The ground was completely soaked from days of rain and on this particular day, it was drizzling enough that the playground equipment was wet, making this a “sidewalk day”.  The kids knew it was a sidewalk day and there was an assumption on the my part that when we said “sidewalk” it meant, well, sidewalk.  Apparently not.  I spent the next 10 minutes of my life saying, stay on the sidewalk, stay on the concrete.  Sidewalk, sidewalk, sidewalk, sidewalk. All the while, kids are looking at me like I’m speaking another language and doing whatever they want.  They have me in terms of numbers and noise and my apparently ineffectual efforts at having them do the right thing go for naught.  One little girl actually looked at me and asked, “what do you mean?”.

That’s the way classes seem anymore as well.  I found myself today saying over and over, TAPS please.  (Total and peaceful silence) when I couldn’t get everyone’s attention.  I would like to think I have this classroom management thing down to a science but instead of getting easier, it seems to be more difficult because quite frankly, I don’t think the kids care what adults say to them or ask them to do.  There have always been those few kids in a class who feel that way, but handling one or two is cake compared to 2/3 of a class.

Just like anything else, the pendulum swings both ways when it comes to disciplining students or giving students consequences.  When I was kid, way back in the dark ages, I went to a school in the Deep South where the principal walked the halls during classes carrying a paddle.  If a teacher sent a student to sit out in the hallway, the principal would pop his head in, ask the teacher a question and the next thing you knew, you heard whack, whack, whack on that kid’s behind.  That was motivation for most of us to never cross our teacher.

While I would never advocate for corporal punishment, it seems the pendulum has swung WAY over to the other side.  No longer allowed to even use the words “punishment” or “discipline”, the kids know that any “consequences” we dole out are pretty painless.  Oh sure, there are those kids where all it takes is “the look” to straighten them out, but chronic offenders have told me that the only choices we have as teachers don’t mean anything.  Unlike the corporal punishment which meant “pain”, sometimes the kids are getting exactly what they want when I send them to go to another room or call the office to come get them.  They know exactly what words to say (because they’re scripted) to get back to the classroom or wherever it is they want to go.

As teachers, we’re instructed to give children not what they deserve but what they need.  We’re to give them grace.  In the Christian faith, grace is unmerited favor which means, we deserve death, but have been given life instead.  Life that still includes the good and bad, mistakes and consequences.  Life does not stop just because we’ve been given grace. Grace does not mean everything becomes pleasant – we’re still responsible for our words and actions and consequences, to be meaningful, should be related to the infraction.  However, in our current system, everyone receives the same basic consequence.  And then we wonder why students are exhibiting the same inappropriate behaviors for years.  It’s like telling a student not to touch something hot and every time they try, we give them a treat.  Doing something or creating appropriate consequences that help them understand that this behavior is destructive is the way to get them to begin thinking and acting differently.

I’m pretty sure the pendulum won’t be swinging back anytime soon which means it won’t happen in my professional lifetime.  However, for the sake of the children and the future of our society, my hope is that it will.  Hopefully we’ll learn that grace means more than giving kids what they need.  It means we love them enough to give them grace with consequences when needed.