Torture is Illegal–the Case Against Social Promotion
ByIf you agree that the opposite of happiness is not unhappiness, but boredom, and extreme boredom could be construed as a kind of torture, and you witness the extreme boredom in classes where students are unable to do the work set before them, and you realize they can’t do that work because they’ve been passed onto that level without the requisite skills (not because teachers don’t know how to teach, the current politically-correct explanation du jour), and you realize they have been passed on to that level without the requisite skill by those advocating social promotion, then those advocating social promotion should be tried for torture.
I’m half kidding. Many evils are invisible when not a popular topic, and this is one of them. Millions of students daily are being bored to intellectual death. I’ll get to the teachers being also being bored by students who can’t do the work, then suffering the ignominy of being told it’s because they’re not delivering the material properly (see, I can use big words, I just kind of like long, borderline run-on sentences as a stylistic choice). I’ve written in my book Classroom Discipline 101 about the concept of FLOW (which I cite from the excellent book of the same name by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whom I don’t quote often because I haven’t learned to spell his name) where we humans are in our maximum state of mind when doing a meaningful task that is neither too easy (which leads to frustration and boredom), or too difficult (which leads to frustration and boredom).
These students don’t benefit from social promotion; those who benefit from social promotion are politicians and administrators who can then cover up the fact that mounds of students in their school districts cannot do appropriate grade-level work.
The original theory behind social promotion, allegedly, is that students will catch up if they are influenced by their peers, and that it hurts their self-esteem to be held behind. Well, those are pretty stupid reasons actually. Sure, at times the weak link on a team can be brought up by those stronger around, but not wholesale–in other words, if most people on the team are a weak link, in other words, if not all but one or two students in a class are competent to do the work, the idea that the weaker ones will be pulled along is ludicrous.
So you get, say, a student who is at 5th grade level in math doing High School Algebra. If you think that is a ridiculous example, you’ve never been in the Los Angeles Unified School District. It happens there all the time and no one will dare accuse me of lying. Oh, you will get all sorts of clouded explanations about how they are only 5th Grade Level in certain ways, that developmentally blah blah ad nauseum. I had to take an inservice where an educator made just such a claim. I told him if a 5th Grader can do 10th Grade level English, then we can skip levels 6 through 9 and solve the California budget crisis. Note these educators do not have to prove what they say, they get paid by taxpayers anyway. In short: one definition of insanity is saying the insane is possible. You can make A = Not A.
Now, I know empirically what really hurts self-esteem. It is not having the wherewithal to do the work before you. I have seen 16 year olds happily doing work in long division without thought of whether is was beneath them or not–why? Because it was challenging to them and they were up for the challenge.
An analogy: Put me on the tennis court with Roger Federer because I’ve been playing as long as him and should be at his level. I guarantee my self-esteem will not go up as each ball whizzes by me unhit. Maybe I get lucky on one and it goes back over the net, at which point a millions educators jump up and down with that ‘proof’ that I can do it.
Or put me on the court with a dozen people my age who have no skills at all, do not know how to hold the racket. I won’t pull them up, I’ll get bored and they’ll keep me from progressing at all.
If you’ve read my book, you’ll know that my philosophy mainly comes from empirical data–what I’ve actually seen happening and what does and doesn’t work, not just blind theorizing. So what I’m saying here about social promotion is first hand observation as well as logic. Make sure those who disagree are accountable for their opinions and can show other results.
What this means in the classroom, is you must have work that students can do without being bored, not too difficult or too easy, for your offense to be in place discipline-wise. My observation is that what bores students is not boring teachers so much as inability to do what is before them. Those at the level of math to send up rocket ships did not get there by having clowns and puppets dance up and down to get across concepts, but by the fascination of the subject itself, and the competence to always go to the next level. Ah hah, there it is-you should always go to the next level, age independent, not try to skip levels and play make pretend. Going against reality always hurts in the long run, and in this case we’re losing legions of students to this invisible classroom torture.
I know this puts teachers in a dilemma because I’ve been there: ”Do I teach the level-appropriate work, or work the students can do?” I’ll discuss this dilemma later.
Okay, MPT’s, I call’em as I see ‘em. Go have fun!
