This Is What Happens When Society Teaches Punishment Instead Of Skills
Tags: Education, Humanity, Morality, Punishment, Collaboration

This Is What Happens When Society Teaches Punishment Instead Of Skills

Punishment doesn’t teach any skills.

A few weeks ago, I read the headlines of a story about a boys reform school in Florida. I passed by it, thinking nothing more than, “ho-hum, just another sensational story.” But I’ve been thinking about that school ever since.

So I did some research. The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, aka, “The Florida School for Boys”, was opened in 1900 and was notorious for a wide range of abuses of boys that were sent there or wound up there. The first link I found was from The Smithsonian Institution, not exactly the first name in sensationalism. So I read their article, “Archaeologists Finally Know What Happened at This Brutal Reform School”. I was intrigued by the picture of the crosses in the graveyard at the school at the top of the article.

I read a few more articles and the literature is fairly consistent. Over a century of operation at this school, kids were severely beaten, whipped, denied clothing and food, one may have been shot and another was put in a large clothes dryer and died later from his injuries. Scientists have found 55 graves and have matched 14 DNA samples to identify the boys buried there. They found two graveyards one for people of color and one for everyone else. This Wikipedia article has a fairly detailed history of the school with numerous sources in the bibliography. Although no one seems to have been charged with a crime at the school, it was finally closed in 2011.

From my reading so far, I think it is fair to say that it was a public school teaching morality from religion. We know this from the crosses in the picture and the segregation of the students based on race. The roots of American racism and segregation can be found in religion, Christianity to be precise.

This article is not intended to criticize religion in general or even the brutal discipline practices at the Florida School for Boys. That has already been done. I believe that there is a wider and deeper message we can learn from this story. Those crosses in the picture are evidence of a fact that may now be plain for all to see: you cannot teach morality without teaching the skills required to achieve it.

Those crosses in the picture tell a story of a school staff intent on beating the “evil” out of the boys who were sent there by their parents or a state agency responsible for the disposition of misbehaving boys. Those crosses are evidence of the failure of reward and punishment as a method of discipline. No matter how severe the discipline, there were always some boys who would not comply. They just didn’t expect to risk their lives.

There is another story here to consider. The addiction of abuse. The abusers who administered the punishment were addicted to the abuse. When humans engage in physical conflict, the brain sends a massive shot of adrenaline throughout the body. For the abuser, this is a huge hit, a hit every bit as powerful as cocaine or crystal meth. This hit provides a sort of “high” much like joggers experience with endorphins from the runners high, yet far more intense in the presence of violence.

I have some first-hand evidence of this myself. I felt it when I was spanked by my father as a boy. I felt it when I fought the kids who used to tease me at school. I felt it the moment before I hauled off a punch to the offender’s nose in the lunch line. I still felt it when I was in the principal’s office, explaining what happened. I was always shaken by the experience of violence and can recall those same feelings with clarity to this day.

When we engage in violence of any kind, we feel this jolt of energy from the adrenaline. Combine that jolt with authority and impunity, and you have a compelling reason to do it again. And again. Regardless of the consequences.

There is a better way to teach morality. We teach the skills needed to achieve that morality. One great example is the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of America. The Scouts organizations teach skills. They both teach skills about living in and respecting the natural wilderness of America. They both teach skills about getting along, working as a team and collaborating.

For adults, there are 12-step organizations, the most well known being Alcoholics Anonymous. They teach the skill of not drinking, they don’t just pray for the willingness to stop drinking. They don’t punish people for drinking, either. They understand, probably better than any other organization, the power and the peril of addiction. They are widely regarded as the most successful organization in history to help people stop drinking. And they’re free. They’re also anarchists. No one is forced to do anything in that program. Nothing is compulsory, there are no dues to pay, and it is an entirely voluntary organization. The 12 steps are suggested, not required.

And in Toastmasters people can learn to overcome the fear of speaking in public. I was a member of Toastmasters for years and learned to ride that fear like a wave to turn it into an asset. They teach the skill of public speaking, and the skills required to overcome the fear of speaking in public.

I’m sure there are many more organizations out there that teach skills. The point is that when we teach the skills of morality we get better results. There is a scientific organization dedicated to this effort, Lives in the Balance, headed by Dr. Ross W. Greene, Ph.D. Dr. Greene has more than 38 years of experience working with kids and is applying a very simple concept to challenging behavior in kids and adults: kids would do better if they could.

According to Dr. Greene, when kids exhibit challenging behavior, that’s the signal, not the problem. It is evidence of lagging skills and unsolved problems. When we work with kids to solve the problems that get in their way, we also teach them the skills they need to do well. Kids want to do well, naturally. It’s up to us to engage with the kids in collaboration to solve the problems that prevent them from doing well. That means it’s not entirely up to kids or the parents to solve the problems. It’s a partnership.

I believe that this is true of adults, too. Crime is evidence of challenging behavior in adults. When we teach adults the skills they need to adapt to their conditions, they get better, and the tendency to engage in criminal activity declines or disappears. Dr. Greene’s approach is being applied to detention centers for kids with very positive results. We could do the same for adults.

Once we change our focus from punishment to skills, from punishment to collaboration, the morality comes naturally. We can then reserve judgment and consider ignorance before malice. We can assume ignorance of skills when presented with challenging behavior. For if challenging behavior is a matter of a lack of skills, no shame or moral judgment needs to apply.

Once we move beyond judgment, collaboration becomes easy. Teaching becomes easy. For then we’re not concerned with motivation or mind-reading. If we’re not judging someone, then compassion is easier to find. If we’re teaching someone the skills they need to do better, we’re also learning from them, too.

Morality is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Morality is a two-way street. Morality is a skill.

Write on.

Originally published on my blog, The Digital Firehose, Wednesday, February 15th, 2017.