Punishment

[catwood1]

What is a good form of punishment other than physical exercise? What punishments do other coaches use? Specifically in a context of a team.

I grew up (fencing wise) on a team where physical excerisize was the primary means of punishment. We behave badly, we run (and run, and run). I was always fine with this. It was never done in excess, and was quite effective when in deterring poor behavior.

Say a team has 50 fencers, 20 behave badly, 20 behave moderately, and 10 behave well. They all perform physical exercise to the extent that they aren't having fun. Not to the point of them throwing up, but to the point they are NOT having a good time.

At least for the time after this happens, actions by the fencers involved get better. The first time, it will last a few days, or a few weeks, whatever, then it gets worse. When it gets worse, the person in charge does the same thing. After 2 or 3 cycles, the people tend to realize that when they misbehave, punishment ensues, and the decay rate of behavior decreases, and the periods of good behavior increase.

The 20 that behave badly say "That sucks, I don't want to do that again, I'll cool it a little bit." The 20 that were moderate say "That sucked, I'm going to behave well so that doesn't happen again." The 10 that were good say "That sucked, I'm going to make sure that other people aren't behaving badly, so I don't have to do that again.


What other means of punishment are used?

[HookUpandFence]

Well, they are there to fence, eh? Sit them out. Don't let them do anything.

If there are a few that are real bad, I like sentences. You know, like they are "suspended" until they turn in 1000 lines of:
I am a fencer and an athlete and I am here to become a better fencer, athlete and team member by contributing my talents as I learn from others to become a champion.

Or whatever. When I was in the Texas Boys Choir, I had to write sentences once for being disruptive. I never did it again.

[Jason]

You are framing the issue entirely incorrectly and, therefore, will probably choose a losing strategy.

First: You're not looking at the problem. Why are these kids "behaving badly" and what exactly constitutes adequate behavior and why? It's way the hell easier to say, "These kids aren't allowing me to control them to the extent that I'd like; I'd better use some kind of punishment to increase my power," than to actually assess and address the problem, but it's not nearly as effective.

Are the kids bored? Is there enough structure? Has the coach given them reason to not respect him? Are the coach's expectations unnecessary or unrealistic? These are some of the potential problems. The "misbehavior" is a symptom.

Second: What can you do to address the problem? Even if punishments were an actual solution for misbehavior (and they're generally not--and I can guarantee you that if you have 20 out of 50 kids misbehaving, your punishments will be useless), the actual problem would still be left unresolved. Direct your attention toward the problem.

Third: If you're at all serious about coaching and education you should read some books by Alfie Kohn. In this case, Beyond Discipline comes to mind, but he has a couple of excellent books that address this (and other) educational issues. (I would probably recommend starting with Punished by Rewards as it is fairly accessible and neatly presents many of the same arguments.)

[magic_moose]

The 10 that were good say "That sucked, I'm going to make sure that other people aren't behaving badly, so I don't have to do that again.

As a kid, I would have been in this group, but had a very different response than you are imagining.

My reaction to this sort of thing was "This person has no clue as to how to punish bad behavior without punishing good behavior as well. Therefore, he is not only unfair but probably clueless about a lot of other things. He is doing a lousy job of earning my respect for his abilities as a leader and a teacher."

If I had even come close to thinking "That sucked, I'm going to make sure that other people aren't behaving badly, so I don't have to do that again.", it would have come out more like, "The teacher's/coach's job is to manage a class and to teach, mine is to pay attention and learn. I wonder why he can't do his job so I can do mine?".

I never have been very good at responding as authority expected me to

I have always thought the whole "group punishment" concept was doomed to failure. It generally doesn't deter the bad kids very well and it loses you the good ones.

[darius]

I have always thought the whole "group punishment" concept was doomed to failure. It generally doesn't deter the bad kids very well and it loses you the good ones.

