[HPFGU-OTChatter] Discipline in Schools

[Shaun Hately]

On 4 Sep 2003 at 19:47, Cindy C. wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> My fourth grader came home from school with an interesting tale 
> today.  
> 
> She started complaining about her teacher, calling her "mean."  I 
> asked what Mrs. K had done that was mean.  She said that a girl got 
> in trouble for failing to listen.  Apparently, the kids were getting 
> ready to leave for the day, and they were supposed to put their 
> chairs on their desks.  It seems that this girl moved to quickly and 
> didn't wait for the "chairs on desk" command.  
> 
> The punishment is that the girl was made to stand holding the chair 
> at chest level for about a minute.  I've never heard of this in 
> schools.  Is it a typical and recommended punishment?  I did raise 
> an eyebrow because I believe that prisoners of war are tortured by 
> requiring them to hold a heavy object to muscle failure.
> 
> Don't worry, I'm not gonna make trouble.  I like and support this 
> teacher, and a little discipline never hurt anyone.  But I was 
> wondering what is and is not permitted by way of discipline in 
> schools these days.

It really depends on where you are - I'm guessing somewhere in the US. 
That makes things *really* complicated, because in some states, the 
state has set guidelines on school discipline, whereas in others, it's 
been left up to the individual school districts, and in still others 
there are state guidelines that are left up to individual school 
districts to implement, or even to individual schools.

As 23 states of the United States still permit the use of corporal 
punishment in their schools (again - just because a state permits it, 
doesn't mean every - or even most - schools in the state use it), it 
wouldn't particularly surprise me if what you're describing was fully 
legal and permissable.

And speaking as someone who is currently training as a primary school 
teacher, it honestly doesn't sound that bad to me, depending on the 
precise circumstances - how heavy the chair was, and in what way the 
child was expected to hold it would make a huge difference. If the chair 
is fairly heavy (in terms that are appropriate to the child of course) 
and/or the child was expected to hold it in a way that could cause 
serious discomfort, that'd be a very different situation from a light 
chair (the ones I've seen in primary schools here can be wielded one 
handed as a weapon by a fourth grade child), held near the body with the 
top of the chair equal to the chest (which a 9 or 10 year old (that's 
right for US fourth grade isn't it?) should be able to handle quite 
easily without significant discomfort.)

To find out what is permitted, you'd really need to know the local level 
guidelines - if you are in the US, and you can let me know your school 
district, I may be able to find out - it's an issue I take something of 
an interest in (basically because of the connection of school discipline 
to bullying in many cases), and because of the studies I'm doing I have 
easy access to a lot of information and data and that does include local 
policies for a lot of US school districts.

Practices vary widely - there are public schools in the US where 
corporal punishment is still commonplace, there are others where 
teachers (at least theoretically) could lose their jobs for raising 
their voice at a child who'd just set a classmate on fire.
 
> Whatever the current policy is, it can't be worse than the military 
> base schools I attended for a while.  They paddled kids in front of 
> the class and taped their mouths shut during recess for talking too 
> much.  

The fact is, I support corporal punishment and often get down on my 
knees and thank God I started at one of the few schools in my state 
which had it when I was 13 (-8 Personally, I think it's sometimes 
appropriate - that doesn't mean I think it hasn't been overused a *lot* 
at various times in the past, but I think, if it's applied fairly and in 
a reasonably limited fashion, it has a place.

As for tape on the mouth - well, that was normal practice in the primary 
schools I attended in the 1980s (-8 And frankly, nobody really seemed to 
care.

> But I *outsmarted* them, see?  I pulled the edge of the tape up so I 
> could talk out of the corner of my mouth.  ;-)
> 
> Cindy -- who was forced to drink her milk with lunch as a kid 
> although she was *allergic* to it, and who remembers that we weren't 
> allowed to *talk* during lunch in the cafeteria

Heh - I was allergic to the trousers I had to wear to school from the 
time I was 13. I spent all winter, every winter, in a state of absolute 
itching agony until I was nearly 16, often covered in a bright pink 
rash. The thing was, we were only allowed to wear one specific brand of 
trousers - the school took school uniform incredibly seriously, and I 
was an incredibly respectful child who took the school rules very 
seriously. It never even occurred to me that an exception might be made 
for medical reasons - so I just suffered in silence.

When I was nearly 16, while I was changing for sport, somebody else - 
actually it was a prefect (doing his job - this is yet another example 
of what they do), noticed me scratching my legs and commented on how red 
my legs looked. I said they'd always been that way every winter (the 
shorts we wore in summer were a different material). The penny dropped 
for him, and he told me that I should see the Matron. I basically said, 
No - it wasn't that important. I'd grown used to feeling like I bathed 
in essence of poison ivy every night. He got annoyed at how stubborn I 
was, and demanded I see the Matron. I told him I didn't want to make any 
fuss and he should mind his own business.

As soon as he got back to the boarding house, he went straight to the 
Matron and told her what he had seen. And she took a fundamentally 
direct approach - she walked in on me in the shower the following 
morning when I was starkers - and exploded about how stupid I was (-8

Being lectured on how moronic you are to have put up with severe 
discomfort for two years at the age of 15 while dripping wet and stark 
naked by an enraged 40 year old woman is an interesting experience. It 
gets even more interesting when you are stupid enough to try and tell 
her that she should mind her own business as well.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia