How strict should teachers be with students?
»Most of my students do not do their homework to the extent and scope that is required. Should I completely take away what little interest they have in learning by punishing them severely for their omissions (detentions, reprimands, etc.), or is it better to let their refusal to work go unpunished, at the risk of underpreparing them for it the meritocracy after graduation?” Oliver G., via email
From your question I can hear that you are quite frustrated that your students are not cooperating. You can understand that. However, I believe that you have more room for maneuver than you outline here. Between severe punishment and resignation lies everything for which you probably became a teacher at the time. A huge field full of opportunities to reach, motivate, inspire and interest your students. Before punishing severely, one could try to exhaust all the other means available to teachers that are less hurled down on students. Wouldn’t it be conceivable to ask about the homework in class – announced, or at least expected, and with consistent grading? Not as a punishment, but as part of an agreement that also includes the students doing something at home?
But of course it is incredibly easy to give you advice from the outside, in practice you have certainly tried something similar and rejected it for reasons that you could plausibly explain. And students are not a conformist mass, but completely different personalities in one of the most sensitive phases of their lives. But one more thought: We cannot know whether society will continue to be as performance-oriented in the future as it has been up to now. There are indications that this will not be the case. In any case, for younger generations, work no longer seems to be the most important thing in life, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I would therefore advocate not punishing too harshly, but taking students seriously by showing them that what they do or don’t do has consequences. You just have to clarify the rules of the game beforehand.
