“Spare the rod: spoil the child.” When I was at St. Nicholas R.C. School, the
nuns smacked our knuckles with twelve-inch metal-edged wooden rulers, banged
boys’ heads against blackboards, and in the case of one inventive Sister of
Charity, had us place our hands on our own shoulders—right to right, left to
left—and sit there in agony. Agnes Neilley
and I wore heavy sweaters, as the classrooms were cold, so we were especially
tortured by the bunching of the wool in our bent elbows.
U.S. states did not start banning corporal punishment in public
schools until 1987, and, as of this writing, there are still states that
consider it legal: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas. Check out this website for an elaboration of this
The most primitive pedagogical practices are based on a
reward and punishment fear-based mentality, where the teacher is the
all-powerful judge, jury, and executioner. Grading systems—tests and marks—have
become the dunce caps, hickory switches, and pillories erected in the public square
that keep students under control and dependent.
These more insidious, psychological power struggles destroy our students’
capacities for healthy curiosity, exploration, adventure, originality, and
gratitude.
One question prevails in most students’ minds, in most classes,
“Will this be on the test?” and its corollaries: “What do you want?” (on the paper);
“Am I going in the right direction?” “How do I get extra credit?” Note that these questions, ubiquitous as they
are, are not about ideas,
experiences, or possibilities—the underlying text of them is “How can I avoid
punishment?” “How much can I get away with?” “Is there a pass to Get Out of
Jail?”
If there is as sacrificial lamb here, it is Trust, itself,
and in all directions:
TEACHERS
DISTRUST STUDENTS, as is evidenced by odious school faculty room carping
about students, their preparation, their disrespect, their clothing, their
everything. It serves to inflate the
carper’s self-righteousness and entitlement to micromanage students with daily
quizzes to inspire, as it were, students to read; strict templates for papers
(including the notorious “Five Paragraph Monster”); a culture of teacher’s are right/students
are wrong; scantron-able multiple-choice exams; bloodying papers with corrections; and assigning
journals, which, by their nature are supposed to be private—but that will be
read for a grade.
Bitter that their pupils don’t think as they do, teachers ask
guess-what-I’m-thinking questions that often lead to public humiliation for
those who don’t use the words required of them. Assessment tests, discussed in another post,
breed rigid linear criteria to which even the teachers couldn’t aspire; that
don’t reflect the experience of practicing scholars, writers, and researchers;
that make learning a chore and burden to be gotten-over-with, so...
STUDENTS DISTRUST TEACHERS.
When everything is being graded to death, there is no room for learning
for the sake of learning; the freedom to explore; the right to think or do or
be other than what is required. In desperation, students plagiarize, further contributing to mutual distrust. Students
don’t have the liberty to create something new and to make the necessary “mistakes”
and wobbles that originality requires.
Our greatest contributors to human knowledge and happiness have been
daydreamers who didn’t fit into institutional molds. That’s not possible for a student, if she or
he must keep a wary eye on The Teacher qua Police, and who's being favored when...
STUDENTS DISTRUST OTHER STUDENTS. Mistrust is bred by secrecy.
For the most part, other student papers and exams are, by fiat, a
mystery to students. Especially during a
time when social connections are developing—during the first 21 years of one’s
life—to isolate students from each other is a disservice to all. Those straight rows pointed at the teacher
and away from each other are still a staple of educational settings. Students don’t learn each other’s names, and
they are tempted to slip their phones into their laps and connect socially through
their own, very separate, means. Without
knowing how or what their peers are writing, students miss important
opportunities to learn from each other—we learn best by teaching. Teacher
pleasers are stigmatized and must suffer the loss of their social ties to other
students. Worst of all...
STUDENTS DISTRUST THEMSELVES. Focused outward, toward
possible punishments and abstract rewards (grades and diplomas), students don’t
learn to know themselves—their tastes, capacities, talents, interests, visions. When I ask my Senior capstone course students
what they love to read, they often look at me stunned—as teachers who set
agendas never ask that question. When my Shakespeare students inevitably ask me
what I want, I say “I want to go home and write a poem…what do YOU want?” Having to write to prompts and questions that
test whether the student is “keeping in line,” they don’t have access to what
would be vital and exciting for them. In
an environment without trust, students learn how to be inauthentic, as do their teachers because...
