Competitor Chris Williams (left) and umpire Clint Roberts took part in a Rock Paper Scissors Championship in 2013; a teacher used the game to teach psychological theory. Photo / Sarah Ivey
Competitor Chris Williams (left) and umpire Clint Roberts took part in a Rock Paper Scissors Championship in 2013; a teacher used the game to teach psychological theory. Photo / Sarah Ivey
A teacher faces a charge of serious misconduct after hitting a student on the head five times to demonstrate the psychology of rewards and punishments.
The teacher at an Auckland secondary school said he asked his Years 12 and 13 class in 2018 for a volunteer who was willing to accept "physical consequences" in a lesson about the psychological theory of "operant conditioning".
The teacher then stood behind the volunteer at the front of the class and asked another student to play a game of rock paper scissors with the volunteer.
But he changed the rules, without telling the volunteer. Under the new rules, the student was rewarded with a lolly every time he picked "rock", but the teacher struck him on the side of his head with an open hand if he chose "paper" or "scissors".
A video taken by another student showed the teacher hitting the volunteer on the head five times until the student learned that he had to pick rock. After that he picked rock every time and was no longer "punished".
In a separate incident in April 2019, accepted in an agreed statement of facts, the teacher told an Asian student who was eating noodles at a school camp: "You're so Asian."
"The respondent's statement made some students feel uncomfortable," the agreed statement says.
"The respondent then said that the students should not worry about it and said something to the effect of 'it's just like one African-American calling another one a n*****.' This comment also shocked students."
The Teaching Council's complaints assessment committee alleges that the camp incident was a case of "misconduct", but that the incident in which the teacher hit the student on his head was "serious misconduct".
The Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal, seen here in a 2018 hearing, has never had a case of using physical force as a deliberate teaching method. Photo / File
Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal deputy chairman Tim Mackenzie, who chaired a hearing on the case today, said the tribunal had never faced a similar case.
"There is no case like this. There are other violence cases of teachers getting angry and hitting a child or over-reacting. This is quite different," he said.
Victoria University education lecturer Dr Barrie Gordon, who was called as an expert witness, said he taught trainee teachers about the risks of physical contact with students in physical education, but had never even considered the need to teach them not to use deliberate force as a method of teaching.
Dr Barrie Gordon said he had never come across a teacher who used deliberate force as a method teaching. Photo / Supplied
"In a physical situation like this one where there is the use of a slap as part of a teaching situation - it has never occurred to me to teach students not to do that, because it has never occurred to me to even think about doing that," he said.
"I have never had a student put a lesson plan together that involved something like that. That is out of right field."
The teacher, an experienced teacher at a school that follows the Cambridge International Education (CIE) curriculum, told the tribunal that the psychological theories of Edward Thorndike and BF Skinner were "a huge component" of the course he was teaching.
"One of the things that CIE is very, very particular about is the use of appropriate terminology," he said.
"Thorndike's theory would be one of the most asked-about questions in an exam that they have. It's a very, very important topic for them to understand how that works."
He said he always tried to teach in practical ways so that the students would remember the lesson.
"If we are looking at levers, I'll bring the loading bench into the classroom. If we are teaching about energy systems, we'll do something like arm wrestling," he said.
"I am always trying to experiment with my teaching to keep it unique and enjoyable and therefore memorable, because they can recall those things."
The psychology lesson was in a small class of eight to 10 students and the teacher said that, when he asked for volunteers, he expected that the particular Year 13 student he chose would be the one to put up his hand. He had known that student well over several years and was confident that he would not be upset by the experiment.
"I also knew that he was would be a suitable person because of the strength of his personality, how well respected he was amongst the students," he said.
"I did tell him that there would be a game that we would be playing, and that there would be negative physical consequences for any mistakes that he made within the game, but there would be rewards, and it was up to him to figure out what and if that was happening."
The video showed that after several slaps on the head for wrong answers, the teacher asked the volunteer if he was okay and the volunteer assured him that he was okay before the game continued.
The volunteer himself, who is now a university student, told the tribunal that he was not harmed.
"I actually enjoyed the activity myself. It was something different, something new," he said.
"The whole purpose of it was to have a practical exercise to teach the lesson, and I thought it effectively taught me the content that we were expected to learn that day."
He said the students talked about it a lot after the class and "everyone found it funny".
"I do remember the whole lot of us all laughing about it together," he said.
