punishing the whole class, AIBU to make a fuss?

[georgeousgeorge]

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?

We had a geography teacher who'd draw the most elaborate chalk maps on the board - they were masterpieces.

Bullies used to find it amusing to push people into the map, destroying part of it. He'd come in, see the chalk on the person's shoulder and mete out punishment - slipper for boys, detention for girls. If you tried to explain, he'd just shout at you.

He also used to patrol the lunch queue for unruliness. Again, bullies would shove you out of the queue when he passed and he'd send you to the back of the long line, so you faced a lonely lunch without your friends - the queue was arranged in year order.

The thing to do about the maps would have been to take the chalk-covered person aside and ask what had happened. Not that it wasn't clear from the sniggering.

The lunch queue thing could have been solved by sending the pushed-out person to their place, or to the front, and extracting the sniggerers and sending them to the back, staggered, so they didn't get to sit together.

Looking back, he was a bully and enjoyed allowing little bullies to do it for him. What a cunt.

Children aren't sophisticated and teachers are adults who should be able to outwit them or else they shouldn't be in charge of them.

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

Well it's to be hoped aurynne that by the time these 8 year old boys are in the workplace - in another 13 to 15 years - they will have learnt that such disrespectful and bullying behaviour is not appropriate.

I hope they'll have learnt that if they do such stupid and cruel things, they need to own up like honorable adult men.

And if it takes all of the class to be punished for that lesson to be learnt, then so be it.

gwenci put it briliantly.

And the fact that you're still protesting this, OP, suggests that you probably have some things to learn about respect for others as well ...

I think enough demands are made on teachers today without adding, as a compulsory requirement, the ability to "outwit" their pupils. I think they should be able to take for granted a basic level of respect and good behaviour which was entirely lacking here.

It is pointless digging up school horror stories from the past and trying to make them relevant here. Times have moved on - and rightly so - but we are now at the point where the pendulum has swung too far to the opposite side, in my opinion.

It's become an issue because its been made an issue IYSWIM

No, it's become an issue because it is an issue. A teacher cannot let such a stupid prank go unremarked or unpunished.

Swap it about OP, and imagine that your DS was the recipient of such a prank, and had to spend the rest of the day in wet trousers. And that neither his teacher nor his HoY said anything to anyone, except him, saying perhaps "These things happen, but we can't punish everyone for what one person has done."

they need to own up like honorable adult men

Bugger me, where do you live?

The last time I heard about that was in Enid Blyton books or the George Washington cherry tree story.

Context, limited context. I was answering the comment about what schools are preparing children for. One would hope that when the children in OP's DS's class (all boys so they'll grow to men, I hope!) are adults, they have a sense of ethical behaviour: 'honorable' if you like. Owning up to a stupid prank is a tough thing to do, so it takes a thoughtful person.

UptheChimney I agree, but you are talking about an adult context, and a context to which many or most adults don't adhere.

Only today I read a post from someone who's had her car scraped by someone who's probably done it, but didn't leave a note and is probably going to deny it.

That's what most adults are like. We should do the honourable thing but sometimes we don't if we can get away with it.

Of course it's nice to own up. It would be nicer not to be spiteful in the first place.

But it's duplicitous and damaging to suggest to children who've done nothing wrong that we live in some Malory Towers world and they should stick to a code that that doesn't exist in the adult world.

So if my child was facing a collective punishment, which would penalise her, while the perpetrators got off scot-free because the teacher was too lazy or un-inventive to get to the bottom of it, I would be That Mother and would be hauling my child out of detention.

limited communications at cross purposes I wasn't suggesting the children be told about being 'honorable' -- just that we should hope that by the time they're adults in employment they have learned ethical behaviour. It was part of trying to explain to the OP why comparing her DS's school's response with an employment situation was an invalid comparison.

But I agree that we all have ideals, and we don't always live up to them. But a bit at the topic of another thread you mention. I hadn't see that (and won't go looking for it).

