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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

punishing the whole class, AIBU to make a fuss?

305 replies

georgeousgeorge · 27/09/2014 16:51

So, some bright spark in DS1's class (he's 8 / y4) decided to pour water all over the teachers chair, she sat on it. 35 boys are "in the frame" and have been shouted at by the HOY.

Unless someone confesses they all get a half hour detention.....with the view being that the HOY assumed they all knew about it and that someone is going to dob in the culprit.... However none of them seems to know who did it, my DS certainly doesn't have a clue.

This is teaching my very good DS precisely nothing, he's polite, helpful, good reports, and has never been in trouble.

However, I do support the school, it is generally good.

However for the first time I'm turning into THAT mum - AIBU to make a fuss?

OP posts:
Original poster
georgeousgeorge · 28/09/2014 10:42

I fail to see how I'm at fault for lazy punishment techniques..... but please do continue to haul me up by my bootstraps for some lazy phrasing in the early part of the thread.Hmm

Please do answer my question....

if this were you at work being made to work through lunch as someone had played a prank on the boss...

It is all very well if 35 kids were laughing at the teachers misfortune.... 100% support group punishment.

OP posts:
Original poster
georgeousgeorge · 28/09/2014 10:43

essentially, many of the kids would have known nothing about this.... The problem has been brought to the limelight because the kids were told about it...

OP posts:
UptheChimney · 28/09/2014 11:01

There's a huge difference between adults in employment and a group of 17-20 8 year old children.

For a start, if someone put a lot f water on their boss's desk chair, it'd be the start of disciplinary procedures with a huge sanction, such as the culprit losing a job. If I worked in an office like that, even if I hadn't done such a stupid bullying thing, I'd be concerned about it being a hostile atmosphere. Particularly if I were a female boss, managing an all-male team. The whole team would be culpable in those terms.

But OP, you're now twisting & turning, and contradicting yourself.

You say you support the school & the teachers, yet you start a thread, in a public online forum, suggesting that you are going to contradict the decisions of the teacher and the Head of Year made in response to a nasty disrespectful trick of the teacher, designed to humiliate her publicly.

If the worse your PFB gets in his school life is a 30 minute detention, he'll have done well.

Bettercallsaul1 · 28/09/2014 11:03

There is one teacher and a whole class of children. Sometimes, for the sake of long-term order and the children's education - they have to be dealt with en masse - as a collective unit rather than as a set of separate individuals. Obviously this should only be done as a last resort, as everyone on this thread has acknowledged that there is unfairness to some individual pupils involved.

Where a humiliating practical joke has been played on the teacher - and one which would actually have caused her actual physical discomfort and interfered with her teaching (anybody else fancy doing their job in wet clothes?) - it was necessary for the school to make an immediate punitive response. Not to have done so would have undermined the teacher's authority and dignity with the class. (There is no way that a pupil who had got off with this would not have boasted about getting one over on the teacher to the rest of the class to the detriment of the teacher's status.)

The fact that most of the class were "innocent" was reflected in the lenient nature of the punishment - half an hour's detention. But it was essential, in my view, to send out a clear and immediate message that blatant disrespect to teachers will not be tolerated by the school.

Original poster
georgeousgeorge · 28/09/2014 11:04

Yes that's right in an office it would be bullying - but you have no idea who did it so how do you start disciplinary proceedings? Against everyone who could have done it? Who gets punished in you scenario?

OP posts:
Original poster
georgeousgeorge · 28/09/2014 11:05

Also you have missed a vital point, the majority knew nothing about it....

OP posts:
SuburbanRhonda · 28/09/2014 11:07

The problem has been brought to the limelight because the kids were told about it...

No, the problem has been brought into the limelight because of the poor behaviour of one or several boys in your DS's class.

And it wasn't "lazy phrasing" - you changed your story about why you were giggling when you realised your post had backfired.

Gwenci · 28/09/2014 11:10

As a teacher I do generally dislike group punishments as it inevitably punishes children you absolutely know would never do anything like this. However, for all of you saying this is 'lazy' punishment - what exactly would you suggest? One-on-one interviews? Lie-detector tests? This was HUGELY disrespectful to the teacher and if nothing is done, and, equally as importantly, SEEN to be done by the children, where does that leave discipline in the future? I'm sure this teacher has a fairly certain short-list of likely culprits but surely to single them out for a detention on the basis that they're the naughty ones and one of them probably did it, is as unjust as punishing the whole class? The staff must do something about this and if no one comes forward either to confess, or out the culprit, what choice is there? On the rare occasions I've had to do this I've explained that I know the vast majority of my class would NEVER do something like this and I'm so sorry they've had to miss out because of the bad behaviour of a classmate. Have to say, the good children are normally very understanding.

