Spare the Rodtraces the history of discipline in schools and its
ever increasing integration with prison and policing, ultimately arguing
for an approach to discipline that aligns with the moral community that
schools could and should be.
In Spare the Rod, historian Campbell F. Scribner and philosopher Bryan
R. Warnick investigate the history and philosophy of America's
punishment and discipline practices in schools. To delve into this
controversial subject, they first ask questions of meaning. How have
concepts of discipline and punishment in schools changed over time? What
purposes are they supposed to serve? And what can they tell us about our
assumptions about education? They then explore the justifications. Are
public school educators ever justified in punishing or disciplining
students? Are discipline and punishment necessary for students' moral
education, or do they fundamentally have no place in education at all?
If some form of punishment is justified in schools, what ethical
guidelines should be followed?
The authors argue that as schools have grown increasingly bureaucratic
over the last century, formalizing disciplinary systems and shifting
from physical punishments to forms of spatial or structural punishment
such as in-school suspension, school discipline has not only come to
resemble the operation of prisons or policing, but has grown
increasingly integrated with those institutions. These changes and
structures are responsible for the school-to-prison pipeline. They show
that these shifts disregard the unique status of schools as spaces of
moral growth and community oversight, and are incompatible with the
developmental environment of education. What we need, they argue, is an
approach to discipline and punishment that fits with the sort of moral
community that schools could and should be.
