Reinforcement Versus Punishment

We can come up with solutions all we want, but they will never work. We are bound to a capitalist system where some people win and some people lose. The property tax system in this country shows the disparity between poor and rich schools: higher tax rates means the school gets more money, and only rich people can afford those higher tax rates and send their kids to those schools.

A lot of ingenius solutions to the country's educational problems ignore the underlying cost of administering a school. I agree that teachers should teach for the sake of teaching, not salary, but at the same time teachers need to pay the bills too. Life will only get more expensive in the future.

If we can't provide the perfect learning environment for every single student, then we need to do the next best thing which is provide the best possible learning environment for the most students. Fixing the school systems in this country is, while noble, all in vain.

I am not naive enough to believe that we can save every child. Some children prosper while other kids are left behind, it is a fact of life. But the aspect of the education process that I am directing my attention to, is the stigma that we are placing upon children, without even knowing it.

Rather than reinforcing a child's behaviour, we ridicule and punish them.

What I ask of is far from an utopian society. Just an extra effort or a different route, where the child gets a second chance.

It is no easy task, but I think success is attainable. Success is not black and white, there are plenty of measures on the continuum where we can proclaim a victory.

it's the entire zero tolerance policy as a whole that's a problem if you ask me. i mean it was put in place with the idea of "keeping the environment safe" and having the best interests of all students and staff alike, but i dont see how that can be argued when the extreme subjectivity of the process itself is drowning out any possibility of it working. research has shown us time and time again that reinforcement works and for the most part punishment does not. so why is our education system so quick to assign suspensions and expulsions for such "innappropriate behaviours"? i mean i wont even get into the disproportionate affects of the policy on racial minorities and students with certain types of disabilities because that's a whole other problem, but the policy itself completely ignores the ideas of rehabilition and reinforcement while focusing on punishment- an idea that i will admit in some circumstances is necessary but not in the way and in the frequency which it is being applied. all it really does is strip individuals of their right to an education, criminilize student behaviour and allow for subjectivity on what is deemed "inappropriate behaviour" and what is not. this is an area where subjectivity does not and should never belong.

[edit on 5-2-2007 by kennedy]