Discipline, Mercy and Being Creative

Before I accepted my job as headmaster of Pope John Paul II High School in 2008, I had the opportunity to interview each member of the administrative team. I remember asking our Dean of Students this deceptively simple question: "Should the punishment fit the crime or the student?" "The student, " he said without hesitation. "Why?" I asked. "Because the school's job isn't to administer justice so much as it's to help kids grow up, and that means you to have to customize discipline to what best works for that child."

Exactly right! 

This means, of course, that from time to time a principal will be criticized by his or her faculty, or by other parents, or by the community at large, for how he chooses to discipline a child. He'll be labeled, charitably, "inconsistent," or less charitably, as "playing favorites" or "playing politics." But I believe that's the cost of trying to do the right thing for each child and not allowing a template or policy to dictate what the principal knows will and won't work for a kid. 

That wasn't my view of things when I first became principal. I was determined, for the sake of fairness, that I would treat each kid exactly the same. I wrote my own "handbook" for discipline, giving point values to various infractions, with certain penalties occurring at certain point totals, stair-stepping it all the way to expulsion. I tried to live by my own code early on, before tearing up the handbook and tossing it in the trash around Thanksgiving. 

Why? I became aware of family dynamics that caused certain behaviors. I learned that some teachers handled certain kids better than others. I got to know each troubled kid personally and better understood his triggers, his insecurities, when he was responding to things out of meanness or indifference, or when he was responding emotionally, almost despite himself. My "handbook" said these things didn't matter, but I knew they did. 

Shortly thereafter, I wrote an autobiographical parable:

And it so happened that a new principal, wishing to make a good impression, said "I will treat all students the same for fairness sake. " 

A few weeks later, two boys were sent to him for the same serious disciplinary incident. The principal said, "Policy dictates a three day out of school suspension for both of you." The first young man, working closely with his parents, came back to school with resolve to do better. The second young man dropped out. 

And everyone agreed the principal was fair. 

It's not a school's job to be fair, if fairness is defined as treating everyone the same. It's the school's job to be ministers of Christ and to help that young man or woman grow into the kind of person God wants him or her to be. 

Schools should be creative in finding out what "works" for a child. One Saturday morning, I had a kid meet me at the school. We drove the school bus to my house, and he had to wash and wax the bus, parked in my front drive. He hated it, but it marked the beginning of his turnaround. I've had kids do gardening, scrape gum, mop floors, run laps, be suspended from games, do community service, write letters, teach younger children, become "janitor for the week," and clean the school and adjacent neighborhoods of litter. Whatever works.  Whatever deters the bad behavior. Whatever reaches the child.

I believe Catholic schools should be very reluctant to define consequences to disciplinary infractions too specifically in its school handbook, even for the serious stuff. Better to use words like "liable for expulsion," rather than "will be expelled." That doesn't mean a school will never expel a kid--unfortunately, I may have to do that 5-6 times a year for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, expulsion is exactly the right thing to do, for the kid's sake, so that he can learn there are serious consequences for serious actions. NOT expelling may put the school in the position of an enabler of that bad behavior. 

But a school's leader, not a school handbook, should make the final call, because he knows better than a policy which penalty best fits the child.