Exclusion Is the Right Solution to Many Behaviors
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses why excluding students from the learning environment is sometimes the most appropriate and effective response to serious behavior.
Key Takeaways
- Exclusion protects the community - Removing disruptive or dangerous students preserves the learning environment for everyone else
- It's not about punishment - Exclusion is a safety measure, not retribution
- Many behaviors warrant it - Violence, persistent disruption, and threats all justify temporary removal from the school setting
Transcript
So how do we stop these pendulum swings when it comes to school discipline?
We had zero tolerance in the 90s.
We have whatever is happening today.
with discipline especially around tolerating violence in the classroom and as this comment says are you concerned your comment section has become a cheering section for teachers wanting exclusionary consequences pendulum swung a bit too far well i think we do need to swing the pendulum back because it is way too far on the side of tolerating everything and not having any consequences so yes i do think the pendulum needs to swing and i think the way to keep it from just swinging between extremes as it has been doing is to have criteria.
And that has actually worked pretty well.
That has served us pretty well as a profession to have criteria for what should lead to exclusion from the classroom.
We've always had criteria for suspension, for things like fighting, and those are pretty logical and common sense and I think widely supported if we're willing to use them.
And I wanted to talk for a second about why there's been such opposition to exclusionary discipline.
And I was rereading this book that I've had on my podcast before.
I might have mentioned it before.
Hacking School Discipline, Nine Ways to Create a Culture of Empathy and Responsibility with Restorative Justice.
So I wanted to share a bit from that book.
So chapter two of Hacking School Discipline, is about dealing with issues in the classroom, circling up and not sending students to the office for behavior.
It says, when a student is removed from the classroom because of a negative behavior, he or she is no longer accountable for the impact the behavior had on the relationship with the class.
Instead, the student begins to learn that the negative behavior is a way to get out of the classroom.
And I feel like we're so worried about reverse psychology.
We're so worried about giving students what they want that we're accepting things that are not acceptable.
Like if a student is determined to get out of the classroom, the answer to that is simple.
We need to let them, if they're willing to engage in any behavior, no matter how extreme to get out of the classroom, then our answer always needs to be the same.
Yes, you will get sent out of the classroom for throwing furniture, for injuring people.
Absolutely.
And does that mean that student, probably need some sort of plan for stopping that behavior and not avoiding their work?
Yes.
Does it mean we just keep the kid in the classroom as the solution?
No, that's a completely stupid solution.
And this idea that we can just handle everything in the classroom because the student needs to be in the classroom, no matter how disruptive they are, I think really does not work.
And what this chapter describes is circling up and doing like a restorative circle where they can understand the impact of their behavior on the class like this is just a huge waste of time if the issue is individual work avoidance or disruption what i think this book is great for is conflict mediation if you have students who have beef with one another and that seems to be kind of the main thing that the authors are familiar with these are great strategies but exclusion is the right solution to disruptive or unsafe behavior let me know what you think