TEACHERS DISTRUST OTHER TEACHERS because classes are isolated from
each other. “What is she doing with
them?” And, in a normative, assessment-geared
culture, “How am I doing in comparison?
Will she get promoted before me? What is she thinking of me?” this inevitably leads to…
TEACHERS, PARENTS, ADMINISTRATORS, LEGISLATORS, AND MORE DISTRUSTING EACH OTHER, and
TEACHERS DISTRUSTING THEMSELVES.
There has to be a way of regaining the trust--self and other--that is necessary for love that is necessary for life. I take back my power and let my students take back theirs. I focus on what and how I love literature and writing, on what they love and how they love literature and writing. I take care of my own intellectual and emotional experience, and help students to grow into authentic, responsible, self-motivated, creative people with integrity and self-respect?
There has to be a way of regaining the trust--self and other--that is necessary for love that is necessary for life. I take back my power and let my students take back theirs. I focus on what and how I love literature and writing, on what they love and how they love literature and writing. I take care of my own intellectual and emotional experience, and help students to grow into authentic, responsible, self-motivated, creative people with integrity and self-respect?
In my classes, I teach to the experience, and not to the test. For example, when
I assign journals I assure my students that I will NOT be reading them, unless
they want to show me a particular excerpt.
I faithfully keep a journal, too, to foster the trust that comes from
participating with them. We bring our
journals to class and talk about the experiences, the challenges of commitment,
our breakthroughs. They universally
appreciate the freedom to be honest with themselves, with no fear of someone
hovering like a virtual vulture over them. If someone wants to read from a
journal to the class, she does. But I
don’t lavishly praise that—I don’t make it a teacher-pleasing point. We go on
theatre dates without having to produce grade-able documents: showing up and
our discussion afterwards is enough.
When my Shakespeare students form
groups to give presentations, I do not create an assignment for us, as their
audience, to test comprehension.
Instead, we—dare I use the word—enjoy each other’s company. Also, students do not follow a template for
these presentations—I offer them the example of how creative other students
have been, and invite them to find new ways for themselves. Their mission is to make a play so
interesting that we will want to see/read/perform it, ourselves.
Mostly, I field students’ attempts
to relinquish their power to me. When a
student comes to ask for permission to do or write in a way that we both know
is creative and exciting, I ask “What kind of a teacher would I be, if I said No?” or “Why would that be a problem?” I look for ways that
mistrust and distrust manifest in our learning environment—I name it, invite
them to name it, and I write a post here inviting you to notice these dynamics
in your own life.
Tell your stories of corporal, social,
and psychological punishment in school environments and how these foster fear
and mistrust. Tell your stories of
educational environments that nurture trust and mutual respect.
Works Cited.
Lawshttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5766273/
Cover Image: Trust and the Future of Multilateralism. https://blogs.imf.org/2018/05/10/trust-and-the-future-of-multilateralism/
End video: Tom Chapin: It's Not on the Test
When a student asks, "What's the right answer to your question?" I answer, "We're here to find the most useful answers, that is, answers that lead to the next questions." That's a stance that moves authority and exclusive agency away from the professor and to the student/learner. It's an expression of trust in the student and the processes at work in a classroom where inclusiveness of ideas is paramount and "correctness" takes a back seat and eventually exits. Some students are uncomfortable with taking on their power, but they eventually become accustomed to being trusted and trusting themselves. They soon join in the classroom as learning community, and challenge each other and the professor. Results? Everyone grows.