UptheChimney · 28/09/2014 11:10

The point is, OP that this is NOT an employment situation. Your comparison was invalid.

Original poster
georgeousgeorge · 28/09/2014 11:10

It's interesting people can't be bothered to answer the question and just wasn't to bash me Hmm.

If this was workplace bullying and one of 35 male staff had done this to a boss who would you punish? Who would you discipline?

OP posts:
Smilesandpiles · 28/09/2014 11:14

It's interesting that you are still using the same irrelevant comparison to validate your argument for disrepecting staff and equpiment.

We're not bashing you - grow up. We're pointing out a side of an argument you clearly don't agree with.

clam · 28/09/2014 11:17

What Gwenci said.

aurynne · 28/09/2014 11:18

SuburbanRhonda: "aurynne I think it's somewhat disingenuous of you to compare a half-hour whole class detention with an employer docking an employee's salary for no reason (which, incidentally is illegal)."

I thought that schools were there to teach children about many things, among them about justice and how to deal with problems and disagreements. What the school is teaching these boys is that it is ok to punish everyone for the sin of one, with which I disagree.

The employer in my example was not taking money off the employees' salary "for no reason". It was doing it to punish everybody for the sins of one. Which is incidentally the same situation as the one in the OP's DC school. The fact that doing it would be illegal in an adults' world should be a clue why I don't approve it in a child's world either.

SuburbanRhonda · 28/09/2014 11:21

aurynne, please read the posts just above for an explanation as to why the comparison with what happens in the workplace is simply not valid.

Gwenci · 28/09/2014 11:22

OP - can you honestly think of a workplace where this scenario would happen? Where 35 grown adult men would be involved? Where the culprit wouldn't just own up and claim it as a joke? Where a colleague wouldn't say who it was? You were fair enough to question the original punishment (and I think lots of people have explained why it has to be that way) but your workplace comparison just doesn't work.

But ok, if you NEED an answer, in your weird adult scenario - I would call a meeting for all 35 people and say no Christmas party til someone confesses. So same - group punishment, I'll say it again, what choice is there?

Smilesandpiles · 28/09/2014 11:23

Because kids aren't adults and shouldn't be treated the same.

clam · 28/09/2014 11:25

And I'll say again, there is no WAY that a fair number of kids in that year group know exactly who did it by now, regardless of whether they knew or not at the time. Just because your ds doesn't, does not mean the rest don't.

clam · 28/09/2014 11:26

Oops, "there is no way that a fair number DON'T know who did it." Blush

vindscreenviper · 28/09/2014 11:28

You keep wanting to compare a class of 8 year olds and an office full of adults op which is pretty pointless, if you were the HOY how would you deal with the situation? I am genuinely interested in your answer because I don't think the school has an alternative other than telling the class how unkind the prank was and letting the guilty party off scot-free.

clam · 28/09/2014 11:29

You wouldn't use many other traditional kids' punishments on adults, either. No screen time in the office? Bed early? Grounding? Hmm

vindscreenviper · 28/09/2014 11:51

Sorry OP I have just noticed that you have already answered my question, you would have preferred to HOY to have a talk to the class about not being unkind/disrespectful and left it at that. Would you be so sanguine if your DS had been the target of the prank and knowing that parents like you may have been having a little giggle about his wet bum?

Original poster
georgeousgeorge · 28/09/2014 12:38

....however the bit you are ignoring that had the punishment not been set no one would have known or have been "having a giggle". This was a situation entirely created by the punishment...It wouldn't matter to me if it was the teacher or my DS.

I don't think anyone, including the person who did it would have known the teacher did in fact sit down on a wet seat if the HOY hadn't told them.... this is where i get a bit Hmm about the whole thing. It's become an issue because its been made an issue IYSWIM

OP posts:
DogCalledRudis · 28/09/2014 12:50

I don't think after a collective punishment this teacher will be respected more. Feared maybe, disliked certainly, but respected -- hardly.

In my school days the teachers who went hysterical at a childish joke just attracted more pranksters.

ThistleVille · 28/09/2014 12:59

Sorry if this has been mentioned before - but if this took place during break time, couldn't it have been any boy from the school, and not just this particular form...?

Whoopsadazy · 28/09/2014 13:09

If no-one saw whodunit then how does the teacher know it wasn't an accidental spill?

Is discipline generally an issue in the class?

Could she not have said "I will assume it was an accident, but you need to tell me. If anything similar happens in the future I will know it wasn't an accident and the whole class may be be punished"

I'm just a little concerned at a whole class punishment being meted out for something that could well have been an accident. Seems a weird stance to take.

Also, think coolas had a very good way of dealing with such things.