To think whole class detentions are lazy teaching practice?

[Helpmestartagain]

Four kids kept talking in class, were told to stop and didn't so teacher gave whole class lunchtime detention. They are 13.
29 kids who did nothing now have to miss their lunchtime clubs /miss time with their friends. I know this is true.
I'm not going to complain (yet I might of it keeps happening) but aibu to think this is a lazy way to disciplen a class.

I think it’s incredibly effective because the rest of the class will pressure the naughty and disruptive children to stop being naughty and disruptive.

Are children that weak willed to behave like that? When I was at school an unfair group detention just made us realize the teacher was an arsehole and banded us together against them.

Teaching is a bloody hard job, but unfortunately that means that lots of crap teachers get in because no one else is willing to do it. Smaller class sizes and better facilities (so teachers can engage students) would solve the problems but no one is willing to pay more.

My Dd has this all the time in year 6.
Small class , few disruptive kids , whole class constantly sanctioned.
There were about 6-7 kids who never miss behaved, and still got sanctioned.
It never mad the blind bit of difference to the disruptive few bit really upset the others.
Peer pressure doesn't always work and it is lazy.

I never saw any badly behaved child be influenced to behave better. Its like the bollocks of sitting a badly behaved child next to a well behaved one.

Teachers- you must resist peer pressure because feeling pressured to have sex or take drugs or drink alcohol is bad. Dont do it..dont let people pressure you into it.dont let peer pressure make you do anything you dont feel.comfortable doing.

Also teachers- if I sit you here or keep you all after class it will pressure/influence the other kids into behaving

It didnt work 35 years ago when i was at school, it doesnt work now

Good luck trying to explain to any autistic kids in the class that they should be punished for something they didn’t do. My DD and I would have had a meltdown. It would have been completely unacceptable to our rigid sense of right and wrong and fairness.
What would the teacher have done if the innocent kids had simply refused the detention and walked out?

@MollyD88 @AliciaQuays like Tonnerre said it's a typo, it should say 'if.' How could it have been grammatically correct to say 'yet I might HAVE it keeps happening'
It's poor form to incorrectly correct a person's grammar.

I disagree - I think it’s incredibly effective because the rest of the class will pressure the naughty and disruptive children to stop being naughty and disruptive.

What a naive view point. From my experience, the disruptive ones don't give a shit what others think of them.

@MollyD88 sorry I hadn't rtft (can be disciplined for that!) before I replied, sorry to hear that, puts class detentions into perspective

45Lweji I like that I've saved your post

You get lazy, ineffectual people who aren’t good at their job in every walk of life and teachers aren’t immune from this.

This is so true. From what I remember of all class detentions, it was indeed the lazy/ineffectual teachers who did it. We were all in the same classes (based on form) for the first 2 years as there was no setting/streaming, so each teacher had exactly the same group of pupils. Some teachers had major problems with discipline, and used all class detentions which never worked. Other teachers didn't need to - they dealt with disruption etc properly or in most cases just didn't let it escalate in the first place. Same class, different teachers - pretty obvious where the problem was for the few teachers who did all class detentions isn't it? (And yes, there were usually the same teachers who just "preached" at the class rather than engaged with them, the same teachers who barely ever bothered to mark homework etc).

I'm certain it's true as even the four kids that were misbehaving admitted that it was only them and the rest of the class were silent.
I appreciate you all taking time to reply.

even the four kids that were misbehaving admitted that it was only them and the rest of the class were silent.

I really can't see why any teacher would keep in the other pupils if this was the case. You seem sure of what happened, but it makes no sense.

At my dc's school, teachers aren't allowed to give whole class detentions. When one (hopeless) teacher did give one, the kids complained to a senior member of staff, who cancelled the detention. I'm a teacher and tbh I rarely side with the kids in threads about behaviour management, but whole class punishments really aren't on.

What is your link to these four children?

This scenario is totally ridiculous. There's no way you actually know what happened.

@Userzzzzz - I had this too, being punished and feeling miserable (and threatened) for being good by being seated next to someone whose bad behaviour disrupted the rest of the class. On which planet does this work, needless to say my good behaviour didn't change anything.

@Teachermaths it's an anonymous forum that is also read by people irl. Sometimes only the facts can be stated and the full details of how I know it's true have to be omitted so that I remain anonymous.