ReplyDeletewhole thing is awesome....im a piano teacher from india,,
ReplyDeletebest web designers in karimnagar
Dear Dr. Rich,
ReplyDeleteToday in class we were having a great time talking about Shakespeare’s comedy love’s labors lost and something you said brought memories from the past. We were discussing the fact that we as students get conditioned to follow a structure when writing a paper and how difficult it is to get out of that routine. This way of thinking ties up perfectly with this post, we are conditioned to do things so we can receive rewards and approvals. When we start school (kindergarten) everything is set into place, you behave, learn the answers and get good grades. That in turn is what our parents are expecting; and the cycle begins and the trust ends. So yes, you have hit the nail on the head, it all becomes an ocean of distrust. But back to that blast from the past, when I was in 6th grade, in catholic school, my teacher was a nun called “Felicidad” which means happiness, which didn’t fit her at all. One morning she came in with her metric ruler in hand and an wicked sparkle in her eyes, she informed us that she would check our homework notebooks and if we had any undone homework we would get hit on the hand with her ruler. My classmates became nervous, they started shaking in their pressed uniforms and my stomach was doing flips. The first student stood up, she missed two homework so she received two hits, then the second in line, and so on. When she stood in front of my seat, I stood up and she looked at my notebook, nine! I was missing nine! (granted I should have been doing my homework.. ehh..). She told me to place my hand on the notebook, I knew this was going to hurt, I mean nine! So off she went, she hit me once, twice, a third time and my reaction was bursting into laughter. I laugh so hard, I couldn’t stop and before I knew it the rest of the class was a symphony of 11 year old’s laughter. Teacher Felicidad’s face changed colors and she stopped what she was doing. She told us to be quiet and to settle down… guess what? We couldn’t and we didn’t want to. Ultimately she left the classroom and we all kept talking an laughing about the incident. The following morning she was back with her sour self, but she never hit me again. Corporal punishment is one of the worst thing a child can endure, especially in front of others.
I am only 22 years old so when I was in elementary or middle school we did not have corporal punishment. My teachers could not hit me or they would get in trouble. As for structure, my favorite class was my Language Arts class because I gained trust with my teacher. We did not have to write in a structured way in class, so I enjoyed going to class and experiencing with different ways of writing. We got to write about things that we found enjoyable. I am teaching in a 7th grade English class and I asked my students the other day, "What about writing is so bad?" One student replied to me "It's boring". This is because they are always forced to write about things they don't have interest in. I said well next time, try writing about something that is interesting to you. We force our students to write about boring or structured things and we as teachers do not get to experience their full abilities in writing.
ReplyDeleteDear Dr. Rich,
ReplyDeleteAlthough I just turned 21 years of age only two months ago, I have to say I did have an experience of corporal punishment. My childhood was different than most of the people in my age because I lived my childhood in Egypt. Although the corporal punishment was not as painful, yet it was still there. One memory I have is that for my school, we had a uniform that we must wear or else you will get in trouble. We had a spring outfit and a winter outfit. For the winter one, it was obligatory to wear a tie. If you didn’t wear it, the teacher had the permission to either punish you or send you to the principal office to receive your punishment, which was to get a strong slap on both of your hands. For me, because I was terrified, I never forgot to wear my tie. However, I remember extremely well how all of the students did not have any trust with any of the teachers at all; some of us were petrified and some of us were just angry how we get punished for something as simple as forgetting a tie. All I can say is TRUST is really IMPORTANT in the classroom, I cannot agree enough on how crucial it is.
Dr. Rich
ReplyDeleteI did not receive corporal punishment in school even though I attended a Roman Catholic Schools from pre-school till twelfth grade. The worst punishment I received was considered a public-school punishment and was note physically abusive but mentally and socially abusive. I was in the fourth grade and I did not get along with my music teacher Mr. Pedis. We were all ordered to have our arms down at our sides at all times when singing but one day I was cold, so I had my arms crossed for warmth. Mr. Pedis nastily ordered me to put my arms down but because I was a stubborn child I refused to. My punishment was to stand in the back of the class with my back to the class. It was a degrading and abusive punishment because for a child thirty minutes might as well be forever. But the abuse did not stop there. When I was finally able to turn around at the end of class Mr. Pedis told the whole class that they would be able to paly a game which he had never done before. I got so excited but then Mr. Pedis said I could not play. I know he let the class play a game just, so he could have something to take away from me. I never trusted Mr. Pedis because I knew he did not like me but do not feel bad because the feeling was mutual. I will be careful to be abuse my students in any way when I am a teacher.
