Is a child being made to face a wall an acceptable punishment for not doing homework?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Of course we don’t need stocks in school. This was a 20 minute time out, not the Spanish Inquisition. Given that your son averages an 80% failure rate for behaving I would say there is a problem that needs correcting. He’s 12. The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to fix. High 5’s for stopping his truancy (seriously). It sounds like you’re on the right track, you just disagree with what it will take to fix the problem.

Unless you have evidence that the girls get away with it then it’s a function of dealing with behavior more specific to boys. That does not make it unfair in any way. If anything, allowing boys to disrupt class is unfair to the girls.

42

Our kids will have recess taken away to work on homework. I think having to stand and face the wall is extreme. We do check homework on most nights, but one thing the kids are being taught is responsibility: so homework has slipped through the cracks in the past. I have two kids with the same teachers and I don’t get all the homework assignments at times. So the teachers email me the assignments or I get them from the school website.

They hate my punishment more: if I find they missed recess because they had to do homework, their computer time is gone for the night.

43

Yeah, and I also add: how are you getting your information that only the boys get punished? I mean, do you sit there in the room all day and watch the boys get abused or is your son reporting back to you that, “DAAAAAAD, the teacher is so MEAN, she only punishes the boysssss!”?

44

Yes, yes, back in the good ol’ days students were punished severely for even the most minor infraction, every student got straight A’s or else and we all came out better for it. I love the undertone of this thread that any questioning of a school’s punishment policy is some sort of invitation to anarchy in the classroom. If this is the best response a bunch of paid academics can come up with for students who don’t do homework then they need to be fired.

In my son’s case it did turn out that this one particular teacher was punishing only boys, for any and all infractions of arbitrary rules and in ways that more people than myself thought were not appropriate. Because of the mentality similar to the folks here, that any questioning of the school was basically being soft on crime, it took years to get anything done about that teacher. How do we know what goes on in a classroom? Long after my son was gone from 6th grade they finally got rid of her sorry ass. I guess that makes me and mine a bunch of cry-babies.

45

Completely acceptable.

During every recess when I was in elementary school there were numerous kids standing facing the side of the building. Calling this a “severe” punishment is laughable.

46

I don’t know that I would call it ‘severe’ or ‘child abuse’. I do think we expect a bit much from children.

The amount of homework children get is amazing to me. They are expected to sit still without speaking for 7 hours, then come home and sit still for still another couple of hours and do homework. That may only leave time for dinner and bath and bedtime, depending on the schedule the parents have for the child. The recess may very well be their only unstructured time.

I’m not sure that’s realistic for many kids, or that they are able to handle it. I’m not sure that the people objecting in this thread are for anarchy and against punishment so much as they want their teachers to lay off their kids a bit. If large groups of kids are not living up to expectations, maybe it’s time to stop ranting about lack of discipline and look at whether or not those expectations are realistic.

47

My son is 9. During school he talks, interacts, answers questions and works in groups on projects. He has PE, lunch and recess. He is not expected to “sit still without speaking for 7 hours.”

Where do these ideas come from. It’s like people hear a worst case scenario and assume it’
s the norm.

48

Agreed on all points.

Standing against a wall for punishment for whatever transgression, I have no problems with that whatsoever. In fact, I’ve found it very effective with my own kids, and have often (for the more egregious behaviours) added in making them stand with their nose against the wall. It’s ok to single kids out and punish them for behaviors, including not doing homework. Teachers should have a variety of tools for discipline at their disposal, and this one is perfectly fine.

49

Personally I think 6th grade is too old to be punished in school for not doing homework, you just give them a zero and move on. But I also went to a school where most kids gave a shit about their grades. If that weren’t the case then I could see the teachers having to take it into their own hands.

I have a hunch that my mom would have agreed and thought this was an excessive/stupid punishment for a 6th grader. But her reaction would have been along the lines of “I don’t like what they do if you don’t get your homework done… SO YOU MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR HOMEWORK DONE AND THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN.” My parents certainly didn’t support every little thing my teachers did and said, and I was allowed to complain at home, but their general attitude was that this is where I go to school, short of very extreme cases we all have to deal with the parts we don’t like. This would not have merited them getting involved.

50

Jenkins! I told you to have that report on my desk by 9:00 this morning! Now go out to the parking lot and stand with your nose touching the building.

51

I’ve seen a number of movies that feature students alone in the classroom with teachers. I don’t know if there were any problems, though, because I’ve never gotten more than seven minutes into one.

52

My father claims he got out of teaching because the schools wouldn’t allow capital punishment.

53

That’s why I got out too.

54

Yeah, I would have thought that the punishment for not doing your homework was a bad grade, and that’s it. But I must have always done mine because I don’t know what happened to kids who didn’t do theirs.

