Classroom Management | Nov 11, 2013
Should teachers use collective punishment?
By Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
Should teachers use collective punishment?
By Angela Watson
Alright, that’s it. You guys can’t handle this activity, we’re shutting it down right now. Everybody, clean up. It’s over.”
Chances are, you’ve spoken words like that to your students at some point. You’ve given way too many warnings for the kids to get on task, quiet down, and/or get to work, and the classroom is still too chaotic. There are lots of students who aren’t following the rules, and rather than try to single out which 10 or 15 it is, you issue a consequence to the whole class. Everyone loses the privilege, and everyone suffers the consequences of the bad decisions made by part of the group.
Whole class or collective punishment is despised by students, who inevitably whine, “It’s not faaaaair!” Why should the students who were doing the right thing be punished because other students were not?
I used a lot of whole class consequences as a new teacher because they were the easiest way for me to handle misbehavior. When I was crunched for time and totally overwhelmed, it was so much simpler to just issue a mass consequence for everyone than to try to sort out who was actually in the wrong and address the root of the problem.
Over the years, I started noticing just how devastating group punishments can be to the type of child who wants to please and is determined to follow the rules. I can think of at least one child in every class who cried when recess or a field trip or even just center time was taken away because his or her classmates were disruptive. At the time, I was so focused on stopping the misbehaviors that I just didn’t have the energy to give much thought to the kids who were doing the right thing. I felt bad for them, sure, but on a practical level, what exactly was I supposed to do when I had 10 minutes to ensure every student had mastered a skill and half the class seemed determined to thwart any type of learning?
It was the parent of a sweet little eight-year-old named Morgan who finally made me re-examine my practices. I adored both Morgan and her mother, and we had established a great rapport during the first few weeks of the school year. One morning in September, the mom called me and said Morgan couldn’t sleep the night before. I had taken away a privilege from the entire class (I wish I could remember now what it was) and Morgan was convinced I was mad at her. She was terrified to face me that day in school and couldn’t figure out what she had done wrong. Her mom told me, “I kept insisting to her that she must have broken a rule somehow, that she wouldn’t have lost the privilege if she’d done nothing wrong. I asked her over and over was she SURE she had done what you’d asked, and she was sobbing, saying she knew she had. She laid awake all night long trying to figure out what she’d done wrong.”
I was sitting at my desk during that phone call, totally stressed out and surrounded by stacks of papers that needed to be graded, lessons that needed to be written, and projects that needed to be organized. But everything fell away at that moment and my heart broke a little bit for Morgan. Clearly I hadn’t done a great job communicating to her and the rest of the class why the privilege was taken away. I hadn’t talked about how the whole class needs to work as a team, and when part of the group falters, sometimes they all have to suffer the consequences. Instead, I’d left Morgan–and undoubtedly a few others–wondering how they contributed to the problem and why they deserved to miss out on something fun.
I can’t say I completely stopped using whole class consequences after that day. But you better believe I thought twice before doing it again. I worked a lot harder at building a sense of classroom community and teaching students about the effects their choices had on their classmates. I also made sure I clearly spelled out consequences in advance (“If I have to stop the activity 3 times because it’s too noisy in here, we will all need to clean up early”) instead of blindsiding students by applying a consequence out of anger.
I never came up with an approach to collective punishment that I felt completely comfortable with. And so I thought I’d bring up the topic here. Do you use group punishments with your class? How do you apply consequences or take away privileges in a way that’s manageable for you but fair to all your students?
EDITED FEBRUARY 2020: This article is 7 years old and discussions are no longer being monitored. The comment section is closed.
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
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I am a first year teacher and I am struggling with this right now. On TODAY, I was absent from my morning classes to observe a teacher at a different school. School had not been in session for 30 minutes before my phone started buzzing with phone calls and text messages from various school faculty. I was unable to answer of course, but one text message that read “your students showed out this morning” let me know that the majority of the class had misbehaved while I was out. I have NO CLUE what I am going to do in the morning to “punish” students for this behavior. I wasn’t there, and I know that I am going to get a lot of “it wasn’t me” and “I was just trying to…” excuses. I do have a note from the sub about the most problematic students, but he even confessed that he was not sure of students names. All I know is that I am extremely disappointed. I want for them to understand WHY I’m disappointed, but also, discuss why it’s not the standard to misbehave in a way that the AP has to be called into the classroom while I am away. I’d hate to punish all of my students, but I honestly do not see another way =(
Hey, I think this is NOT your problem at the moment. Admin should’ve intervened if it was that out of control. The sub should have basic class management skills (which we know that might not be the case). But I would talk with your administrator and let them know what happened. BTW, I would never dare call a colleague in the middle of a training etc to let them know their class was a mess. That’s very unprofessional. Wait…did these colleagues cover your class? If they did, even worse! They had NO class control then.
I agree you should not have been contacted about your students when you were out of the building completing other work. I’m working on a post about dealing with students who have misbehaved for subs, but I do have this one up on the site already: https://truthforteachers.com/2013/01/when-your-students-misbehave-for-other-teachers.html. I would address the misbehavior with your class, but don’t get too worked up about it. You have no way of knowing what the sub was or wasn’t doing (or for that matter, what the students were actually doing or not doing), so I’d be hesitant to punish the whole class based on something you did not witness yourself.
It was the AP that called. I had asked a vet teacher to just check in on the students periodically. So that teacher was just informing me on the status of their behavior. I simply had everyone in the class write me a letter detailing what took place while I was away. The students who caused a problem were consistent across the broad. So now I think I’m able to deal with these students one-on-one.
