Detention. It’s the last place any student wants to be. You sit in a nearly empty room with a duty aid after school or during lunch and recess and either stare at the wall, do homework, or write a letter of apology. This method of punishment is generally effective as a first offense for matters like being tardy, hitting a peer in the schoolyard, or goofing off in class. Most students are able to learn their lessons of proper behavior after a few detentions early in their K12 education.
What about those kids that many would call “bullies” or “trouble-makers”? How do we get them to follow the rules? The problem is that detention is not working for these kids because they just on coming back to the principal’s office and serve multiple detentions and/or suspensions every year. There are, however, other, more effective methods of dealing with unruliness and misbehavior.
Meditation can be one alternative to traditional detention. By deeply breathing and relaxing the body, people can recuperate from the stresses of their lives. When people are very stressed, they are more likely to throw a temper tantrum or start a fight. One public school in West Baltimore chose to embrace this concept and sent misbehaving kids to a room to meditate. The school went even further by incorporating 15 minutes of meditation into the daily school day.
Through these changes, there was a dramatic reduction the number of disciplinary issues that the school faced and the number of suspensions dropped to zero. Keep in mind that this school is in an area that is stricken by crime and poverty. For kids who suffer from anxiety or anger-related issues, a meditation session in the morning can allow them to release their tensions from their lives outside of school and give their minds a fresh-start before they start the school day.
Another alternative is to keep students with disciplinary issues occupied. By occupied, I mean occupied with a subject that they enjoy learning about. People who are bored or have nothing to do are at a much higher risk of making stupid decisions such as picking at someone, fighting, vandalism etc. Lunch and recess, for elementary school students, are really the only times during the day when they are not formally instructed what to do, what to say or where to go.
There is a general set of rules everyone is required to follow during these times, but other than that, they can do anything they desire. Lunch and recess are also times when a lot of detentions are given out. Students who don’t have anyone to play with or talk to will either sit or stand there, waiting for time to pass, or try to find something else to occupy themselves with. In some cases, that could mean being rowdy, throwing a ball at a peer, bullying another student, or damaging property. Teachers or guidance counselors should first have conversations with these students to help them discover their passions. After that, they should either help these students find potential friends or relocate them to the library or computer lab during lunch and/or recess.
Spending time away from most other students can be an effective solution for some students who have difficulties fitting in or cooperating with others because it keeps them from bothering others. The library and computer lab is a good place relocate them because they can find what they like to read, learn about topic areas that they are passionate about, or write for pleasure.
What really irks me is how little parents and educators doing to find proactive ways to help students with emotional and behavioral issues keep themselves out of trouble. The point is that those who continuously end up in detention already know what is right and wrong, but they simply can’t avoid it because they aren’t given the time release the anger and tension in their lives or they aren’t given the opportunities to learn and do what they love. In elementary school, I was one those “trouble-makers and bullies,” and what really changed me was the time in seventh grade when the assistant principal gave me the permission I could spend lunch in the library instead of the cafeteria.
From there on out, I spent almost every lunch period in the library either reading, writing for fun, or putting projects together and got zero detentions and stopped bullying others. If only more people would realize the need for meaningful change in the way we deal with “bullies and trouble-making” students, we can cut the number of the number of suspensions, dropouts, and even crime rates in the long run.