This year I have a 9th grade girl who, according to her IEP, reads at “lower elementary level, and writes at lower first grade level.” Another girl is even worse. My 6 year old grandson reads better than either one of these girls.
They have been in self-contained classrooms with special ed teachers until they get to high school. Then they are thrown into classes they have no hope of passing, with one time a day to go to the “resource room” for help with study skills with special ed teacher. That is what inclusion is at our high school. This happens year after year with 8-10 students in our small rural high school. It is ridiculous to expect me to somehow “modify” the curriculum and what they need to learn to do well on the OGT to that level. There’s an awful lot of extra money that comes with a speced student, but I have yet to see that money spent on real help, an aide or spec ed teacher IN OUR CLASSROOMS, or into a room with a teacher trained to help them.
Oh, and they can get an A in “Study Skills” class even if they flunk every other class. Go figure!
Cecilia–
I’m not sure what kind of procedures you refer to, since of course the procedures I recommend are in the book. Could you clarify that?
Craig
Hi,
Thanks for the opportunity to share and ask.
I started teaching in 2003. I did tours in Elementary School teaching Spanish Speakers (with Open Court) and in High School, teaching Spanish. My internal philosophy prevented me for a long time from understanding that discipline springs from structure. I personally had no structure.
However, I have always had the capability of being objectively critical of myself (even if I did have to go through a few tantrums to get there.) So I have been working to find the discipline method that would work for me.
A couple of years ago, I had an atrocious year in an academically last place (or so) school with 9th and 10th graders that gave me nightmares three weeks after school let out. To be concise, putting together all the students in my 5 classes, I literally had 50% (Okay, 49%, but what’s the difference?) of students with a GPA of 1.9 and below. I checked each and every report card, and none of those students even had a C to their name, not even in PE. The other 50% were mostly A-B students, but with just a handful of students reaching 3.5 or above and one 4.0.
My class was not typical (for reasons too long to go into), but that didn’t stop administrators and others from deciding I was a bad teacher who could not control her class.
So that Summer, I decided to “figure it out” or quit teaching. I came up with a similar philosophy to Craig’s, but more wishy-washy. And even so, WOW did it make a difference. Not a peep out of my classes for a good long time, except for learning. It deteriorated because my philosophy was not water tight, and I still had problems delineating between what was considered unacceptable behavior, etc. There was always a “fine line” between the child’s “freedom” and the class’ need. I couldn’t stamp out the manipulating.
(If you’re wondering, I also had a much better situation, with barely one quarter of my students at 1.9 GPA and below. And even then those students had some Cs. I also had five 4.0 students and a good amount of more academically inclined students. That year, everyone complimented me. Wow, you really got yourself together. Yeah, right. There’s a grain of truth in that. But it’s not all about me.)
Well, this Summer I found Craig’s book. Now that I don’t have to worry about deciding what’s acceptable or not acceptable, I still have to work hard to produce some good procedures and make sure that I can teach them. So, if you’re reading this, Craig, I could use some actual written guidelines that I can adapt, and not have to make them all up myself. I’d pay for that.
Thank you. I’ll let you know how it goes this year. –CED
Wonderful blog, would love to see a bit more media though!
I am a first year teacher after having spent the better part of 20 years in industry.
I implemented “the rules” on Monday this week after a year long struggle with 6 classes (HS Math). After 1st period copying rules and starting the process and many detentions given, 3 students got up and walked out – to guidance.
Word spread quickly and the principal and my supervisor were notified and instructed me (by 2nd period) to pull the rules and stop issuing detentions.
I still believe in the process, but have found that the administration is DEAD against these rules that:
1. have a “negative tone”
2. don’t agree with this school’s culture
3. employ an element of “fear” to discipline the students which is illegal???
HELP!!! I’m really tired of dealing with all of the nonsense that I tolerate every day.
Any suggestions?
Thanks for this neat relationship entry. It will just help mine out. Thanks again!
I am always trying to minimize the words necessary to get a point across. The bottom line is if a student is not required to do the consequence, then it is not a consequence, and if there is no consequence for not doing the consequence, it will take students about one day to figure that out and you might as well have no discipline at all. I only allow students to change detention days with a note from their parent, and that should not be common. Yes, the administrator only has to back your consequence and they should be thankful for that. However, they can make it much easier on themselves if they make announcement to your class that things will be more difficult for the student–there should be an added consequence if they have to go to administration before complying with you.