That’s great! Thank you for updating. I’m glad it worked out.
Funny you posted this and I am reading tonight as TODAY I had to do a collective punishment with one of my 7th grade groups. Constant interrupting, joking around, making comments on everything I was explaining at that point and it kept growing and growing. I got so furious with some of them but it sounded like a whole bunch of them. Maybe this might sound like I had no class management today but for some reason this particular group was just off. After applying collective punishment and coming back to my desk to cool down, I had to rethink the idea especially after I saw some of the girls’ faces. Then I stood up, called on every student I knew was NOT involved and told them to the front desks with their belongings, everyone else had to go to the back. I finished the activity I had planned with them, and the back groups now had to make up that activity at home while they completed an independent assignment. Funny, how it ended up being 10 boys out of my 22 students who were the ones causing the trouble. Some of them gave me the evil eye once they knew they now had double homework, but others really look repentant.
What I learned from this situation is that I was really able to identify the perpetrators, the peers were able to recognize the impact these had in class, and those who really cared, were able to move on and learn.
This also works sort of with first graders. I used to have them all put their heads on the desk. The call up the good kids to the front to work with me. They loved the extra attention. After awhile more kids were good. The secret with first graders is to teach loudly so everyone hears and hopefully learns the lesson.
I’ve done this, as well. I’m not entirely comfortable with it for several reasons (one of which is that some kids are embarrassed to be singled out for good behavior) but it does work better than just taking away a privilege or activity from the whole class. For me, it was effective when used sparingly. Come to think of it, that’s true of just about any punishment. 🙂 Thank you both for sharing your experiences with your classes.
Hi! I use whole class punishments in my class but as you stated, it is easy. I am a first year teacher teaching 2nd grade and there have been times that I have used this type of punishment. I dislike it very much but what else can I do? I KNOW it is not all of my kiddos causing the problem, but I am only one person and I can’t keep track of all 24 of my kids’ behaviors at the same time.
HELP!!!
Hi Andre! I know it can be tough. We’ve all been there. What you want to do is create more individual accountability. Give small punishments (lost recess, detention, discipline essays, whatever is appropriate at your school/age level) to the students who deserve it – even if it’s half the class. Here’s a method that my mentor teacher shared with me my first year that made all the difference: http://teach4theheart.com/2013/08/26/how-to-control-a-disruptive-class-the-quick-easy-method-that-saved-my-sanity/
Thank you for sharing that, Linda!
Andre, I would focus on pro-active behavior management: setting kids up for success so you don’t have to keep track of behaviors so much. Go over routines and procedures and practice, practice, practice. There are tons of resources on my site to help you with that (go up to the to where it says “Free Resources”). With most kids, if they know what is expected and are capable of doing it, they will! Build rapport and a sense of classroom community so kids want to work together and get things accomplished. It takes awhile but you can do it!
Rewarding good behavior is always more effective that punishing bad. Ask Pavlov. Negative discipline has little effect on those behaving badly and comes across as completely unjust to those trying to please. It takes a little more time and creativity on a teacher’s part, but is worth it.
Mike
I try not to use collective punishment because you’re all right, it’s not fair to the one kid (who was usually me) who wants to please the teacher and doesn’t deserve the punishment. Like many others, I try to reward the good behavior and show the others, wow, if I act a certain way I’ll be recognized for doing something good instead of something bad. I teach high school, and usually by that point the kids will call out the “bad kid” lol, so that helps sometimes. I did have to use collective punishment once this year because I have lunch duty and my kids get to leave early so I can make it to the cafeteria before the bell rings. I used to let my kids leave at 11:32 on the dot and I’d wait around for the stragglers, sometimes several minutes. One day I received a complaint from a teacher they were being loud and someone pounded on his door. Well now we all line up in the hallway and walk single file to the cafeteria together, slightly juvenile, but it works and we haven’t received any complaints since the change.
Kat, that doesn’t sound like a punishment to me–sounds like you are setting your students up for success and practicing good classroom management. When they all line up and walk there together, you prevent behavior problems. You figured out what your kids needed and provided it. I wouldn’t feel bad about that at all!
Thank you, Angela, that makes me feel better about my choice!
My child is a “rule-follower”. I remember the first time her teacher used this method of punishment. It was the first thing she told me that afternoon after school. It left her completely confused and sad. She definitely wants to please and thrives with positive reinforcement. She was disturbed by this and truthfully it made her skeptical of her teacher for the rest of the year. I understand teachers, no doubt, are under stress and time constraints, but the quiet, smart, rule- following students should be acknowledged and considered when really only a few students should be punished.
Thanks for sharing a parent’s point of view, Karol. Your daughter sounds like sweet little Morgan from my class. It’s so easy to overlook those kids and give all our attention to the kids who are acting out. I’m glad you spoke up on their behalf.
This is pretty much exactly why I try to vary my rewards and consequences. Sometimes all it takes is calling out, “I love how Student A, B, and C are sitting in kindergarten learning position!” for a few stragglers to straighten up. Other times I’ll have a student leave the group (and sit about four feet away so they can still hear and see everything that happens) so my well-behaved students can enjoy the lesson. Every once in a great while, if MOST of my class is acting out, there will be a group punishment, but I try to make a point of at least verbally thanking those who made better choices. I know my students pretty well and I know who is devastated by even a hairy eyeball, so I respond accordingly, on an as-needed basis. Differentiation at it’s finest! 😉