We want students to feel successful. We also need to protect them from unnecessary pain and disappointment. However, we cannot and should not protect students from all consequences. Consequences are an important part of learning. Consequences help students to see links between cause and effect. Consequences invite students to connect actions and outcomes. Consequences can help students to modify their behavior as they see and experience the effects of their choices and actions.
Yet there is considerable ambivalence related to today’s young people and consequences. Some parents seek to protect their children from any negative consequences. When students’ behavior leads them to face consequences, parents may feel they should step in and attempt to prevent the experience.
Of course, there are limits to our advice and influence over parent choices. However, there is much we can do in a learning context to help students anticipate, understand, and learn from the consequences they experience. In the meantime, it is important to be clear about what we mean by consequences, what they are and are not, and how they can play a role in learning.
First, consequences and punishment are not the same. Consequences focus on learning and responsibility. Consequences help to teach and prevent behavior. Consequences are intended to give students insight into and control over future choices. Punishment is a means to exert control and exact pain and discomfort. Punishment is indeed a consequence, but not all consequences are punishment. The most useful consequences provide information and inform future behavior. Punishment, on the other hand, is more likely to be backward-looking, focused on payment for past behavior. While punishment can be effective in stopping current behavior, useful consequences build better behavior in the long-term.
Second, consequences generally fall into two categories: natural consequences and logical consequences. Natural consequences include phenomena such as touching a hot stove and failing to dress appropriately for the weather. The discomfort experienced serves as a lesson to inform future behavior. Logical consequences involve behaviors such as violating reasonable rules, failing to complete expected tasks, and cleaning up a mess one has made. Here the consequences are connected to behavior, but they follow logically rather than naturally. In both contexts, consequences can offer lessons to be learned.
Third, consequences in schools tend to be more logical than natural. Although there are opportunities for students to experience natural consequences, the consequences students experience in school are more likely to result from failure to heed rules, expectations, and structures intended to create a safe, orderly, and productive environment.
Fourth, productive consequences create conditions that encourage learning. Consequences are not learning. Learning happens through reflection, understanding, and adjustment. History is filled with examples of consequences that did not lead to learning and resulted in repetition and even more consequences. Our challenge is to help students understand and make sense of the consequences they experience and to learn from them. We also control the conditions that lead to most consequences and can position them to maximize the probability that learning will result in. Here are five characteristics of consequences that support learning:
- Consequences are connected to the behavior. “If you do/or fail to do _____, then _____ will happen.”
- Consequences are understood. Students can explain how their behavior led to the consequence.
- Consequences follow soon after the behavior. Proximity makes it more likely that the behavior and consequence will be understood as connected.
- Consequences match the behavior. The severity of the consequence is proportional to the conduct.
- Consequences encourage behavior modification. Students have opportunities to try again, fix what they did, and apply what they learn.
In life, consequences are unavoidable. The choices we make and the actions we take matter. Sometimes the consequences we experience are positive and welcome. At other times, the consequences are disappointing and painful. Regardless, they are opportunities to learn and inform future behavior. These are important lessons to teach our students. However, we need to be certain that the consequences our students experience are learning-focused, not punishment-driven.
