Suspension Is a Boundary, Not a Punishment
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder reframes suspension as a safety boundary rather than a punishment intended to change the student's behavior.
Key Takeaways
- Suspension is about safety - Its primary purpose is to protect the school community, not to 'fix' the suspended student
- Boundaries aren't punishment - Just as a fence around a construction site isn't punishing pedestrians, suspension isn't punishing the student
- Stop expecting it to rehabilitate - Suspension serves its purpose by creating a safe environment; rehabilitation requires different tools
Transcript
One of the first things you have to accept when you're dealing with someone else's behavior is that you may not be able to change them.
And that's true in school discipline.
And it's also true in domestic violence, which of course is a very different type of situation, but I think has some important lessons for us, especially when it comes to the most extreme student behaviors and what we do about them.
Because as a profession, we've been trying to deal with extreme behaviors without removing students from school, without sending them home, without suspending them, without any kind of exclusionary discipline.
Because, you know, we want to keep kids in school.
We want to not have exclusionary consequences.
We want everybody to be at school happy and learning.
But when a student's behavior is so bad that it's disruptive, that it's dangerous, that they're hurting people, we don't really have much choice.
And there's this idea going around that suspension does not work because it does not change students.
the student's behavior.
It may not change the student's behavior.
The behavior may occur again.
And of course, that's always going to be true.
Like we don't have any guarantee that we can permanently change someone else's behavior.
never have a recurrence.
But when we're thinking about keeping the school environment safe, keeping teachers safe, keeping other students safe, we need to be thinking in the same way that we would think if we were advising a friend who was in a domestic violence situation, right?
You can't just say to yourself, okay, what is going to be the most effective plan for changing the other person?
That has to become a less important consideration than protecting our friend, protecting our learning environment, protecting our classroom, our teachers, our students.
We can't just think, oh, we're only going to do things that are going to change the other person.
We also have to think about what is going to keep everyone safe.
So suspension and other forms of exclusionary discipline are really functioning here as a boundary, not a motivator for the other person.
They're a boundary that keeps us safe, that keeps people safe in the environment.
not something that is intended to change the person who's having the behavior problem.
And if we forget that, and if we focus on changing the other person's behavior, then we're putting ourselves in the role of kind of an amateur psychologist or psychiatrist.
Like, we are not behavior therapists, that is not our job, and we hope to help every student who's struggling with behavior improve their behavior, but that is not what we are here to do.
And if what a student is doing makes it impossible for them to be at school safely and learn, then we have to have that boundary.
We have to keep people safe.
And we have to say, you can't be here if you do that.
If you're gonna throw furniture, you can't be here.
That is not a consequence that is intended as a punishment to change the other person, to change that student's behavior.
It is a consequence that is a boundary to keep the environment and the other people safe.
Let me know what you think.