speak to the wrongdoing may sometimes involve imposing a burden or something undesirable on students. In such cases, we have a valid use of the expressive function of punishment, with punishment playing a role in the communicative project of the school, initiating students into the moral life of the community. Recognizing this expressive function reveals the proper role for punishment in educational settings.

As we think about how the expressive function of punishment can apply in specific situations, it may be helpful to consider the audience of the message that is being conveyed. The first possible audience of the expressive message is the offender. The expression is aimed at getting an offender to realize that a wrong has been committed and, thereafter, feel remorse. The ultimate goal, in many cases, is the moral reformation of the offender through the expressive message of punishment. One of the leading theorists of the expressive theory of punishment, Antony Duff, argues that punishment is part of a dialogue between the community and the offender, where the community expresses disapproval and the offender is given the opportunity to offer penance. The act of punishment—the burden or harm that is imposed on the offender—is important for Duff because (again) words alone are not enough to express the moral gravity of certain actions. Notably, though, punishment does not simply allow the community to express outrage; it also allows the offender to make a much deeper statement of remorse by embracing the punishment, using it as an act of penance. Duff notes,

Sometimes, however, a (mere) apology is not enough. If I have done a serious wrong to anot...