Get Suspended, Get Zeroes on Everything You Miss? No.

Yeah, Justin's getting suspended for the next three days.

Can you send all of his work to the office?

Okay, if you've ever gotten that intercom or phone call as a teacher, you probably felt the way I felt when I got it, that like, no, I can't give this kid all their work to do for the next three days when they're suspended.

They're probably not going to do it anyway.

And I can't just like send home what we were going to do in class.

It doesn't work that way.

But a lot of people have responded to this question by saying that they think kids should just get zeros on all the work they miss while they are suspended.

And I think that makes sense under a logic of punishment, but it doesn't make sense under the logic that we use today for school discipline, which is boundaries, right?

Years ago, schools did punish kids.

There was corporal punishment.

There was all kinds of stuff that was intended to cause suffering that was intended to change the behavior.

That's not what we're doing anymore.

And I think we haven't really updated our thinking that goes into school discipline in the years since to get a good understanding of just how boundaries work, right?

Like when kids get suspended from school, the purpose of suspending them is not to cause them to suffer.

And people often point out often they don't suffer, right?

They go home, they watch TV, they sleep in, and they're perfectly happy to be suspended because they didn't like being at school that much anyway, they're not going to do their work at home, and the consequence of suspension in no way causes suffering.

But that's okay with us as a school.

We are not trying to cause suffering, and if anyone is trying to cause suffering, like, that's probably a parent job, right?

We are not here to punish.

Punishment is a parent job, and it's the parent's job to make sure that if a kid gets suspended, that they are not having a good time.

They're not getting to sleep in and watch TV and just enjoy a little mini vacation.

We have got to stop trying to do the parent job at school because we can't, right?

We cannot ensure that what a student experiences while they're suspended is sufficiently unfun enough to make them not do it again.

What we can do is we can ensure that the school environment is safe.

We can make sure that the behaviors that we tolerate at school are tolerable behaviors, that they are compatible with learning.

And if someone is behaving in a way that is not compatible with learning, we have consequences so that those behaviors get interrupted.

If you are doing something that is not compatible with learning, you've got to go home.

You've got to have some sort of consequence.

And yes, I think there are alternatives to suspension.

I think in-school suspension is appropriate for a lot of things, but not all.

I think there are other alternatives that still can create a boundary, but don't just send kids home.

Because if that's our only tool, we're going to miss opportunities to do better.

But I do think we need suspension.

We need to be able to send kids home for a couple of days an interruption, as a release valve, when their behavior is just so out of control that learning can't continue, we've got to be able to send them home.

Should they get a zero while they're at home?

I don't think so.

I think they should be able to make up their work if it's make-up-able, or they should be excused from it just as with any other absence.

Let me know what you think.