In his article, Managing your class without collective punishment, educator Matthew Ebert acknowledges that even well-meaning teachers—himself included—sometimes resort to collective punishment out of frustration or exhaustion, despite its well-documented ineffectiveness.
He frames those moments not as irredeemable failures but as crucial opportunities for modelling vulnerability, repair, and growth in front of students.
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Inviting collaboration on repairing trust after collective punishment
A practical guide for educators seeking to repair harm after using collective punishment. If you’ve used collective punishment—like taking away recess from an entire class, cancelling an activity because one student was dysregulated, or…
The central message is that educators can—and must—hold individual students accountable without punishing entire groups, especially when doing so undermines trust, equity, and emotional safety. When classroom norms are disrupted or personal patience is stretched thin, teachers are encouraged to pause, reflect, and ask key questions about whose needs are actually being unmet. Ebert urges educators to:
- Use proximity, relational connection, and quiet redirection before behaviour escalates;
- Celebrate the students who are meeting expectations through specific, values-based praise;
- Interrupt disruption by switching activities without singling out or shaming anyone;
- Avoid or walk back collective punishment by naming the mistake and changing course aloud.
Importantly, Ebert normalises the emotional difficulty of teaching, yet insists that grace must extend to students as well. Mistakes are inevitable, but the way we respond matters. A public retraction—such as saying “I was frustrated and made the wrong choice”—models integrity and humanises authority, showing students what ethical leadership looks like under pressure.
Ultimately, the piece promotes a vision of classroom leadership rooted in relationship, honesty, and the courage to keep recalibrating. When a teacher replaces control with accountability, compliance with curiosity, and punishment with repair, they foster a classroom culture where students feel safe, seen, and respected as individuals—exactly the kind of culture where learning can flourish.
End collective punishment in BC schools
No child should be punished for another’s behaviour.
Children know from a very young age that this is wrong.
We call on the BC Ministry of Education and Child Care to end collective punishment in BC Schools.
