Unlearning Punitive Logics

By Zaneta Vajdelova*

Collective punishment occurs when an entire group is penalised for the actions of one individual or a small number of people. The experiences of collective punishment discussed here come from my eight years attending grammar school (gymnasium) in Slovakia. The school was not particularly religious or ideologically distinctive; rather, it reflected what I experienced as a fairly typical Slovak secondary school environment. At the time, practices such as surprise tests, class-wide reprimands, and other forms of shared punishment were widely accepted across many schools. Nearly everyone I know from different educational settings recalls similar experiences of collective punishment in schools. These disciplinary methods were especially common among older, long-serving teachers and were often treated as a normal and unquestioned part of school life.

Although I am now in the second year of my BA degree, I still remember these experiences vividly. By revisiting these memories through the lens of everyday abolition, I explore the emotional and educational impact of punitive disciplinary practices and consider alternative responses grounded in accountability, understanding, and mutual respect.

Everyday abolition involves undoing the cultural norms and ways of thinking that keep us locked within punitive habits and logic. For Sarah Lamble, abolition is not only about dismantling prisons but about challenging the ordinary ways we reproduce punishment, hierarchy, and harm in our daily lives. Reflecting on my experience of collective punishment at school has helped me recognise how deeply punitive logic shaped my understanding of authority, justice, and accountability long before I encountered abolitionist thinking.

Being Collectively Punished

In my secondary school, collective punishment was especially common among the more traditional teachers who had been teaching for many years. If one student interrupted the lesson or failed to answer a question, many of the older teachers would abruptly announce an unannounced test for the entire class. We were told to clear our desks and prepare to write. Our grades would suffer collectively, regardless of who had misbehaved. At times, it seemed the teacher’s frustration did not even originate from our class but was anger carried over from a previous lesson that was redirected at us. This happened frequently enough that it became normal.

At the time, I felt both anger and helplessness. I was angry at the teacher for punishing everyone and, at times, resentful toward the student who had triggered the response. Yet more than anger, what stayed with me was anxiety. I became hyper-aware of the teacher’s mood, constantly scanning for signs of irritation. Learning shifted from curiosity to risk management. The goal was no longer understanding but avoiding punishment. In this sense, I began to internalise discipline, constantly monitoring my behaviour in anticipation of punishment. As Michel Foucault argues in Discipline and Punish, modern systems of power operate not through constant punishment, but by encouraging individuals to regulate themselves.

Looking back, the collective punishment did not reduce misbehaviour. The same students continued to disrupt class, perhaps because grades held little meaning for them. For those of us who cared about our performance, however, the punishment was effective in producing compliance. It created silence, but not accountability. It generated fear, not reflection. Rather than addressing the underlying causes of disruption, it displaced frustration onto an entire group. This reflects what Foucault describes as disciplinary power, where punishment is not primarily about correcting behaviour but about producing obedience and control.

More subtly, collective punishment altered relationships within the class. Some students distanced themselves from those labelled as ‘troublemakers,’ fearing association. Punishment redirected frustration sideways, encouraging peer resentment instead of mutual understanding. It divided rather than repaired. In this sense, the classroom mirrored broader punitive systems: harm was not resolved but redistributed.

Schooling Punitive Logics

Through Lamble’s framework, I now understand my experience of collective punishment as an example of a punitive logic operating in an everyday setting. Punitive logics assume that harm should be met with retribution and that authority maintains legitimacy through control. They do not ask what caused the disruption, what needs were unmet, or what accountability might look like beyond punishment. A punitive logic prioritises order over understanding.

Importantly, abolitionist thinking also requires recognising how harm circulates. Many of the teachers who relied on collective punishment openly expressed dissatisfaction with their work and personal lives. They appeared exhausted and unsupported. This does not justify their behaviour, but it complicates it. Punitive systems often produce harm, and, as Lamble argues, harmed individuals can reproduce that harm when they lack resources, care, or institutional support. The teacher’s anger did not emerge in isolation; it was shaped by structural pressures, workload, and perhaps their own experiences of discipline. However, using their authority to punish teachers did not heal their harm. Instead, they transferred it onto students.

Reflecting on this now, I see how my experience of collective punishment in school undermined notions of accountability. The student who disrupted the class was not meaningfully engaged in reflection. The teacher did not acknowledge misdirected anger. Instead, punishment became public and humiliating. After the unannounced tests, grades were sometimes read aloud in front of everyone. This public exposure intensified shame, especially for students who were already struggling. Rather than encouraging growth, it reinforced fear and embarrassment. Discipline became intertwined with humiliation. Collective punishment was thus part of a broader punitive logic that actively eroded student’s sense of what justice is by training them to respond retributively.

Imagining Abolitionist Alternatives

Everyday abolition wants us to imagine alternatives. Accountability could have involved a restorative conversation with the specific student to explore why disruption occurred. The teacher might have acknowledged frustration rather than converting it into punishment. Discipline could have been separated from humiliation. Engagement-based teaching could also have reduced many disruptions in the first place. In lessons where we were invited to actively participate in discussions, particularly conversation-based classes, misbehaviour noticeably decreased. When students are engaged rather than passively sitting and listening, boredom lessened. Participation fosters shared responsibility. In those moments, authority rested not on fear but on collaboration.

Reflecting now, I see that collective punishment restored the teacher’s authority and produced short-term quiet, but it did not cultivate responsibility or trust. It normalised hierarchy and reinforced the idea that obedience is safer than questioning.

Perhaps the most lasting impact was how I internalised this dynamic. Over time, I accepted such treatment as normal. I learned to remain silent in the face of unfairness because challenging authority felt pointless. I became more obedient, not out of respect but out of fear. Collective punishment in a classroom relies on the same punitive logics as prisons and policing: discipline through fear, authority through control, and harm managed through redistribution rather than repair. School, therefore, functioned as an early site where punitive logic became naturalised. Authority appeared unquestionable; injustice appeared inevitable.

Before encountering abolitionist perspectives, I did not recognise this conditioning. I had absorbed the belief that punishment is necessary and unavoidable. Although I have not yet been in a position to reproduce punitive practices myself, I recognise that without critical reflection I might have carried these instincts into future roles of authority. Everyday abolition, therefore, for me requires unlearning. It demands that I interrupt reflexes toward blame and control before they solidify into action.

Reflecting on my experience of collective punishment during my schooling through an abolitionist lens has changed how I understand justice. What once felt simply unfair now appears as part of a broader cultural mindset that equates authority with the right to inflict harm. I accepted injustice quietly more often than I would like to admit, believing I was powerless to change it. Practicing everyday abolition now requires me to question that assumption, to resist seeing punishment as inevitable and to imagine responses grounded in accountability, care, and repair rather than control. If abolition is to be meaningful, it must begin in places like classrooms, where punitive habits are first learned and where they can also be challenged.‍

*Zaneta Vajdelova is a …

second-year BA Criminology student at University College Cork. Her interest in prison abolition comes from both lived experience and what she has learned through her studies. Although Zaneta is still developing my understanding of these issues, she cares deeply about conversations around justice, dignity, and social change.