Michael Hand maintains that punishment is necessary for school children to insure compliance with the important rules – those he calls moral and scholastic. I make three arguments against this position: First, Hand fails to separate the sorts of behaviors legitimately classified as interfering with teaching and learning from more trivial rules, leaving that determination entirely to the discretion of teachers. While Hand acknowledges a teacher must exercise ‘fine-grained judgement’ in determining the rules, fine-grained can easily become arbitrary; a subjective exercise that transforms a teacher’s preferred practice into a scholastic must-be-obeyed punishable offense. Second, Hand also fails to clarify which, among the vast array of sanctions teachers impose upon students, are to be included in the category of punishment. How is punishment cordoned off from corrections, penalties, and discipline? Third, in assuming that without punishment self-interest (selfishness) will prevail over unselfishness, and that punishment supports moral formation (consideration of others), Hand oversimplifies the complex motives that shape behavior.
School punishment and interpersonal exclusion: Rejection, withdrawal, and separation from friends
