Students sometimes engage in challenging behaviors that require teachers to select and design appropriate behavior management interventions. Teachers may choose from various evidence-based intervention strategies when addressing students' challenging behaviors. Reinforcement-based strategies are preferred due to their desirable long-term outcomes.…

Howard's moral fortification theory of criminal punishment lends itself to justifying correction for children in schools that is supportive. There are good reasons to include other students in the learning opportunity occasioned by doing right in response to wrong, which need not exploit the wrongdoing student as a mere means. Care ethics can…

In the age of litigation, teachers have a responsibility to protect students in their care from injury, to act as a reasonably prudent teacher would act to prevent loss or damage to their students, and to exercise sound judgement and authority over students, to correct misbehavior and to provide for their orderly instruction. Whenever a teacher is…

Teachers struggle with using consequences for misbehavior--because using consequences well requires a nuanced view of disciplinary situations. Anderson explores six factors that complicate the use of consequence: Confusion over what consequences means; confusion over what it means for a punishment to "work;" the fact that teachers'…

Keeping a good disciplinary climate is a key to student learning and well-being. Disciplinary norms need to be clearly established and applied fairly and consistently. Yet, strictness alone cannot optimise student outcomes: students need support and understanding.

Education for transformation and social justice calls for critical, reflective, imaginative and independent thinkers with enquiring minds and a strong sense of curiosity--the ends and means of what Jonathan Jansen calls a "pedagogy to disrupt" and Gert Biesta a "pedagogy of interruption". For this reason, I introduced an…

Together, a school district and a local union are working to ensure that educators are trained in restorative practices in order to improve school climates and keep students in school and learning. This article describes how, in recent years, administrators and teachers have shifted from traditional school punishments, such as suspension, to…

Students who frequently engage in problem behavior tend to disrupt teacher instruction and impede others' learning, and they can seriously limit their own opportunities for academic and social success. The view that negative student-teacher interaction adversely impacts classroom climate is well documented. A positive and engaging classroom…

The long historical debate over the physical discipline and punishment of children arose from different perspectives on appropriate forms of child rearing and pedagogy. At one end of the spectrum were adults and educators who believed that social order, good behaviour, and moral development required the regular use of disciplinary instruments such…

This article seeks to restore a counter-narrative of discipline as distinct from punishment. Punishment is retribution for an offense, an exclusionary act by which students are removed from the opportunity to learn. It is harm inflicted by an external agent as a mechanism through which outside regulation becomes internalized subjectivity. Too…

This document provides policy recommendations of the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders regarding the use of seclusion procedures in schools. It includes (a) an introduction, (b) a declaration of principles, and (c) recommendations regarding the use of seclusion in school settings. Explanation or elaboration of policy recommendations…

Secretary of Education, Duncan, proclaimed to a group of teachers in Colorado that if students were to be more competitive with those from other countries, in particular, China and India, they needed to be in school six days a week for at least 11 months a year (Associated Press, 2009). Although longer school days, weeks and years are not…

Intervening with children's problem behavior can be tricky business. Adding punishment procedures into a child's intervention plan can not only add to the trickiness but also switch the attention of on-line staff members away from what should be the goal of any intervention for misbehavior--preventing the misbehavior and teaching functionally…

Discusses discipline in today's schools, examining common discipline problems, noting the effect of punishment; describing various disciplinary measures (peer mediation, peaceable schools, zero tolerance policies, and corporal punishment); emphasizing the importance of prevention versus punishment; discussing school safety; and highlighting the…

The article defines punishment; describes types of punishers used with handicapped students (response cost, time out, overcorrection, contingent exercise, aversive conditioning); discusses the role of punishers; outlines policies and procedures; and gives guidelines for establishing priority levels of target behaviors and hierarchical levels of…