Teacher conduct - clapping at DS

[NotUsually]

DS 13 got sent out of class today for talking to another student (friend) and not paying attention when he should have been.
He got a warning first.
He talked again to the same student a second time about 10 minutes later.
For this, he got sent out of the room to go in to isolation for the rest of the school day, followed by an hour after school detention.

As he got his stuff together and walked out of the room, the teacher started clapping at him. He said to DS "Well done you just got yourself an isolation and a detention" then clapped with his hands raised up above his head and carried on clapping at DS as he walked through the room and out of the door. Whilst the teacher was clapping, the other students joined in and started clapping too, and the teacher allowed this and carried on himself.

I've had dialogue with the school to confirm that DS was talking and to check whether he was doing anything more than this, and the teacher has confirmed that he was punished for talking when he should have been listening to the teacher, on 2 separate occasions in the lesson. Nothing more.

I accept that talking when he shouldn't have been talking and that this has received a punishment of being sent out, sent to isolation and given a 1 hour detention. But I've got a really big issue with the clapping. DS accepts he shouldn't have been talking and has aplogised about this and seems regretful for his actions. But he says the clapping from the teacher and other students whilst he walked through them all to leave the room made him feel humiliated and I've taken issue with this.

AIBU?

Me, too. As a retired teacher I am horrified. I would never do that to a child.

It’s quite unpleasant reading how many are judging this 13y boy, calling him entitled, a brat and a gobshite etc. For talking twice in a lesson and then taking the punishment quietly. I wonder how they talk about children who do much worse.

Yes this teacher makes fake gun movements at kids and loves to humiliate, yet is the poor victim in this?

My daughter is 21 and in her first professional job. She would not dream of behaving like this 24y teacher.

When I say “I’ve seen teachers do this”, I’m referring to my comment about humiliating pupils, not clapping. You’ve really never seen a teacher try to humiliate a pupil? It happens a lot. I last saw it in July.

It is like pupils are seen as the ‘enemy’. What an unhealthy attitude.

I think my kids have been lucky. They left school a couple or so years ago. They had great relationships with many teachers and shared lots of laughs as well as learning. They didn’t come across this kind of teacher, or the attitudes of some on this thread.

It seems that a lot of grown ass adults are taking their own frustrations with the education system/society/whatever pissed in their cornflakes on OP’s son (and OP)and see both of them as fair game. Doesn’t speak much for their self control , self regulation or resilience.

Yes. And they have not actually read that the OP supported the initial punishments, in their rush to berate her. Impulsive and poorly considered posting on their part.

So he was humiliated so he won,t do it again? Lesson learnt, in my day you would have had the cane ..

He shouldn't have carried on talking, it's distracting and disruptive.

But the clapping is not an appropriate thing for a teacher to do.

Speaking as an education professional…. This teacher is awful. You don’t humiliate a child. Blame and shame is a very old fashioned way to do things and not appropriate. OP says the teacher is 24. We are finding more and more that new, young teachers come to us poorly trained with little idea of pedagogical theory or practice. Sounds to me like a teacher on a power trip. OP has every right to complain. The harm this practice can do to young people isn’t justified. And again, before the mumsnet mafia jump on me, I CAN say this coz I work in this profession and deal with disruption daily.

👏👏👏👏👏

What a waste of time for the whole class. The teacher has behaved like a child. What is the point of removing a child for the whole day for something as trivial as talking twice? Remove from the lesson, yes, but isolation for the whole day is excessive and serves little purpose. Your child has missed the rest of the days lessons.

What is the point in humiliating children. Is the child allowed to humiliate the teacher? Yes the talking was not acceptable but humiliation is not the way to teach kids how to behave - they will think this is acceptable and do the same to others. This is why there are so many bullies.

@NotUsually is NOT saying her son shouldn’t have any consequences for his actions - but that those shouldn’t involve humiliation.

Surely that would depend on the child. I know if someone humiliated me I wouldn’t then want to inflict that on anyone else.

Bullying and violence leads to more bullying and violence, not less. Kids who are abused are more likely to become abusers.

Model the behaviour that you want to see has always been sound advice for those working with children. Of course, we all lose it sometimes but I do worry for children growing up in these very coercive and punitive environments and the effect it will have on their interpersonal relationships in future.

This...
The teacher went a bit OTT but it would make me never want to misbehave again!

What was the point of the isolation and the detention? Were they not enough? Why was an extra helping of humiliation required to push the message home?

Should this kind of clapping and mocking be added to the punishment repertoire then?

What would be enough for a kid talking twice in a PE lesson?

The profession would be much better off without this one. He’s clearly a total bellend. The handwringing over teacher shortages shouldn’t lead us to accept behaviour like this. He should be kicked out. I’m sure the world of teaching kids to run and jump would survive without him.

You are. Your DS has learned a valuable lesson which he would not have done had he not felt humiliated by the clapping. Lessons in behaviour are as important as lessons in academe. Would you rather the teacher gave him six of the best? 500 lines?

He misbehaved and was punished. The punishment was humiliation. He is unlikely to do it again, and probably nor will the other kids, because they know what will happen to them.

Suck it up.

Interesting. What would you do to make sure the children paid attention to the teacher and not talk among themselves?

There are so many who say the teacher is wrong, but what improvement could be put on discouraging the same happening again?

You have a class of children and you are trying to train their brains to absorb knowledge and retain it in the home that at the end of their school life they will have a good job. They will hopefully have persuaded an employer with their exam passes that they could learn.

Teachers have to do that for children, because children are the future. What pearls of wisdom would you have to ensure kids don't talk in class and disrupt the lessons?

Schools only been back for a month if you are in Scotland or a week or so if in England. Teacher is likely starting off the year by cracking down hard on nonsense.

It's not great but also crowd control is very hard and it must be so hard as a teacher when kids just won't listen, especially when others DO want to listen and they are spoiling it

This. The amount of disruptive behaviour is out of control these days, maybe the teacher was at the end of his tether and relieved one of these brats was finally leaving the room.

As a teacher, you plan a lesson, prepare the resources, have children disrupt the lessons yet you are responsible for results. You have the marking to do and the added pressure of parents who want the world and can't teach their children to behave. Instead of posting on here about the teacher, how about looking more at the behaviour of your child.

Your child will now think it's okay because my mum will have my back when I disrespect teachers as they can't do anything.

This, in a nutshell.
Poor lad, my arse.

How about simply following the school’s behaviour policy to the letter which seems to have been send out then on repetition send out for an extended period, without the added extra of whipping the whole class deliberately up into a humiliating frenzy, causing uproar himself!

There’s absolutely no evidence sending him out for an extended period wouldn’t have worked as that day was the first time he’d been sent out. And also absolutely no evidence this was a desperate teacher at the end of his tether with a particular child as some are trying to paint him; again, first time he’d been sent out.

This was a bad teacher teaching badly.

I guess some people have to humiliate to keep control, in the absence of other methods or skills to draw on, and some people think that’s ok.

It’s good to see on here that many people don’t think it’s ok, including teachers. Hopefully those who think it is ok will be the ones that come across those teachers.