Let me begin by saying that in general, I have nothing but praise for teachers. Goodness knows they deserve much more money and respect than they actually get. Their job is raw-to-the-bone tough and often thankless and I, for one, have a heap of a lot of respect and admiration for them. Teaching is something I don’t think I could ever do.
Having said that, I have to now slam the detention policy that is evidently standard in my kids’ middle school because it’s really making me mad.
First of all, in case you weren’t aware, our school is basically a hub for some seven (I’m estimating) communities in the area. Most of the kids ride the bus for very long periods of time to get there, so this is not your local public school down the street. From my house, it’s about 18 miles.
School has now been in session for over three weeks and Rachel has already gotten detention twice.
I understand the need for discipline, of course. Kids have to learn that their choices have consequences, whether good or bad. If they aren’t careful about making sure they have what they’re supposed to every day, there should be a negative consequence. If, as in Rachel’s case, they forget to bring their instruments home and get absolutely none of their practice minutes done for the week, then yes, they should have a very negative consequence.
But here’s their consequence: A half hour of detention, which involves the student sitting there doing homework and/or reading. Big deal! What is this really teaching them? Not a heck of a lot, if you ask me.
Here’s the kicker: Said student misses the bus home, so guess who has to come and pick up the delinquent? You guessed it! The parents!
So, who’s really being punished here? Not the student. The only bad result I can see for the student is the parent being so ticked off that she has to come get her wayward child that she doles out an effective punishment herself at home.
The school administration needs to come up with something else. Every offense just can’t automatically be a detention. It’s hard for parents and it doesn’t teach the kids all that much. I would like to give them some ideas, but frankly, the only one I can think of right now is to have the transgressor write “I will not forget to practice my instrument,” or whatever the transgression was, 100 times. Menial? Yes. But boring enough that it might be much more effective than having to stay and do homework for a half hour.
Best of all, it would have no effect on parents, and isn’t the point of middle/high school to help kids become responsible and independent adults?
Any thoughts or ideas on effective discipline measures for middle-school kids that don’t involve parents suffering too? Help would be greatly appreciated!
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Do they still have recess in middle school? The two middle schools I was in made you skip recess. The better of the two schools made you do homework during your in-recess detention. The worse of the two made you sit there and do nothing.
Either one is better than making the parents go out of their way, which isn’t always realistic.
Yes–the definitely need to rethink what they are doing. It may have worked in the past when kids only traveled 10 or so miles home, but now that they have 9 towns (I counted on the new sign), detention should only be used in extreme situations. I am thinking discipline problems–not being absent minded.
Oh my gosh! As a parent who works all day, I can’t imagine having to deal with that. Is that teacher going to make up the difference in pay I loose by leaving work early to pick up the child? I would have to write the school note telling them that at MY direction my child would not be attending detention after school and they would have to take their pound of flesh some other way. School’s have to realize that at any given point 50% of there students have working parents, especially by middle school.
I think you idea of writing *by hand* 100 or more sentences is great. The child would have to do it on their own time, at home, therefore missing friend/phone/tv time.
AMEN! – yes, the fact that this has happened 2x in a short period shows that it has had little effect on the child, but havoc on your weekly fuel budget!!! detention for forgetting an instrument – in a regional school, crazy!!! detention used to be for true “offenses”!
I think detention used to be to address more serious or more egregious behaviors. Now it’s used for things like forgetting an instrument, etc when a demerit or the like would probably be more effective in the long run. And speaking of long runs – 18 miles to pick up a child from school…the administration surely realizes that families live this far from campus.
I’d encourage you to send this to your local or state paper – or a parenting mag – in a hurry. Lots of parents can relate. It’s a much bigger issue.
Excellent post.
That’s okay, at one of the high schools that I attended, you had detention every time you were tardy. Oh, and one time, they canceled detention, but we had no way of calling our parents to let them know, unless we used our own cell phone. Of course, it’s against the rules to have those at school anyway, isn’t it?
That same school made my mom leave work so that she could pick up my student ID from home and bring it to me–the first and only time I forgot it–so that I wouldn’t get suspended… for five days. My friend who got caught with cigarettes at school? Well, he handed them over without having to be searched, so they only gave him 3 days suspension.
They don’t have recess at this school, no. They have a bit of free time after lunch, but most of the girls are slow eaters and spend the majority of the time eating and gabbing.
That would be a great idea though. Too bad it doesn’t work here.
Exactly! 9 towns, wow. I knew it was a lot!
Yeah, no kidding, Christina. I don’t work outside the home, but I *do* work and it sucks to have to go pick up a kid who should be arriving home with her siblings on the school bus.
They need to come up with something else. Right now, a detention is given for ANY misdeed, no matter how trivial or serious.
My one daughter, not the one who has been put in detention, is getting seriously stressed out with this whole middle school thing. It’s quite disturbing.
Yes, you’re right, Stephanie. Detention was for REALLY bad stuff when I was a kid. Only the worst-behaved kids received detention.
Yesterday though, evidently somewhere around 10 6th graders (out of 31) had to stay after school, mostly because they didn’t bring back their science fair project sheets with parent signatures. Sheesh!
Good call, Meredith. This could make an excellent story. Evidently many parents can relate, going by my Facebook comments as well.
Wow, Julie, that’s awful. These punishments seem awfully extreme. I understand teaching kids responsibility, but there needs to be some flexibility, for pete’s sake!