Weird detention policy

[bethben]

Have you ever heard of this?  In my kid’s current school, the teacher who gave the detention is supposed to facilitate the detention.  So, if a kid is horrible in class and the teacher gives them a detention, the teacher has to sit after school with the student they gave the detention to.  According to the principle, it is supposed to encourage a relationship between the teacher and student.  
 

What I think happens in reality is that the teacher doesn’t want to be punished also or stay later and just doesn’t give the deserved detention.  My daughter deserved quite a few by her own admissions.  The principle chalks it up to “a teacher not buying into the school philosophy” if they don’t give the deserved detention.  And some kids are clearly out of control with nothing being done to discipline them.  I’m just wondering if anyone has ever heard of this.

[Paige]

Never heard of it. Sounds ridiculous. 

[LJPPKGFGSC]

I used to be a public school teacher.  The only thing worse than a difficult kid in class is a difficult kid in detention. Detention at my school lasted until well after our contracted working hours.  In addition, it often interfered with our other responsibilities, such as after school clubs or required in-service courses.  We were responsible for the student every second from the end of school until they were called for the activity bus.  That meant that we were not allowed to take a phone call, go the the copy room, meet with another teacher, or even go to the bathroom.  

I did not assign after-school detention, it was so much work and it rarely corrected the problem anyway.

[ieta_cassiopeia]

That, to me, is a strange policy. Teachers, in my experience, are responsible for organising the detention, but it's simply not possible for them to supervise all detentions. A system where a teacher volunteers to take students issued with detention that another teacher can't sit detention with can work well in certain situations. (In others, finding alternative methods of discipline is more helpful).

 

I can see the merit in trying to use detention to improve a student-teacher relationship, though I cannot think of a single time where that happened (and at least one case where part of the solution to a poor student-teacher relationship was to stop giving out detentions to a particular student).

[SKL]

100 years ago when I went to school, detention was with the teacher who assigned it.

My kids' K-8 assigns detention duty to various teachers without regard to who is serving detention.  So the monitor could be the person who assigned the detention, but usually is not.

I am not sure why you say your daughter deserved more detentions than she got.  Maybe the school or teacher just has a different idea of what is acceptable than you have, or a different view of how much detention helps. 

I know I never would have gotten away with some of the things my kids did, but that does not mean more detention would make my kids better people.  It could mean my teachers back then were a bit ridiculous.  🙂  Though even then, only some of them really punished vs. guided kids through better choices.  The teachers who earned true respect tended to be the ones who didn't punish / overreact / discipline arbitrarily.

[Janeway]

The principal is lazy and refusing to take any responsibility for his/her job or the students. 

[bethben]

During one class while the teacher was teaching, a kid was taunting my daughter (while the teacher was teaching...did I mention that?  Let’s just say his classroom management was horrible).  She stood up and hit him.   Nothing—I found out from my daughter who is super honest.  No note home, no discipline for either child.  We have brought this among other things with the principle to have her smile and nod and just explain their policy.

[SKL]

Hmm, I don't think I would have punished your daughter either for standing up for herself.  As for the other child, maybe the teacher didn't have enough evidence / didn't see the taunting, or maybe she did discipline him and you just aren't privy to that info.  (Or maybe the teacher really is bad at classroom management.)

There were a couple times in 1st grade when my kid allegedly retaliated physically, but I only heard about it verbally / informally, too long after for me to do anything about it.  I did wonder why, but I guess it does make sense for the teacher to try to deal with minor stuff directly first, and then address it with parents if that isn't enough.  There were no further incidents until 4th grade (IIRC) when a much bigger boy twisted my kid's arm, and she told him that if he touched her again, she would "be forced to retaliate."  The teacher did inform me of the arm twisting, and I informed the teacher that my kid had my blessing if she hurt him back next time.  He didn't try it again though.  Guess my kid sounded like she meant business.  😛

[TomK]

On 6/27/2020 at 8:07 PM, bethben said:

Have you ever heard of this?  In my kid’s current school, the teacher who gave the detention is supposed to facilitate the detention.  So, if a kid is horrible in class and the teacher gives them a detention, the teacher has to sit after school with the student they gave the detention to.  According to the principle, it is supposed to encourage a relationship between the teacher and student.  
 

What I think happens in reality is that the teacher doesn’t want to be punished also or stay later and just doesn’t give the deserved detention.  My daughter deserved quite a few by her own admissions.  The principle chalks it up to “a teacher not buying into the school philosophy” if they don’t give the deserved detention.  And some kids are clearly out of control with nothing being done to discipline them.  I’m just wondering if anyone has ever heard of this.

Sounds like the principle has never heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

[kiwik]

It sounds like it would make the teacher think before acting.  Easy to hand out detentions when they are someone else's problem.