What Is Progressive Discipline — And Why Is It Being Overlooked?

A lot of people have been wondering what is different about students this year and why student behavior and especially violence have become such big problems.

And of course the pandemic probably had a pretty big and lasting impact on students, but that wouldn't really explain why things are so much worse this year, especially when it comes to violence.

So it's worth asking what has changed.

And I think one big thing that has secretly changed is that progressive discipline has gone out the window in a lot of places.

So, what is progressive discipline?

Well, it's not something that we normally have to spend a lot of time thinking about, because it's been in place in, like, literally every school for over a century.

And it's, you know, it's kind of how things have always worked.

And for that reason, there aren't really any progressive discipline experts or research or books or anything like that.

There are no progressive discipline consequences because it's very simple and very straightforward and pretty easy to understand.

And it's been universal until now.

So saying like, who is teaching about progressive discipline or where can I go to learn more about this?

It's kind of like saying, where can I get professional development on breathing?

Well, if It doesn't really exist because this is just always been how we've operated.

And that means there's been no spokesperson for progressive discipline saying, Hey, no, don't quit doing this.

It's really, really important.

So the short version of how progressive discipline works is it specifies Modest but escalating consequences for misbehavior and repeated misbehavior.

So if we have a student who is, you know, violent in the classroom, maybe they're not going to get expelled the first time they hit somebody, but we're not going to have that happen over and over and over again.

we're going to have increased consequences, and those consequences are often an essential part of triggering support.

So there's a misconception out there that progressive discipline is just punitive, it's just bad for kids, but it really is an essential part of the documentation that can generate the resources and the support that students need to get help with big issues.

The other big criticism of progressive discipline is that it doesn't work.

And when people say it doesn't work, they mean it doesn't fix the issue that contributed to the behavior, like whatever's going on in that individual student's life.

And of course it doesn't.

There's nothing we can do in school that can completely fix any given issue that's contributing to behavior.

I mean, that's a tall order and often requires multiple teams of professionals to really get at some of those issues.

But what it does do is progressive discipline protects the school environment by putting predictability in place.

If you get in a fight, You're going to get suspended.

If you assault people repeatedly, you're probably going to be moved out of there eventually.

And we've taken a lot of that away in the name of equity or in the name of keeping kids in class so they can learn more.

But if we've done that in such a way that it makes the school environment unviable, that it makes it unsafe, that teachers are quitting, that students are having anxiety about even coming to class, even kindergartners.

then we've got to take a fresh look at progressive discipline and put that back in place because it's not cruel, it's not excessive, it's very modest and proportionate and reasonable, and it's how we keep people safe.

Let me know what you think.