“Like its puni- tive counterpart in education, zero tolerance policies, the three strikes law falls short of success, due to its focus on punishment and fear, rather than prevention and community empowerment” (Cramer et al., 2014, p. 464)
Regarding the zero tolerance policies, three strike laws that I read from the article, I feel that it put into perspective how many institutions (i.e schools) are putting much of their energy into false ideas of what solutions for students may be. What I mean by that is, when students are acting up, acting out or seem to be slipping away, we could apply those same efforts to finding more proactive ways to keep kids in school and succeed. Some things we could be doing are: focusing on how to obtain and maintain an environment that better incorporates the various capitals (mentioned in the article) that scholars possess, create a classroom where receptivity and tolerance is expected, and get kids to talk about: themselves, their values, their culture, and their communities.
Each time students are reprimanded for their mistakes and “poor behavior” they do not typically receive equally as much guidance, help, talking time, or things of the nature. They are simply punished, punished again, punished worse, kicked out, fall behind- the exact process of what typically leads to these high dropout rates we read about. Then it is all left to the student to “figure it out” and leave with the notion that he/she “should have thought about the consequences”. While students do need to understand that what they do can be (or become) harmful to themselves and others, constant negative reinforcement and punishment is quite evidently not facilitating any personal or academic improvement. It is important but do not mean to idealize openness in the classroom, because it is far more difficult than I can imagine at this point, but I do believe that the current “solutions” students are receiving are not working out in anyones favor. We should not generalize punishments as “end all be all” tactics.
A space where students can feel comfortable and understood for at least 40 minutes a day is quite possibly more than they receive on a daily basis. What kind of service would we be to students if we just keep agitating the already placed social norms and stigmas they receive from every other outside source?
I agree that zero-tolerance policies are ineffective and counterproductive. I agree that openness and inclusiveness in a classroom are paramount; but the latter doesn’t have to be “idealistic” because it’s entirely possible to create. We must first consider how we as individuals (teachers in a school) are going to personally combat the zero-tolerance policies of our schools. What are we going to do to students and how are we going to treat them (every.single.day) when they are breaking rules? We must be prepared to teach them, not just the curriculum, but also how to be good humans.