{"id":51086,"date":"2020-02-17T00:00:53","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T08:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=51086"},"modified":"2020-02-16T13:06:47","modified_gmt":"2020-02-16T21:06:47","slug":"rethinking-the-sanction-a-challenge-for-the-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/rethinking-the-sanction-a-challenge-for-the-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking the sanction, a challenge for the school"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

It is never by deciphering the great and beautiful principles written in gold letters on the frontispiece of schools that we understand what educating means, at a given time, for a given society.\u00a0It is rather by examining what one could call “the suburbs of educational work”, these margins which surround the transmission of knowledge, and in which we find the question of sanctions.<\/p>\n

To consider the sanction is already to think far beyond.\u00a0Behind the bonnet of old donkey, the\u00a0work<\/a>\u00a0of general interest, the lines to be copied or school exclusions draw a conception of society and a vision of the child.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0one of its latest issues<\/a>\u00a0, the\u00a0Revue Internationale d’Education<\/em>\u00a0de S\u00e8vres takes a look at the punitive practices of nine school systems, from West Africa to Russia, from North America to Japan, issue invites us to a journey to the heart of punitive practices.\u00a0A journey<\/a>\u00a0that reveals some historical constants while sketching out prospects for renewing the disciplinary policy of our educational establishments.<\/p>\n

Put an end to corporal punishment<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Hitting children has been, alas, admittedly, a universal practice.\u00a0Almost universal, because the Japan of the first centuries refused to do so.\u00a0It has in fact existed early in the country of the Rising Sun, from the VIII\u00a0th<\/sup>\u00a0century, Buddhist monks refractory to all forms of physical punishment.<\/p>\n

This exception is to be considered, when we know that the word “rod” does not appear less than fifty times in the Old Testament.\u00a0What makes say to the author of the article \u201cPunishments\u201d of the famous\u00a0dictionary Buisson<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe Old Testament is certainly of all the sacred books [\u2026] that where it is made the most mention of punishments.\u00a0”<\/p>\n

We see today how countries like Benin or Burkina Faso are\u00a0struggling to<\/a>\u00a0end these abusive practices.\u00a0Practices legally prohibited for over fifty years, but which are still very much alive, not to say omnipresent, in classrooms.<\/p>\n

The law obviously has virtues, but they should not be overestimated.\u00a0It supports changes more than it initiates them, it supports practices more than it promotes them.\u00a0We can really turn the page on educational violence only if other ways of doing things are outlined.<\/p>\n

A school without constraints, a sweet dream?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

After centuries of abuse, several radical experiences have emerged in Europe.\u00a0Recall the libertarian schools in Hamburg in the early 1920. “In the early days, written\u00a0Schmid<\/a>\u00a0, the teacher who relates this amazing experience, the teachers announced their students that no longer exist punishment or sanctions, that there would no longer be a question of prohibition or any regulation which might hinder them in the use of their full freedom \u201d.<\/p>\n

One day it was necessary to admit the failure of the experiment.\u00a0Zeidler, one of the inspirers of the project, had to admit not without sadness after a few years that<\/p>\n

\u201cWherever we let ourselves be guided by boundless confidence in the tact of children, in their strength of will, in their perseverance, in the safety of their instinct and in the tolerance of individuals to form a community [\u2026], we saw bands of undisciplined forming. \u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because to educate is to liberate, as Kant explains in his\u00a0Reflections on education<\/em>\u00a0, but one can only make free if one uses constraint.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the great problems of education is the following: how to unite the submission under a legal constraint with the faculty to use one’s freedom?\u00a0Because the constraint is necessary!\u00a0But how can I cultivate freedom under duress?\u00a0I must accustom my pupil to tolerate a constraint weighing on his freedom, and at the same time, I must lead him himself to make good use of his freedom.\u00a0Without this, everything is pure mechanism and the man deprived of education cannot use his freedom.\u00a0“<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today we have to redo Kant’s gesture, try to reconcile education and\u00a0sanction<\/a>\u00a0, show in short that the latter is not doomed to be a parenthesis in the\u00a0educational process<\/a>\u00a0but that it can, under certain conditions, become a dynamic and positive moment.\u00a0This is our challenge.<\/p>\n

The promises of \u201crestorative\u201d justice<\/strong><\/h4>\n

It is therefore not by reviving the illusory dream of a school without sanctions that we can renew the disciplinary policy of our establishments.\u00a0It is by examining the most original experiences, in particular those which try to introduce into educational institutions the principles of restorative justice.<\/p>\n

What is it exactly?\u00a0This penal conception was born in the Seventies in North America.\u00a0She addresses two criticisms of classic retributive justice:<\/p>\n