I disagree about yours and the OP's response to a whole class detention, however. In this case something has to be done. Until the perpetrator owns up, or one of the children who saw him do it tells the teacher who did it, then they all need to learn that such behaviour is not appropriate.

Of course, the comparisons to the workplace are valid. The only material difference is that the people in the workplace scenarios are adults. The workplace comparisons are to make a point about justice. It is unjust to punish someone for something they did not do.

Hmmmm I think tiggy has a point.

Those of you supporting group punishments, would you do it with your own children? If you had forbidden them to touch your laptop without permission and came home to discover it damaged, and one of several children could have done it, would you punish them all if no one fessed up?

Yabu. It's a half an hour detention, presumably your son can do some homework during that time?

limited

"the teacher was too lazy or un-inventive"
Why do you believe this? From what I have read there is nothing to suggest that the teacher is lazy or un-inventive, it seems that the HOY is the one that has decided on the punishment.

This is fair, OP but, if you want to be 'that mum' then see if your son wants to be 'that fellow pupil' and own up/tell who it was. He'll get out of the detention for sure.

I wouldn't ever encourage my children to be 'that pupil' for a prank. There won't be a catalogue of pranks following this because a half hour detention for each would mount up and nobody is so popular that they can compel their fellow pupils to stay silent forever.

Don't be 'that mum'.

Only a very popular pupil could engender ongoing public support for a short time - certainly not the sort of child who could/would wield any kind of power over classmates as a punishment.

tiggytape

the "cat and mouse" aspect is can be problematic with any form of punishment.

scone

As other threads have been brought up, there was a thread where the parents put a group punishment together for three children as they didn't know who had done whatever act they had deemed worthy of a punishment, most posters agreed that it was suitable.

I think it is very unfair. No one should be punished for what someone else has done.

And I disagree on principle with primary age children missing playtime. We are constantly seeing in the news about childhood obesity, not enough exercise etc and yet making children sit inside is seen as acceptable? Playtime is not a privilege, it is an essential part of well being - kids spend enough time sat inside as it is, without more being added to it.

Group punishments in this context are effective in reinforcing the power of the teacher and the wrong doer.
My experience of them as a child taught me their ineffectiveness. Often an innocent child confesses to the "crime" in order to restore normality and relieve the tension. Its a tactic that would only be employed by someone whose need to wield power overrides their understanding of child psychology.

UptheChimney I think we have some common ground. It's bad of the OP to snigger about the teacher's wet bum. I'm not sure what she was thinking of. That is humiliating and should not be tolerated.

I just don't think a collective punishment is the way to go, or is even effective. I certainly don't think that shouting by the HOY is right, if that's what happened.

Another here who was bullied into owning up to something that I didn't do so that the whole class could avoid the punishment and so that the real culprit could maintain her goody two shoes image.

Whilst I do think this is a bit of a storm in a tea cup , they are 8 FGS , it seems to me the culprit wanted a reaction and by gum he got one , the sensible thing would have been a shaming and educational talk to the year group about appropriate behaviour not a screaming banshee act guaranteed to excite both the culprit and the rest of the year .

Whole class punishments are ineffective and lazy. I wouldn't let it happen to my DD, and I'd happily be 'that' parent if need be.

I remember whole class punishments from my secondary school days. I remember the teacher who became the most ineffective teacher in the school, because no-one bothered in his class - you got punished whether you did the work or not. I remember Michael F getting a kicking from his 'mates' when they missed a rugby match. But more than anything I remember Melanie L who was given a kicking by her father (and hospitalised) for getting into trouble at school - when she was probably the most well behaved (and terrified) kid in the class

I'd be 'that' parent, happily.

Only y4 should have been in the building, but yes it could be other years.

Where was the teacher.

This says to me that the teacher has left the classroom unlocked and if so it could be anyone is the whole school.