What is your opinion on punishing the masses to extract a confession from one individual?

[MadreInglese]

DD is in Yr 6 and her class share a cloakroom area with the Yr 5 class. Someone in Yr 5 has had their PE bag pinched and drenched in the sink on a few occasions. Apparently both classes were told yesterday that they will all miss all playtimes today and have to stay inside until the drencher 'fesses up.

I understand this may scare the culprit into owning up, but what if it doesn't? It doesn't seem right that two whole classes need to be punished for one person's actions, I'm all for strict discipline and boundaries, but this is a bit of a kneejerk reaction IMO.

What do you think?

Maybe they have exhausted all other attempts at finding the culprit. Or maybe they know who they think it is and know that they will cave in to this kind of pressure. I remember teachers at school doing it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it just makes everyone hate the teacher (and the culprit). However ... OFSTED would look very dimly on restricting children's outdoor play.

It's wrong.

Collective punishement inform the UN.

I remeber this happening to our class as a child, someone had stolen something, and as we sat there in silence I became increasingly convinced it might have been me, and maybe I should confess!

The power of suggestion.

A tricky one. I don't really believe in collective punishment but I bet you several students know who did the bag drenching. By not speaking up they are protecting the culprit. They may well bwe intimidated or bullied into keeping silent by the culprits and their mates.

Extrapolate this to the recent court case of the boys who raped and disfigured the handicapped girl. One of the reasons it took so long to get to court was the community closed ranks and refused (possibly because of intimidation) to "grass" on the culprits.

Its the same set of behaviours.

Wrong imo (and it's a method I could use at work but choose not to.

They should all stand up and say "I am Sparticus". That'll get the teacher going.

This kind of thing happened to me when I was a child, in P6 iirc.

There was a patch of grass that we were not allowed to walk on, no idea why not but that was the rule. Some of the boys were teasing me, calling me names and to get away from them I ran over the grass and some of the others followed.

The caretaker told the teacher and she wanted whoever had been walking on the grass to fess up, when noone did she lined the boys up and gave them the strap.

We girls were told that we would get the strap on Monday if she was not told who was on the grass (it happened on Friday)

I was sick with worry all weekend until my Mum got it out of me. She went into schoool on Monday morning like an avenging angel and gave the teacher a right bollocking.

The experience has stayed with me all these years, it is almost 30 years ago now.

So, the point of this ramble is that I absolutely do not agree with collective punishment. It is extremely unfair and does nothing to teach the children about right and wrong. It shows them that even if you behave well, you can still get punished.

I agree with slug. The idea is for the pupils who know to put pressure on the one who did it. The teacher will have some idea whgo did it but to pick out one person without the proof would be suicide.
It actually sounds a bit like organised bullying to me if it has happened on more than one occasion and I would bet that there is either more than one person doing it, or at the very least, that several people know about it.
This sends a message to all of them that this behaviour will not be tolerated. It also sends a message to the victim that it is being taken seriously (especially in the unlikely event the teacher does not know who it is)
It is not ideal, it might not be the fairest way, but the same sentiments apply to the victim, who,tday, has been listened to.

Hmm, some good points here, thanks.

LOL @ I'm Spartacus