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?

This is one of these vexed situations where there is no ideal solution - it is impossible to be "fair" to all concerned. Since the culprit is unknown, the only way that the school can administer a sanction is by applying it to everyone. This obviously affects the majority of the children who have done no wrong. So which option do we choose: giving a whole-class punishment which penalises the innocent or allow an act of gross disrespect to the teacher of thirty-odd children to go without a sanction? In my view, it is absolutely essential that the teacher's authority and dignity should be maintained by delivering a sanction, even though it is at the expense of the innocent majority. Not to do so would minimise the affront to the teacher's position with respect to the whole class.

I think that the question of finding the culprit should be separated from the sanction: there should be no pressure put on the children to find the person responsible in order to avoid everyone getting the detention. I actually think the less fuss made the better as children who do this kind of thing tend to thrive on drama. If the pranks continue for any length of time, the offending child will be discovered - kids of this age cannot cover their tracks indefinitely and the teacher will now be on the alert. But in the meantime, order in the class and the teacher's authority and dignity must be maintained by insisting on a response to bad behaviour, even though applied to everyone.

"I think if, as a parent, you're laughing at the idea of a teacher having to spend the day in wet clothes, then your son seems quite a likely candidate, tbh."

Come on - I'm not condoning it in any way, but lets not exaggerate. The weather's warm, that plus half a minute under the dryer in the Ladies will sort out the wet clothes very quickly,

its not hard to outwit a class of 8 year olds

Exactly Coolas! Which is why so far we've never had a situation where we've had to punish a whole class

You don't go to school to learn that Shit Happens and Life's Unfair.

True, it's not in the National Curriculum. Just try to think of it as a free gift

I think it's an acceptable punishment. And not that severe really. As some of the boys must know who the culprit is.

The weather's warm, that plus half a minute under the dryer in the Ladies will sort out the wet clothes very quickly

WTF?

Just a thought. If a child had done this to the OP's child's seat, would she want to school to try and investigate it? Or would it be mildly funny for her child to spend the day in wet clothes?

Icimoi
"Come on - I'm not condoning it in any way, but lets not exaggerate. The weather's warm, that plus half a minute under the dryer in the Ladies will sort out the wet clothes very quickly."

So its ok to end up in wet clothes for up to two hours and then go dry them off. FFS.

Would posters accept this if it was their child? In fact this "children don't go to school to learn life is unfair" bit that is currently being posted would you accept that no child should get a sanction if it happened to your child?

I suspect that if your DC ended up in wet clothes for any length of time and no one was sanctioned you would still be up for the teachers blood.

I still wouldn't want the whole class punished for the actions of one, thobbly. Not if it were my child, nor if it were me.

Be ok if it was someone else's kid, though?

I'm not sure that I said that I would either.

it is absolutely essential that the teacher's authority and dignity should be maintained by delivering a sanction, even though it is at the expense of the innocent majority. Not to do so would minimise the affront to the teacher's position with respect to the whole class.

I think this is wrong because the innocent majority lose respect for teachers who administer whole class punishments. The teachers who use this technique are quickly seen as weak and ineffectual.

In this situation the teacher could have taken this opportunity to explain how practical jokes which result in another person's discomfiture arent funny and are just upsetting. It could easily go into a short talk about bullying.

Punishing the innocent is wrong. That's the principle I would like my children taught.

I'd hazard a guess that they wouldn't be sad to see you go, pastor.

"I'd hope the school would make more effort to identify her than using lazy, outdated, proven to be shit methods"

This is quite amusing coming from someone in the legal profession.

No-one's saying communal punishment is perfect - far from it, but sometimes it is the best option in an imperfect world. It is certainly not "lazy" anything - it is a way of ensuring that disrespectful behaviour towards the class teacher is treated as a serious matter, and is generally only resorted to in extremis when it is impossible to, discover the individual culprit and punish him/her. Not to do anything apart from delivering a lecture is not sufficient to mark the affront to a teacher's dignity and authority that this sort of behaviour represents.

This sort of punishment does nothing to maintain authority, quite the opposite.

At my school certain kids did as they pleased because they knew they'd never get singled out for punishment, and the good kids ended up disaffected. Everyone without exception had no regard for the teachers authority.

I think the idea of this kind of punishment is the good are meant to turn on the bad, and compel them to improve their behaviour. Never happened in my experience, if anything general standards of behaviour got worse!

Just a thought but was it pee on the chair? Y4s pouring a glass of water takes quite a lot of preparedness (getting cup, going to tap, filling cup, balancing then emptying - someone would have noticed) whilst peeing on a chair would present quite an infantile challenge - & perhaps no one noticing?!?

Yanbu. Maybe mention it to ofsted, apparently they aren't fans of collective punishment. Imo it would only breed resentment towards the teacher anyway and its totally unethical.

Would you be happy if disciplinary procedures at work were applied collectively?