Mass discipline....perspective as teacher and parent

[boxus]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

Since when is no beer on the beach a punishment. Do you consider the drinking and driving laws also to be a punishment?

Considering the proposed ban was due to one incident from a group of people, in which there were complaints of those people before the trouble began, yes, it is punishment.

Drinking and driving is not the same situation as drinking on the beach. Many beaches allow alcohol, it is no big deal and even beaches that do not allow it, no one really cares as no one comes by and checks. Where I use to live, alcohol was sold on the beach, did not even have to bring your own.

Drunk driving impacts other people potentially causing death or serious bodily harm; as a teacher, I do not see how you can make the connection between drinking on a beach and drunk driving. It is a fallacy argument (false analogy), one in which I would not expect from an educator.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by boxus

Considering the proposed ban was due to one incident from a group of people, in which there were complaints of those people before the trouble began, yes, it is punishment.

Drinking and driving is not the same situation as drinking on the beach. Many beaches allow alcohol, it is no big deal and even beaches that do not allow it, no one really cares as no one comes by and checks. Where I use to live, alcohol was sold on the beach, did not even have to bring your own.

Drunk driving impacts other people potentially causing death or serious bodily harm; as a teacher, I do not see how you can make the connection between drinking on a beach and drunk driving. It is a fallacy argument (false analogy), one in which I would not expect from an educator.

So does drunken behavior at the beach.

[JonasNewsch]

I'm not a teacher nor a parent, but I would like to share my experience with this.

When I was in 8th grade, I was in a Science class where so many kids acted out, and we happened to be the worst class the teacher taught that year. There were a couple times where he took away some of our lunchtime from all of us because of the folks acting up. I begged the counselor to put me into another class taught by that same teacher, but my mother happened to be a teacher at that same school, and she along with a psychologist told me that there are times where I have to deal with unfairness, so she told my counselor that I should be kept in the class. But, I kept begging my counselor, and my mother then said that I'd be grounded if I keep going to her on this topic. As a result, I wrote to the superintendent of the school district bringing up the issue to him. When my mother, my teacher, and my counselor found out about this, they were like, let's just switch me, so I won that battle.

Then, when I was in 11th grade, I got put into another class where some folks acted up. I went to high school in a different school district, and I was promised that there won't be any classes like 8th grade. I literally was at the same high school as Kobe Bryant, too. The punishments the teacher gave us weren't severe, but she said that she hasn't had a class this bad in 20 years, and it's been 6 years now since she taught us, and I'm sure she hasn't taught a class as bad as us since then. What I felt was the worst was one time, we were in the library, and the teacher was out, and the librarian ended up reprimanding us for being too loud. That same year, she also taught another class that was extremely well behaved, and therefore, I wanted to switch into that class. My counselor, unfortunately, kept telling me "no" right on the spot, and when I tried to switch into that other class myself without permission, it always backfired on me. What's worse was there was another student that started off in my class, and then, he switched into that same class I've been trying to move into. Unfortunately, unlike 8th grade, I did not succeed at switching into that other class, and I was bummed out for a while, but now I realize why I was unsuccessful at switching classes in 11th grade. It was because I never contacted the superintendent that time around. (Again, I was in a different school district.) Since contacting the superintendent 8th grade year is what caused me to successfully make the switch then, I don't know why I was dumb, and didn't contact the superintendent my 11th grade year. If I did contact him that year, the result would of probably been different.

On the bright side, history class the year after was much better.

[LauraC]

I remember a teacher keeping the whole honors history class after school for detention once until whoever did something wrong came forward or someone told the teacher who it was. I would say it was ineffective because no one came forward to confess or snitch and I and some of my other fellow classmates had no idea who committed the infraction so the hoped for peer pressure went right out the window. Plus, my mother insisted I must have done something wrong because in those days, teachers were always right. You know, I don't remember another single thing about that teacher or that class except for that incident.

[dazzleman]

I used to hate whole class punishment when I didn't do anything wrong, I really didn't mind getting individual detentions for stuff that I know I did wrong, but I hated getting punishment that I didn't earn.

[tnff]

Didn't read the whole thread, just the first few and these last pages. Here's my perspective from 40 years ago.

When I was a senior we had a principle who was pretty clueless on leadership. His approach to leadership was to edict various things, many of which made you go "huh?" (Previous principle had actually been a stronger disciplinarian, using the paddle when needed -- this was back when you could paddle -- but the kids loved and respected him because he was the firm but fair type). Anyway, the clueless one decided one day to direct who would eat with who at lunch. So three or four of the seniors protested by bussing their tables. Other than them, the rest of us had no idea this had even happened.

Well, he pulled every senior out of their classes for a session. Most of us had no idea what his screaming fit was about. His punishment was to take away the traditional senior privileges for the remainder of the year. Well, instead of being a punishment, our class wore that like a badge of honor protesting his abuse of power. Pretty much the entire student body and most of the teachers supported us the remainder of the year. In the end his group punishment cost him respect and authority throughout the school and did nothing to correct the actual discipline issues with the original few.

40 years later I still have no respect for him. What I learned is group punishments don't work -- they encourage the poor performers and discourage the honest. It is a poor technique used by poor leaders who are unable or unwilling to do what really needs to be done.