Depends on what it's for, and how it's justified. There are two things that we do (that come to mind):

If anybody lets a strip bungee go, it's 50 pushups for everybody in the gym (excluding coaches). It was happening too often in a specific class, where we take pride in a team environment ... teens will put a remarkable amount of pressure on each other, especially in a competitive environment, so why not harness that, especially when it's a safety issue -- unless you want to encourage raining fluorescent light bulbs. Previously, the standard was that the offender did 100 lunges, but they'd likely not do them or slough off, and we can't waste coach time enforcing that. Besides, muscular endurance is an important quality.

When we play fencing games -- if anybody gets hit and doesn't do the appropriate action (sit down, go to the sideline, etc), the game is over for everybody. This isn't necessarily a punishment, per-say, but it keeps everybody in line with our values; the kids play a game at the end of every class, so it's not too harsh, but it definitely sends the appropriate message.

Of course, we also reward good behavior of all types -- at random intervals, of course...wouldn't want them to lose motivation.

darius

[Zilverzmurfen]

What other means of punishment are used?

We don't use any "punishment" at our club, but one good and useful punishment might be to have them clean the salle? Sweep and clean the pistes, clean showers/bathrooms, repair club weapons etc.

All things that still needs to be done by somone. ^^

[Tyldak]

The biggest punishment I met out is exclusion, i.e. getting benched. It's almost always reserved for when a kid does something unsafe, like, say, horsing around behind the my back, or doing anything with a weapon without having a mask on - that sort of thing. Usually there's a warning or two before it happens. Once the kid is benched, the class goes on, and usually at some point later in the class I will talk to the kid one-on-one, explain to him why he was benched, explain why the behavior is bad, and ask him not to do it again.

Believe it or not, this works. The kids aren't perfect but outbursts and reckless behavior is far few and in-between. Then again, we're a small club, and we kept a pretty tight student-teacher ratio, almost never getting beyond 12:1. Having a clear authority chain-of-command, and getting buy-in from the kids' parents also helps.

[Mo]

I see myself completely agreeing with Jason.
Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn was the book I relied on for parenting advice.
Kids have to own what they are doing. What does that mean?
The desire to do well with the activity must come from them. You can't put it there for them. They have to own it. It have to have value to them, fencing is something they want to do and be good at.
They should be looking at what you can do to make it work for them.
If you have 40 percent of a class misbehaving, either you are not doing the job teaching or the class is required.
Sit them out. Give them absolutely NO attention.
If they want to be in the class they know what to do.
The Momster

[Allen Evans]

Why does a "team" have 50 fencers? Are they all obliged to be there? Is this an elective class? How are these "team members" selected?

It has no bearing on advice about punishment (I think that Jason and Moose's comments say all there is to say) I'm just curious.

AE

[fdad]

Why does a "team" have 50 fencers? Are they all obliged to be there? Is this an elective class? How are these "team members" selected?

It has no bearing on advice about punishment (I think that Jason and Moose's comments say all there is to say) I'm just curious.

AE

I think its an NJ HS Team. Some are very small (9), some are very large (100+).

[jBirch]

There's a difference between punishment and consequences.

The rules are the rules. What's the penalty for ignoring them?

James.

[catwood1]

You are framing the issue entirely incorrectly and, therefore, will probably choose a losing strategy.

First: You're not looking at the problem. Why are these kids "behaving badly" and what exactly constitutes adequate behavior and why? It's way the hell easier to say, "These kids aren't allowing me to control them to the extent that I'd like; I'd better use some kind of punishment to increase my power," than to actually assess and address the problem, but it's not nearly as effective.

Are the kids bored? Is there enough structure? Has the coach given them reason to not respect him? Are the coach's expectations unnecessary or unrealistic? These are some of the potential problems. The "misbehavior" is a symptom.

Second: What can you do to address the problem? Even if punishments were an actual solution for misbehavior (and they're generally not--and I can guarantee you that if you have 20 out of 50 kids misbehaving, your punishments will be useless), the actual problem would still be left unresolved. Direct your attention toward the problem.