By: Kathleen Conaty
I really liked the picture that you chose to put for the main theme for this blog because it very much sums up what we should be doing. I also really enjoyed the fact that you do not give tests in your class because of the reason you mention. Many of the time when students know that there are gonna be tests in the class AND that it is going to count as a big portion of your grade, people are going to focus more on what is going to be on the test. Thus taking away the heart and purpose of the actual lesson, so everything that goes on in the classroom just goes in one ear and out the other. So that is why that I am so very grateful that you did not have any tests in your class because I could listen better to Shakespeare and what you wanted us to understand. Plus giving us the time and space to come up with our own interpretations which is never really happens in any of the other classes that we have. Your class has been a rare gem that has been found at the university, you have definitely changed my perspective of the way that I look at my papers and I am very thankful for that.
ReplyDeleteGrace Carranza
Nadia Radwan
ReplyDeleteI think a definite cause for corporal punishment in classrooms and in general is the fact that adults don't view children as people. A lot of the times society views children as less then a person or that they have nothing to contribute. Right now, if I were to punch someone in the face, would we call it corporal punishment? Or just assault? I think we all know the answer to this. And because of this I can't understand why people still think its ok to hit children. It is absolutely uncivilized and cruel. It makes the children feel, yes they have feelings, that they are nothing. I know personally when my parents used to hit me that i didn't cry necessarily because it hurt, rather the sadness that someone I loved wanted to hurt me. I mean how can we expect kids to understand us or not become violent when they are challenged when we send them mixed messages. For example, parents will always tell their kids “don't hit other kids on the playground” or “be polite use your words”, etc and then in the same breathe hit their kid when they don't follow exactly what they said. It is hypocrisy at its finest.
Being from Ghana, Africa, using corporal punishment is not anything new or foreign. When we had a test, I had to get a certain grade and above or I would be hit on my palm, your butt or head. And knuckles too but with the edge of a ruler. This was done in front of other students and sometimes teachers to see. If I couldn’t memorize the times table, I was beaten and it became very exhausting. I started to believe that these people became teachers because they wanted to torture their students because they had gone through the same thing. Corporal punishments need to be banned!
ReplyDeleteStudents distrust in Teachers stems from bad experiences i have had from my childhood till my college experience. Some instructors will give a list of materials that would be on a test, but sometimes these tests would contain some contents of the list or not appear at all. This creates distrust which makes me anxious. If I do not know what you’re thinking as the instructor, the communication is lost which means I need to make sure everything is right before I can proceed.
Priscilla B.
Dr. Rich,
ReplyDeleteAs a future educator, it makes me sad to see how true these words you wrote are. There is distrust on all sides in our education system, and that shouldn't be how things are. Teachers should be able to trust themselves and their students and vice versa. Too often we see that students' passion for education are squandered by their lack of trust for their teacher or vice versa. It is sad to see this. The classroom should be a safe environment to learn. Students should not have to fear their teachers and what they might say if they say the wrong thing. Corporal punishment may be banned, but there is still verbal punishment. Having a teacher call you stupid is just as bad as physically hitting someone. So many teachers do this and it scars children and their want to be educated.
Sarah Otero
It is crazy to think that there is mistrust all around in the classroom. I know when I was younger I literally heard a teacher talking about another student because she did not see me. When she did, and realized that I heard her, she tried to bribe my silence so I would not tell anyone. I was in the first grade. I never thought I teacher, someone who I would look up to thought so poorly of her students. That changed a lot for me. I never wanted to answer a question in class in fear that it would be the wrong answer and I would be made fun of later. Which I was not wrong, that definitely would have been the case. I know that students cannot be hit in classrooms anymore, but embarrassment, being talked down upon, being made to feel stupid, hurts just as bad. It scars more than a hit by a ruler would. Hitting someone emotionally, is probably the worst form of punishment.
