There’s a myth that if teaching leaders don’t create consequences for misbehavior, misbehavior will become pervasive.
There are plenty of consequences without you adding more:
If students are regularly late, their performance will suffer.
If students don’t complete homework, their advancement will be undermined.
If students don’t remember necessary items (music, concert attire, pencil), they will single themselves out as unprepared.
If students regularly treat their peers unkindly, they will eventually be marginalized from the group.
Now, sometimes we want to accelerate the impact of behavior we don’t want to continue, so we create immediate consequences rather than wait for the actual consequences to kick in. Other times, we deem that the best lesson to be taught requires some sort of appropriate demerit.
But all in all, when we are on the same page in terms of goals, and we address how our behavior affects our achievement of those goals, we need no further consequence. Things take care of themselves.
My students want to do well, and so they’re rarely late. They want to be prepared, so they rarely forget important items. They want to succeed, so they practice on their own.
I think that shared goals and human connection will take you much further than any consequences.