Once again the media have placed an individual school in the spotlight by
publishing negative aspects of its report by the Education Review Office (ERO).
In this case, the school has been criticised for handing out lines to students as a
punishment. While one could question whether publishing ERO reports is
warranted given such negative publicity for the school (and is indeed a
punishment in itself), nevertheless, it has prompted me to ponder the age-old
practice of ‘giving lines’ to students (for example, making a child write out 500
times, ‘I must not call out in class’).
Current thinking indicates that the practice of giving out lines has ‘had its
time’ in the same way that it is no longer considered appropriate for teachers to
send students out onto the sports field to do 20 press ups for talking in class.
Most people now believe that the ‘punishment should fit the crime’, but let’s
dissect this statement a little further. First of all, what is punishment?
Punishment is used to weaken behaviour by employing consequences that
allow negative conditions to be introduced or experienced as a consequence of
the behaviour. Rappoport (2005) explains that punitive school policies typically
result in a passive experience, demanding little or no participation by the
offending student. The punished student often feels resentful, alienated, trapped
and disconnected from the school community. With little motivation to improve,
the student’s relationship with his or her teacher and school deteriorates even
further. Furthermore, punishment does not help offenders buy into their
responsibility for their own learning and behaviour or for treating other people
with respect (Rappoport, 2005).
While punishment such as time out in detention to write lines may
suppress or stop the behaviour at that particular time, it also stops any chance
of teaching new behaviours (Ayres & Hedeen, 1997). The idea of teaching
students appropriate behaviour is an area that is often overlooked. As teachers
it is quite easy for us to point out to students the behaviour we don’t want (for
example, don’t swing on your chair; don’t call out; don’t talk) but we need to
ensure that we spend just as much time pointing out to students the behaviour
we do want. For some students too, rather than just pointing it out to them, we
need to make a conscious effort to actually teach the appropriate behaviour.
As we understand more about certain students and their challenging
behaviours, we become better able to prevent problems from happening and can actively teach new skills to replace the challenging behaviours. Although
prevention and teaching are the most effective change agents, there will be
times when teachers need to respond to inappropriate behaviours that they
cannot have prevented. But when we do need to respond, this can be done in a
positive and supportive manner rather than resorting to punishment (Ayres &
Hedeen, 1997).
对不起啊，好像句子不太通顺，还是没能明白文章的含义。