Fair enough. And yes, I am talking about highschool age fencers, on a highschool team. By bad behavior, its things like showing up a few minutes late to practice. Not hustling. Not trying. Talking during footwork. Leaving meets early. Hiding in the bathroom to avoid to conditioning (sigh...). Simple things like that.

I don't think the structure is to blame, because its not during downtime that they "get into trouble." It is when things should be happening and they aren't.


Magic_moose. I understand where you're coming from. That's partially the way I was in highschool. I worked hard. However, in a large group of people, it is important to have a support structure. This often takes the form of captains. But additionally, varsity/experienced fencers that make everything run smoothly.

"The teacher's/coach's job is to manage a class and to teach, mine is to pay attention and learn. I wonder why he can't do his job so I can do mine?".

Frankly, if a fencer said this, I think they are taking a bad attitude about it. While taking a class, a students job is to learn, being on a team, is far more than that. A big part of being a member of a team is teamwork, and supporting every other member of the team. The goal being working as a cohesive unit. This includes stepping in when others are misbehaving.

I've been on a decent number of assorted sports teams, and the ones that have leaders other than the coach are always the most effective.

Also, the idea of using punishment in the way that I layed out, is if its done smartly. If 1 fencer takes a water break without permission, and the entire team is running laps till the cows come home, obviously that is too far.

To put it into context, the quantity of exercise as punishment used when I was in highschool was roughly 50% above the average day of conditioning. On a normal day, we ran 1.5 - 2 miles. On a day when the coach wasn't happy with us, we probably ran 1.5 miles plus did roughly 8-10 minutes of intermittent wind sprints / other cross training.*

I think part of the reason why the good kids didn't mind it too much, is they realized it wasn't pure punishment. It was helping our fencing. It was getting us into better shape. While it sucks at the time, its an important step to success. Maybe alot of the freshman didn't think of it that way, they just saw it as punishment for not working hard, and that was ok.


*My coach was pretty creative. Combination of wheelbarrow races, and carrying each other at least kept in interesting...

[Bryn Ralph]

I disagree with the notion that "a good form of punishment" as a form of corrective activities in fencing; rather, I would agree with the concept of encouragment.

Punishment is an abrasive term. Fencing coaches can find other methods for correcting bad behaviour and/or performance.

[Jason]

Chris,
Your post suggests that you're using a lot of common faulty assumptions and misinformation as the basis of your reasoning.

I don't think I can cover what you need in a forum post. If you like, I can supply you with a pretty comprehensive reading list.

Here are a few small bits of info to get you started:

1. It is not a student's "job" to learn. It is a student's nature to learn. Your task is to facilitate and accelerate that learning. Framing learning as a "job" is frighteningly cynical and risky.

2. Running 1.5 - 2 miles at every practice is absolutely not helpful for your fencing. There is no need to force your students to do this. They surely hate it and it doesn't help them.

3. Suffering is not an important part of training. A lot of coaches have the crazy idea that the "better" training is, the more suffering it means enduring. Training should be fun. If your students aren't having fun, you're doing something wrong. I never use the word "conditioning" for any of the training I do with my students--particularly because it often has a connotation of "suffering". I do exercises and games that develop the skills and abilities my students need without forcing them to suffer. They have fun doing them. If your students are "misbehaving" during "conditioning", it may be because the exercises suck.

4. Punishments do not build team cohesiveness. Building communal bonds is human nature. You can add to that process by creating a healthy, fun environment. Eliminate obstacles to cohesiveness, don't create new ones.

5. If kids have to ask for permission to get water, you may be overly controlling. Many of your assumptions suggest that this is a possibility. An overly controlling coach will definitely have a lot of behavior problems from his students. This is a common mistake and one that is often learned from the teachers and coaches we worked with when we were children.

6. If you actually have 50 kids, I suspect one of the problems is that the teacher-student ratio is bad and/or the space you're using is too small.

