Are Consequences Punitive?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses the debate over whether school consequences are inherently punitive and why framing all discipline as punishment undermines school safety.
Key Takeaways
- Consequences aren't automatically punitive - There's a meaningful difference between punishment for its own sake and consequences designed to protect the learning environment
- The 'punitive' label shuts down necessary action - Calling every consequence punitive is a rhetorical move that prevents schools from maintaining safety
- Students need clear boundaries - Effective consequences teach students that their choices have real outcomes
Transcript
Are consequences punitive?
I'm hearing this word punitive a lot more lately in reference to consequences for bad behavior at school, especially unsafe behavior or very disruptive behavior or violence.
I'm hearing that more and more schools are wanting to move away from punitive discipline.
And my concern is that the phrase punitive discipline is being used so broadly that it rules out everything, like literally everything.
Like if the kid does not immediately get sent back to class, no matter what they did, it's treated as punitive.
And I think we've really got to think about what punitive means and what discipline means.
Like we need to have consequences.
And I've said in some other videos that consequences cannot always be logical or natural because often the natural or logical consequence of violence is retribution.
We don't want to allow that in school.
So in order to have a boundary that keeps other people safe, often the consequence that we put in place in schools is removal.
Like if you are unsafe in the classroom, you don't get to be in the classroom for a while.
And, you know, you get suspended or something.
And I've heard this idea lately, especially with regards to students who have difficult lives, that any kind of consequence is automatically punitive and kind of re-traumatizing to them or like exacerbates the just the difficulty of their life.
And I do think we have to be careful about not having excessive consequences.
And I think we have had excessive consequences like corporal punishment in the past that are just not okay.
But once we've eliminated that kind of thing, I don't think we can go all the way to eliminating all consequences.
Because what we're then doing is that we're then teaching a really destructive lesson that there are no consequences for sin.
students' actions.
And if we were to teach false history facts or false math facts, we'd get called out on that, right?
Like people would say, no, it is not okay for you as a school to teach falsehoods to your students.
And if we do that with behavior and teach that there are no consequences for behavior, we're teaching a falsehood.
Like we're teaching our students that you can hit somebody and then go right on with your day with no consequences.
Well, you try that at the park, you try that at the store, and you will find that it is a very different world out there than the environment that we're trying to create in classrooms so let me know what you think about this with with consequences i mean i i agree they need to not be disproportionate they not they need to not cause suffering but i don't see any way that exclusion from the classroom is an example of suffering or of punishment but instead just a way of saying like you did something that was not okay and the way we're going to reinforce that it's not okay is to you know to give you some time away from the classroom or away from the school environment entirely so let me know what you think Thank you.