Derived from another thread: Essay Punishments

[ChrisnSteph]

I remember copying dictionary pages.

Same here! Ah, the good ol' days, NOT! My parents would make me write anywhere from 5 to 20 pages of whatever "I Will Not..." I happened to be in violation of. Did it suck and seem totally unfair at the time? Absolutely! But now I find myself doing the same with my 10 year old dd every now and then. She hates that more than anything, so I use it as a form of punishment every now and then. In fact I did it recently when she kept leaving her dirty clothes all over the bathroom floor. I grew tired of reminding her, so after 5 pages, college ruled, of "I Will Put My Dirty Clothes in the Hamper", she so far has remembered what she's supposed to do with them. Life sucks for kids sometimes, but like me, she'll get over it and maybe learn something from it.

 

[barkley]

o.k the public schools (in the opinion of some of the posters) should not use writing as a deterant (or punishment) for inappropriate behaviour. what do you suggest they use?

public schools get bashed for talking to the child when the incident occurs (cuz it "singles them out and may damage their self esteem or socialy label them as 'troublemakers'"), can't enforce before/after school or weekend detention ("it's a hardship on the parents to transport, should'nt neg. impact the child's participation in extracurricular activites") can't lower their grade ("their academic achievement is a separate issue from their behavioural issues"), can't penalize their recess or break time ("children need to be out in the fresh air playing during their breaks-classroom issues should be handled during classroom time").

what is the answer? if a kid is choosing to behave in a non academic manner during the portion of their day that is for academics (and often time is preventing other students from ernestly doing the work at hand) is it not reasonable for the teacher to chose an academic consequence for them to do during their free time? i mean, while a kid may not learn "in the truest academic sense" a great deal from writing a page out of the dictionary or writing sentances they will likely remember the tedious nature of the work and the fact that they were held responsible for their inappropriate choice.

 

[Sherrypooh]

wicked kid, cuz I remember writing over and over "I will not talk/whatever". No, it didn't do anything for me, but it gave the teacher a few minutes of quite in the class to cool down! I don't see the point, but again, I am not sure what the teachers have as a choice since there are so many rules of what "teachers" can't do. I have a adhd son who can be a challenge and sometimes even working with the teachers, he still doesn't get it.