ReplyDelete- Madeline Romero
I must confessed that this post brought me back to when I was a student in middle school in the Dominican republic and to appreciate United states school system. it is very common in my country for a teach to punish you verbally or physically in front of the whole class if you weren't behaving or if you were not paying attention to what was being tough in class.
ReplyDeleteit makes me really sad to see how backwards the school systems are in my country, and to see how they expect student to do well when they are not being treated the right way. many of us complain about, professor or teacher correcting us when we do anything wrong in class. Not knowing that others have it way worst. I remember this want time I was in third grade I believe and I had to memorize the multiplication table. for every time I messed up I had a teacher hit me with a little stick in the but so I cant get it right next time. it so sad tot ink that the learning method some countries use.
thank you so much Dr. Rich for sharing this blog and making me appreciate how times have changed.
Willy Mena
Seanette Martin
ReplyDeleteApril 11, 2019
Eng 4817
Prof Rich
"Will it be on the test?": Trust and Joy in the Classroom
My favorite part of your class is knowing there is no test that I have to dread. Your class is a class that allows me to fall in love with writing. Yes I fell out of love with writing for a few weeks this semester but now I am more in love than I have ever been. There was no corporal punishment given for me to fall in love with writing again but it was your coaching along with the fact that you wrote these blogs and handed off knowledge during each class. Your class is like a dream come true especially speaking to you yesterday as you smiled at me when I explained why I chose to write my first poem about my weight loss. To hear you say I make you want to lose those extra ten pounds that you have gained. As I soaked up what you said to me and all the little comments you helped me and have inspire me to appreciate this class more than ever.
When I decided that I didn’t like your critique of my first piece if corporal punishment was a thing it would have been an issue because I know I surely would have received a punishment but these aren’t those times. You were right there when I found myself to let me know how proud you are of me. You didn’t talk down to me as I see many people do in so many of the classrooms which is just not okay. Just because corporal punishment isn’t a thing verbal punishment is very vivid in the schools and that is a huge problem. The things I hear come out of educators mouths are really shocking to me but I know that is something I will not bring to my own classroom because words surely hurt.
My parents both grew up going to catholic schools. When I was a child, they used to tell me I had it a lot easier, as they would get slapped by rulers and get yelled at by the nuns. As I think about it, that is the most uncomfortable punishment that you can receive as a child. How can a student learn correctly and comfortably in an environment like that? However, knowing that everything you learn in class is something that you are going to be tested on is also very intimidating and makes you feel anxious like you need to know every single detail that is being discussed in class because you feel like it is going to be on the test.
ReplyDeleteI am currently in a class that I have to take notes in religiously. I feel as my concern for getting the material down, restricts the time that I have to pay attention to what is actually being said and discussed. I am also in a class where my professor lectures the whole two hours, yet does not test us on the material he is lecturing on, so we don’t have to take notes. However, the class that I don’t have to take notes in is the one that I am more engaged in, feel more comfortable in, and participate more often. What I am trying to say is that I am learning more and better in the class that I don’t have to take any tests in, rather the class that I am being tested on. Thank you for this blog, Dr. Rich, as I have really been thinking lately that tests are punishments, that are not helping me in the long run.
I found this blog to be quite interesting while I was reading it. I also found it to speak the truth when it came to how we as students sometimes view professors. I remember some of the professors that were like this in my middle school and high school. They were only concerned with busy work and would not listen to any of the students in the class. I remember in my third year of high school the new English professor gave us all a five paragraph paper to write and turn in the next day. We all wrote it and turned it in. On the third day, the professor left the school. We found later that it was due to all our papers. Apparently he did not want to teach a classroom of failures. We went through a week of substitutes before landing a full time teacher.
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect of the blog that also spoke to my experience in education was the Teacher Distrusts Other Teachers portion of the blog. This also occurred during my senior year of high school. Again it was within the English class portion of my year when we actually got a professor EVERYBODY wanted. He made reading fun by combining classic rock with literature. Other English professors were jealous that the student body wanted to be in his class over theirs. For me it had to deal with the fact that he made going to class enjoyable.