Craig,
I have read and love your book. I do have a question on the section dealing with students
coming in for detention. I write referrals for every student that does not report to his/her detention on the assigned day. Today, one of my administrators chastised me for the fact that I send referrals for this
reason. She told me that I should not bother sending referrals because all she does is ask the students when they will serve their detention with me with no other consequence. She also said the students should be allowed a day of their choosing to serve rather than me telling them the day to report. She stated that they probably did not show because the day I assigned was “inappropriate.” She also said if students do not report that I should just allow them to pick another day with no consequence. I really value any advice you have on this situation!
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> Thank you for your time!
Well, punishment and detentions do work. I have 20 years evidence and hundreds of emails to prove it–as in ‘saved my teaching career’ proving it. What they do, and I’m not being sarcastic, is exactly this: fix the relationship between teacher and pupil, from sibling arguing with sibling to respect for the adult ( and therefore facilitating the development of the student in the environment ).
Relationship: noun, the way in which two or more people or organizations regard and behave toward each other .
The problem is that relationship by many educators is being defined as some sort of endless dialogue, which is not relationship but endless dialogue.
I highly recommend ‘The Sibling Society’ by Robert Bly, which discusses how adults are treating the young as peers, and the damage that is doing.
Hi, Craig. I loved your book. It is so down to earth and real life as opposed to liberal goody-good stuff we have to do at our school. I am giving our Deputy Principal a selection of sections of your book to see if I can get buy in from senior administration at our school. But we have a management team that think punishments and detentions don’t work. Any discipline has to be looked at in terms of fixing the relationship between teacher and pupil. I’m thinking that I may have to tone down my expectations of being able to teach 100% of the time if I don’t get support from management. Any ideas how I go about turning the management team at our school away from the time consuming and new, hip thing called restorative justice?
As far as diverse ranges of ability, this is a result of the advent of social promotion, of which I have written about in ‘Torture is Illegal’.
If someone’s child is interfering with other students’ education, they can come in and babysit or empower you to have consequences. Teachers are educators with rights, and are not at the mercy of parents to dump them off at school as a babysitting/mental health service. Give them the choice of coming in to sit with their child to insure they behave, finding another school, or allowing the student to pay the price for breaking class rules.
Well, an update. I am now the 4th lesson in with the rules and OMG!!! I have had a very interesting time. I feel so mean when I issue a detention for a student who is trying so hard then slips up. I am afraid of building resentment in the kid who is actually trying to comply. Parents(some) are proving to be worse at complying than the kids! I am finding this incredibly nerve wracking especially talking to those hard parents. I still haven’t worked out how to broach that phone call re: after school detention. These parents flat out refuse to have their child stay. These parents think the detention is too harsh for the action. Fortunately, my Head of Department and Deputy Principal are supportive. My DP is suggesting to make it before school instead or another afternoon… to appease the hard parent. I am not sure how to handle as that makes it messier and harder for me to track. It is hard enough now! By the way, we have to give 24 hrs notice for after school detentions.
On doing meaningful work, how do I teach properly when so many students in the one class have such a diverse range of ability and each one of them might find something different as meaningful to them?
2 questions I have re: the rules. Students have a note for being late from another class/music lesson or teacher lets whole class out late so will be late for my class. Ideas on handling this?
I have some students who are happy to be out of my class and sitting in another class doing writeouts or whatever work is set. In short, they want to be sent out. Ideas?
I realise this is a thesis but I am working so hard at getting this right so I can teach properly and I feel like I can’t do this on my own. Every other hour I just want to forget it. It is also forcing me to be super organised in order to have good work for the students from bell to bell. Can you believe I am in my 13th year of teaching? I feel like a first year! Today was a wonderful day with this class, they worked from bell to bell and I felt great at the end!
I appreciate your time in answering my questions.
Sure-just hand them the rules to copy when they do come. Can work well if they see the rest of the class is already behaving. They won’t get the explanation, but that doesn’t matter if all is in order.
I am implementing the rules right now. The problem is the students stay away from school regularly and some will miss the first class of writing the rules and the demonstrations. Any ideas?