Of course, as I mentioned before, you need to actually think about what the problems are so you can address them directly.

[Fencergrl]

I got this idea from f-net from another thread on the subject. With young kids I punish and reward as follows:

Yellow cards are warnings.

Red cards, they lose one point for each red card.... for every bout that evening. My thoughts on this, is if they have so much energy to talk while I'm talking (or general misbehaving) they can spend it trying to improve their fencing. The maximum number of red cards I have ever had to give out is 2. Mainly because I feel that 3 or 4 red cards would discourage a fencer rather than make them work a little harder. So I give the "evil eye" a few times before giving that 2nd red card.

I always get asked what if someone gets 5 red cards (we do 5 point bouts)? I just respond "Think about it... if someone is soooo bad that it takes a warning (or 2) and then 5 red cards, do you want someone like that fencing you? No! They're having a really bad day and I'll have a quiet talk with them long before that happens."

Black Cards.. I've never given one. Those are for complete melt downs or violent behaviour. In those situations, I pull the kid aside and talk to them. Just because I haven't given one out doesn't mean I haven't had kids have meltdowns, I just don't think it's helpful to tell some little kid he's getting a black card in the middle of it all. I talk about black cards because I think it's important that they understand what expected of them, behaviour-wise.

These cards are used as a way of both explaining the punishment system in fencing as well as letting them know what I expect from them and the consequences of not behaving.

I will often reward good behaviour with a prize and a certificate. Things like most helpful student, best footwork, best listener etc... That way the good kids get acknowledged.

For kids 12 and over... I usually will pick out the troublemakers and have them do laps around the gym. I don't do this to excess. I'm just looking to have them burn off a little energy, so they can settle down enough to get through the rest of the class.

I'll also bench kids, then talk to them (before releasing them back into the group). Picking out the main troublemaker usually shuts the problem down. I always tell the students of the consequence. Typically I give one warning to the person misbehaving then bench them if they persist.

Typically I don't have problems. Kids are more hesitant to mess with someone who's clearly in control of the group. On the other hand, I don't have groups of 50 to deal with. I would get helpers in that case.

[catwood1]

I don't have time to respond to everything, as I'm on the way out the door. But no, I don't need people to ask permission to get water. That was just the most ridiculous example I could think of. And the team I'm coaching doesn't do that kind of running, that was a team I had no control over. We do different conditioning...

I'l respond more fully later.

[LordShout]

For HS'ers I'm a big fan of group punishment, that said its not the only kind I would use.

I don't like exclusion for anything less then large safety issues, older kids, and some young kids are likely to spend the time stewing by getting more worked up, more angry and less cooperative.

For older kids in a group I would just take aside the offending members and quietly ask them if they would like to continue for the day or take some time off and chill? This to me is different then telling them go sit down for the next activity or drill but instead has them exercise choice and control over the outcome. The problem is they have to be able to actually say yes and then go home. Not hang out in the gym causing trouble, but go home. In a HS situation this might not be possible to easily do.

If its just a few people, say 3-10 out of 50+ I'm a bid fan of having them do a seperate activity, keeps them active so they don't steam themselves up in isolation and provides a way to clearly seperate and divide good behavior from bad behavior. The key is that both groups need to be doing something. The goal is not to have 40 people stand around and laugh at 10 people doing squat lunges, thats counterproductive. I'm not saying I'd never use that type of humiliation, in fact I've frequently used it in the past but I'm working with college kids, but I find it inappropriate for HS and younger.

With younger kids, say 7th-10th grade I don't like the idea of so much choice, I would lean much more towards seperate activities (squat lunges, footwork drills, stairs).

Side note: A small unobtrusive buzzer or track lap counter with a slap increment button is great way to have a kid run ten laps or do 5 sets of footwork and track their progress from across a gym. Sadly this has some small aspect of humiliation built in, everyone can see the counter, but in the right setting I would use it with HS kids.