With everything in the academic environment being ruled by simple letters, it is easy to forget the fact that as students, we are in school to learn and develop as intelligent minds. It is so easy to mistrust the work because of the reward or "punishment" that is attached to it. Since grades are important in keeping a secured position in an honors society or program, students find themselves at times doing only what is required of them and do not apply what is being examined in class to their work. Of course, the power of the almighty grade will always haunt the students that roam these hallowed halls, where can we go as a society that will allow students to feel less guilt. Reflecting over my last four years at Kean, I have found myself shocked at how simple I was applying myself. I wish that in my times of stress, I went a little deeper into the material, giving me the opportunity to get more out of my education in those situations. Looking back on my early education, primarily in High School, I wish that they would have pushed me a little harder to get the best out of me, since I was never a great student, leaving with a terrible GPA. In college, I was given a second chance and ran with it, causing me great joy and leading me to develop a deep appreciation for the work that is required to not only make the grade but to apply what I have learned to my studies. Now that I won’t have grades to define me after I graduate, a huge weight will be lifted off my shoulders, giving me the chance to mess up without any numerical fallout.
ReplyDeleteI think that mistrust is a full circle, from yourself, staff, students, and even the parents. We can’t ever be sure of what others are doing so we just choose toisyruat from the beginning. It’s not the right way to approach any situation but working towards finding a better way isn’t easy.
ReplyDeleteAs for the punishment of sitting the kids in rows - like everything, I think it has its good and bad. Sitting them in groups allows them to learn from one another. However, it also allows the chatterbox to disturb the others. With so many rules set in place for what teachers can’t do and parents being more sensitive now than before it’s hard to gain control of a classroom. We have an issue currently in our class where 3 girls don’t know how to remain silent for the sake of everyone else who is annoyed and disturbed by their chatter. How can we get younger kids to stay silent? All the kids have to do is tell their parents that they sit alone and next day first thing in the morning their parent is im school causing chaos. Sometimes for the sake of being fair and benefiting the entire class it’s just simpler to keep the kids in rows and place them in groups when the occasion calls for it.
It’s funny how I can find some similarities in the US and China's education system. I was born in New York, but spent the first five years of my life living with my aunt and relatives back in China. There, I was placed in a school system (kindergarten in China I assume). I see a striking resemblance in the punishments given in China with the punishments handled in Catholic school.
ReplyDeleteI know that teachers in China act extremely superior to the children they work with and punish them when they either 1) don’t get the correct answers and 2) don’t follow instructions or do as they are told. I remember being punished for whispering quietly and being fully awake during nap time. I figured most children were punished during this, so I figured it was not a big deal. But why with a hard bamboo broom? When the broom made contact with my palm, it definitely hurt.
Here in the US, I encounter less physical punishment, but run into societal and environmental punishment instead. Back in 7th grade, I was talking and having a very enlightening conversation with a friend of mine about Italian. I was so engrossed in the conversation that I didn’t hear the teacher say that the class should pay attention and face forward. I kept on talking (my fault) and ended up being put on the spot and getting detention for talking about the subject. In front of the whole class. It was quite humiliating. It’s way past me now, but I always try to be aware of my surroundings and not talk too much in class.
Learning is supposed to be fun and help students think creatively and differently about the world. However, with the school systems these days, it is not about that. It’s more about getting the information in your head and then dumping all of that information out to make room for the next test. Students, I believe, are the most stressed because we aren’t given room to think creatively. It’s usually “you must do it my way or you are wrong and will get a bad grade.” It is absolutely frightening. But, when professors aren’t teaching to the test and engage and care about the students, I feel that I learn more in the long run.
I think that it is sad that we are enlightened and brought up in spirits when we immerse ourselves in classrooms that actually help produce growth and learning, not simply memorizing. I know that I am extremely appreciative when I enter a classroom where we get to know each other as people and grow productively. These types of learning environments makes me the most happy.