A British schoolboy took two bottles of water on a 93F day (1)
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses why schools lose credibility when they turn discipline issues into petty fights over small things like water or pencils.
Key Takeaways
- Protect The Moral High Ground - Schools lose support when consequences seem rooted in pettiness instead of principle.
- Focus On Behavior - The real issue is whether the student listens to adults, not whether a second bottle of water is too much.
- Be Generous With Small Necessities - Water and pencils are low-cost items, so leaders should avoid making scarcity the centerpiece of discipline.
- Teach Responsibility Clearly - Students still need accountability for preparedness, respect, and following directions.
- Separate Values From Resources - Enforce expectations firmly, but don't make the argument hinge on something trivial that makes the school look unreasonable.
Full Transcript
Did you see this about the British kid that got in trouble for taking two bottles of water at Sports Day? A British kid named Noah got an after-school detention for taking more than one bottle of water and then running away when a staff member asked him to put back the extra. And this is a really interesting kind of cultural difference between British educators and I think what probably most American educators would say. And I want to talk about why I think the school lost the argument here. Why I think people are turning against the school and saying, you know what? A lot of my friends over on Twitter are rightly pointing out that it is a good idea to ensure that kids listen to adults.
It is appropriate to have accountability when kids don't listen. And it is good for learning and safety and order to have consequences when kids don't listen. So I don't disagree with the idea of consequences here. I think what went wrong in this case is the school lost the moral high ground by being petty about something that did not matter that much. One bottle of water Like, water is supposed to be free. And a lot of people are pointing out, like, hey, we're gonna run out of water if we have, you know, 500 kids, 500 bottles of water, there's not enough for everybody to have two.
That may be true, but that fact cannot be what we hinge the situation on, right? If I look like an idiot because we didn't have enough bottles of water, Like, I'm gonna lose this fight, right? Water is cheap. Water is free. Water is an entitlement. And, yes, bottled water costs money.
There are various ways they could have handled this. But I think staking the whole situation on, we don't have enough water for you, is a losing battle. And often what comes up in American classrooms is pencils, right? The kid comes to class without a pencil. I don't want to be so petty as to say, I can't afford a pencil, I can't give you a pencil, you have to bring your own pencil, you can't learn today. The thing we have to emphasize to keep the moral high ground is we are here for more than pettiness over pencils and water.
We're here to teach something deeper, and that is respect, that is work ethic, that is responsibility. And when a student comes to class without a pencil, it's not that I don't have the ability to give them a pencil. I do, and I'm willing to do that. It's that we're also trying to do something more important, which is develop people, develop our students into the kinds of people who come prepared for whatever they need to do that day. And if that means bringing a pencil to class, They need to bring a pencil to the class, and that is something that I'm willing to be strict about. But if I'm going to be strict about something small, here's the real issue.
I have to not be petty about the underlying aspect, right? Two bottles of water, is a petty difference from one bottle of water. It really does not matter. Water is not that expensive, a school has a multi-million dollar budget, and yes, I totally get they might not have been prepared to give every student two or three bottles of water, but the way to emphasize what needs to happen here is to focus on the behavior and be excessively generous about the underlying thing, like the water. Let me know what you think.