If you are a teacher of maths particularly secondary then I would be interested on your views on this, but you would need to accept that it was four children who were clearly misbehaving when the rest of the class were quiet, the AIBU question is based on the above facts. Equally your time is precious and you can choose to ignore and believe I am a fantasis, ultimately there would no way to prove either. (I think this reply proves I have too much time on my hands!)

The only time keeping the whole class back makes sense is if so many are pissing around that you can’t narrow it down ‘ah that’s soooo unfair, Bert and Beryl we’re talking too but you let them go’ and you know that Bert and Beryl probably were. I’d probably let the obvious good kids go and keep the rest.

4 obvious miscreants in a silent class is a bizarre scenario and one in which it would be easy to punish the guilty so keeping the lot back makes no sense - unless there’s some important work that needs completing?

As my own primary school teacher mum said, if one pupil misbehaves, it's an issue with the pupil, but if the whole class misbehaves (or the teacher feels they need to punish them all), then it's an issue with the teacher.
I'm not so sure.
On one level, as someone with good relationships and good classroom management, I agree. Ultimately responsibility for day to day classroom climate is the teacher's.

On another level, I've seen perfectly decent teachers be subject to calculated and deliberate attempts to bully them, victimise them and hound them out of a job. It's not unheard of for that sort of pack mentality to develop.

Equally, I think SLT have a lot to answer for if they don't support and back staff and staff have a lot to answer for if they don't follow the behaviour policy. Eg. Regardless of policy, I tend to have really good classroom management, but the second I deviate from the agreed policy I make life more difficult for colleagues with weaker classroom management. Some staff undermine their colleagues by letting things slide etc.

I’ve threatened whole class detentions many times but never actually actually carried through with it in many, many years of teaching. I just find it so unfair to the kids who have done nothing wrong. I wouldn’t have been liked to have been treated like it and I wouldn’t like my children to have to put up with it, therefore I don’t think I should treat innocent kids this way either.

It is not effective.

Group contingencies that reward the whole group for the good behaviour of one/a few struggling students are astonishingly effective.

This, on the other hand, breeds resentment, damages the relationships between peers, between students and teacher. It breeds mistrust and all punishment comes with a halo effect - the relationship with the teacher and the environment (school) is punished too.

Unfortunately teachers aren’t trained in behavioral contingencies. And most people confuse the effectiveness of their strategy with the short term reinforcement they experience doling them out.

On the other hand if it was a history lesson they’ve just had an excellent introduction to the tactics of despots

On another level, I've seen perfectly decent teachers be subject to calculated and deliberate attempts to bully them, victimise them and hound them out of a job. It's not unheard of for that sort of pack mentality to develop.

Normally, there's an issue with the teacher and how they relate to students or address discipline, from my own experience.

Some staff undermine their colleagues by letting things slide etc.

I don't agree with this either. I remember and get the same picture from DS that pupils' behaviour does depend on individual teachers. Whereas a class may be more or less unruly in general, they act differently for different teachers.

Lweji
I agree in normal circumstances. I just think that it's a bit more complicated than individual teachers in quite a lot of other situations.
When the pack mentality sets in, it's not actually about the teacher and in my experience seems to be students who think not clicking with someone's personality means they can behave in an appalling way that's vicious. I've picked up classes in the aftermath of it and honestly there was some serious nastiness and even gloating that they had got someone sacked. One child tried to start the same game with me (again someone who has good classroom management so doesn't accept rudeness in any direction) and they realised quite quickly it wasn't going to work.

Classes can, and do, act differently for different teachers, but some staff actively undermine their colleagues.
Eg Teacher A is a ",cool teacher" who has loads of banter and panders to the misbehaving kids at the expense of the good ones. Teacher B is running their classroom properly. Teacher B has to deal with the same misbehaving kids claiming "but miss/sir... So and so says... Don't be awful so and so lets us..." Before you know it Teacher B has bigger issues in the classroom and everyone else's education has suffered because teacher A puts their ego above managing behaviour.

I've given you my take on the detention above.

Either you are a parent in which case you can't be totally sure what happened. Or you are another teacher, in which case you should have spoken to your colleague. 4 talking children in an otherwise silent room is outside the norm. The only way a whole class punishment is reasonable is if the teacher really can't tell who is talking.