Oregon Humanities

Spare the Rod

Does punishment in the public school system really work?

Sarah Gilbert

On the second day of kindergarten for my eldest son, I received the first call about a problem. A conflict with another child had him acting out angrily, then running off school grounds momentarily when a teacher intervened. By the first week of October, he had been suspended once already, and, in an afterschool meeting, the principal informed me she would not allow my child to “assault” her staff any longer. Our choices were few: he could stay in the classroom and face expulsion and criminal charges if his behavior continued, or I could transfer him immediately to a school for troubled children.

My son possesses a bright, sweet heart, an astounding intellect, a large stable of curse words, and a bitterly hot temper. He is very like many other boys and girls whose mothers I have come to know—women who wait by the phone, heart in belly and sickness in throat, aching with fear that the school will call and the verdict will be read by a teacher, school secretary, or principal: your child is hitting/kicking/screaming/crying uncontrollably. We have tried eliminating recess/sending him to the office/taking away privileges. You need to come pick him up.

I’ve come to believe that the kind of discipline written into the public school system’s DNA, one based on isolation and retribution, doesn’t work. Research supports my belief. Of children diagnosed with emotional and behavioral disorders, or EBD, only 42 percent will graduate high school, even though in my observation these kids are the smartest of the special-education students. They are thirteen times more likely to be arrested in high school compared with other special-ed kids and four times more likely than the general population. Once they reach the criminal system, they’re lost causes indeed, more likely to be exposed to trauma that will return them to or keep them in prison.

A recent study by researchers David S. Lee and Justin McCrary analyzed data on arrests in Florida for teenagers and young adults, which, the authors say, show that imprisonment has no deterrent on criminal behavior. In fact, the only way prison prevents crime is by keeping some would-be criminals locked up. Their analy­sis suggests that criminality is irrational while our punishment system is targeted at those who think things through—in other words, the educated.

But we don’t educate children when they make mistakes; we isolate them. We take away their privileges, field trips, and friendships. “I’m dumb,” says my now-eight-year-old, who has an IQ of 127. “I can’t do anything. I don’t have any friends.” I tell him it’s not true, but I can see why he thinks it. According to his individual education plan (IEP), my son has anxiety; his brain is not wired to make complex cause-and-effect connections when he’s upset. Taking away recess and, when that doesn’t work, sending a child to a special school where the halls ring with screams and six-year-olds teach each other new and more spectacularly offensive hate ­language—are these solutions? Who really believes a system of punishment will work?

The punitive school system, one that uses criminal terms to describe little kids who can’t even tie their shoes yet, has me afraid. But my biggest fear is that my child, in a moment when his temper overcomes him, will be judged so swiftly and with a verdict so crushing that it will eclipse any light in his soul. It may already be too late.