In my previous post I wrote about a the school sending an entire Sixth Form home. As soon as I posted that, Martha sent me a link to another article that seems to show that mass punishments are en vogue these days:
Head suspends 74 over computer game
A headmaster with a “zero-tolerance policy” for rule-breaking has suspended 74 children for a day after they downloaded a computer game. David Hampson, 57, who has been head of the 2,050-pupil Tollbar Business and Enterprise College in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, for 18 years, began the purge after a pupil installed the game on the school system. By the time it was detected by monitoring systems, dozens of children had copied it. The school was praised this year by Ofsted as “outstanding”. Mr Hampson, who has banned mobile phones, said that strong discipline was a critical factor.
– The Times, 14 May 2008
Very nice of the Headmaster to give the 74 people who now have the game some time off so that they can play it. I bet, they feel so chastened now…
Suspensions for students certainly does lack value as a punishment. I think a more fitting punishment might be something like this;
The 74 miscreants are gathered in the dining hall and assigned the following line to be written 500 times; I will never again download any unauthorized programs, files, games or images to any school or public computer. As the students are writing their lines, each would be called up at random to receive 10 strokes of the paddle. Anyone who has not completed the lines before the delivery of the final paddling will receive and additional 10 strokes as a parting gift. But then I am a bit old fashioned.
And, oh yes, The comely young teacher who mistaking allowed this breach of school policy in her class will be receiving special attention in her administrators office with the very same paddle later in the day.
LOL very nice, Brennus!
Given what happened to Haron when I arrived home early from work the other day to find that “she’d been sent home from school and suspended for a day”, I suspect that the chastening for at least some of the 74 might have happened later that evening…
Suspension rather depends on you’re parents, I guess, I My freind got suspended and her mother used the day to take her shopping in London. However I expect that some parents might not be quite so lenient…
Tough going to whack all 74 in one sitting I guess – but I can’t help feeling it would be a more effective deterrent, given Mr Hampson’s penchant for “strong discipline” 😉 More effective than a day’s shopping in London anyway – that’s outrageous!
I have (obviously) never been suspended. But I always thought it was kinda unfair that if you did something a little bit wrong you had to stay behind in detention, but if you did something way wrong you got to go home.
I think it’s particularly unfair that if you skip school your punishment is not being allowed to go to school, where’s the justise there?
It never made sense to me. Aren’t you just rewarding the very action that you’re supposed to be discouraging? I don’t want to go to school today so I’ll skip and I’m sure to get caught so I won’t have to go tomorrow? Not quite the line of thinking that headmasters ought to be encouraging.
I guess the formulae are:
cane = pain
suspension = shame
shame > pain
therefore:
suspension > cane.
Problem is, if cane = pain + shame, then the logic is somehow undermined, as it is if one believes that pain > shame !!
(Spot who did maths at Uni!)
I suppose the one bright spot about detention over suspension was that my parents never found out about any of the times I got detention. (Who says American youth can’t walk three miles home after school if they’re suitably motivated?) Parents had to be informed about a suspension, and I did find that to be a suitable deterrent!
Still, I take Smudge’s point. The rule that never made sense to me was that there was a stronger penalty for skipping school than for disrupting class. Surely out of respect for all the good students who want to pay attention in their lessons [stop choking, Evie & Smudge 😉 ] , it would be better to let those disruptive few go elsewhere?
Abel… Slight issue with your maths, Suspension = Shame. At my school it’s regarded as an achievement!
In order to counter several of the points above, some school officials have instituted in-school suspension, during which the offending student must spend the entire day in the library or study hall doing their work, with a teacher coming by frequently to make sure the work is progressing and to give tutoring help. Even lunch is spent by themselves.
One can imagine customizing the all-day attention for maximum effect.
Ah, Evie, now I understand the achievement that led to your appointment as a prefect!
Indiana, I am way offended! I do so pay attention in class! Evie on the other hand…
Alright then Smudge- Evie gets a good caning for her “achievement” and you get a caning for tattling on Evie.
Hey! That’s so totally unfair, I’ve never been suspended! (I know how to talk my way out of things…) Smudge on the other hand…. 😀