We're Losing More Learning Time by Sending Disruptive Students Right Back to Class
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder argues that returning disruptive students to class without consequences wastes far more instructional time than removing them would.
Key Takeaways
- The math is clear - One disruptive student returned to class costs 25+ students their learning time repeatedly
- Quick return means quick re-disruption - Without real consequences, students return and immediately resume the disruptive behavior
- Removal protects instructional time - Temporary exclusion saves more learning time for the group than it costs the individual
Transcript
So why are students getting sent right back to class after being sent to the office for being disruptive?
One of the official reasons that's given is we don't want them to miss too much time away from learning, right?
We don't want them to spend time in the office and miss out on instruction because that could make things worse.
But of course, we have to look at the total amount of instructional time that's being lost when a student is disruptive.
And I think the real reason kids are sent right back to class is because there's not really anything for them to do in the office, right?
The office doesn't want to watch them all day.
And in a lot of cases, there aren't really any systems of consequences in place to deal with students who get sent to the office for being disruptive.
And this is one of those kind of lower level things where like we're not going to suspend kids for being disruptive generally.
But that doesn't mean we can always keep them in class or always send them right back to class.
Because if we do the math on lost learning time, right, if a student is sent to the office for half an hour.
because they're being disruptive, that's half an hour of learning that gets lost.
If a student stays in class and is disruptive or is sent right back to class and is disruptive for half an hour, well then you have to multiply that half hour by the total number of students in the class to figure out how much learning time is being lost.
And you also have to factor in all of the students who didn't come to school that day because they're sick of this kind of thing.
You have to factor in teacher absenteeism.
You have to factor in teacher turnover.
So this idea that we can simply not have any kind of consequence, send the kid right back to class, and that's free, that there are no consequences to that, I think is just very, very wrong.
We have to really look at the cost of disruption.
And we have to look at what's effective in dealing with disruption.
Like kids do care about consequences.
Consequences do change behavior.
And that has become a controversial thing to say, right?
Like you can say now in a room full of educators, you can say consequences don't work.
Consequences don't change behavior.
And then as long as you say something that sounds touchy feely after that, everybody will smile and nod and agree with you.
Even though we all know consequences do work.
We all act in our own lives with our own families differently.
as if consequences work, because we know that they do.
Now, we've not kept up with the different bans and the different policy changes around consequences.
Like, it used to be that people would take away recess.
Well, it's illegal to take away recess now in a lot of places.
And I kind of agree with that.
I think students should have recess every single day.
But that doesn't mean that there can be no consequences.
We've got to come up with alternatives.
Lunch detention, after-school detention, in-school suspension, modified recess for older kids, Saturday school.
We've got to come up with consequences to make up for the ones that have been lost.
so that we don't continue to lose learning time.
Let me know what you think.