I do remember our second grade teacher making us stand on our desks with our hands on our heads when we got too loud. :rolleyes:

55

You know what happens when the teacher gives the kid an F. The school and parents ride their ass. The school gets on their case really good because they have to pass the no kid left behind crap. The everything is the teacher’s fault mentality has already be expressed here and I won’t debate that person. No solution they think is better has been expressed either.

56

No, you’re not a cry-baby and it’s not a black and white world. Don’t feel that anybody thinks it’s impossible for the teacher you talked about to be wrong. The subject is about the nature of the punishment. One is theoretical for discussion, the other is your real world situation for which none of us have any way of measuring.

57

When second-graders misbehave, my punishment options are very limited.

I can send them to another classroom, but this is an option to use very rarely: it’s only effective in the heat of the moment, it often entails a massive power struggle to get them to go, and it imposes on another teacher. I do it occasionally (and I accept unruly students from other classrooms, to keep my karma happy), but it’s not the best option.

I can give them silent lunch. The unruly kids have a lot of trouble staying quiet during a silent lunch, though. This is nonetheless my most common punishment.

I can give them laps at recess. I also use this one pretty frequently. The law is that they need 30 minutes of exercise, not 30 minutes of free play; if I give them the choice to walk laps by themselves or sit quietly, I’m fulfilling the law. I especially give this one to kids who are goofing around when we’re walking in line, or kids who failed to observe a silent lunch punishment properly (we have recess immediately after lunch).

I can call home. I do this one rarely also, because I want bad-behavior calls to mean something; if I do it too often, parents won’t take them seriously. (There are exceptions: if a parent needs to understand that a certain poor behavior is regular and unacceptable, I might call home every day until they get the picture).

I can refer the student to the office. Again, this is something of a nuclear option: it requires tremendous amounts of time on the part of admin whenever they get a referral, so they don’t want to see them for every minor infraction.

Having the kid stay in the room to do homework is a non-starter: I’m on duty during recess. Having them do it during lunch is similarly unworkable, since second-graders have zero time-management skills and will (I speak from experience here) either not do the homework or not eat lunch. Having them do it at recess won’t work either, since by law they need 30 minutes exercise daily.

One thing I do is a Friday “Ketchup and Relish” period, usually about 45 minutes. It’s indoor play time with good-quality supplies (Lego blocks, checkers, Connect Four, jigsaw puzzles, art supplies, etc.). You can only relish the play time if you’ve done all your homework for the week, plus a random cross-section of classwork that I announce Friday morning. If you haven’t turned everything in, you ketchup during this time, sitting at your seat working while everyone else plays. It’s a pretty powerful motivator, and I have to deal with a lot of tears from the slackers, but eventually most of them get the message and start doing their work on time.

58

Magiver, that was a well thought out response.

shiftless, is your son having trouble disciplining himself in other classes or is it only in this one teacher’s class?

I can understand your wanting your son’s discipline to be handled in private. In the last days of student paddlings, that was done in private. But because teachers must supervise all of the students, she or he must handle most discipline problems in the presence of the other students.

Most teachers would make an effort to stifle any attempts to ridicule students being disciplined. At the same time, stopping all teasing is not possible. Some teasing is a normal part of life and learning to take it good naturedly is a skill that needs to be mastered in growing up. I’m talking about teasing – not bullying. Teach him how to laugh at himself and then shrug it off. The teasing usually only gets worse the older he gets. And it will get really bad if the other kids see that it bothers him.

Become a familiar face at that school. Sit in on your child’s classes. Attend PTA meeting. Volunteer to assist the teachers. Attend parent conference days. Encourage the teachers to call if there are problems.

My parents had a very good way of handling problems when they disagreed with the school on certain issues. They talked with the high school principal privately and quietly. I never knew when they made a trip to school! I found out about it only after I had graduated and was in college. That was slick. I didn’t get a chip on my shoulder that way.

I do understand your wanting to protect your child from humiliation. What looks like nothing to most of us can sting some children deeply and for a long time. But consider that the teacher must also maintain a learning environment for all of the students. She mustn’t let any one student disrupt that good environment. It’s a tough balancing act.

59

If there are enough homework scofflaws that a schoolwide punishment to have all the affected students stand on a wall can be enacted, then a schoolwide punishment of having one teacher (or the librarian) supervise (on a rotating basis) while all the scofflaws assemble in one classroom during the recess period to work on uncompleted assignments. This is kind of a no-brainer.

The problem with this punishment is that while it does teach the lesson that failure to complete assignments carries negative consequences, it doesn’t teach the more important lesson, that homework is an important part of education and that it needs to be completed as an essential part of learning. The educational mission of the school gets lost in the desire to act punitively against these kids at a time when their learning is already compromised. It’s not cruel, but it is misguided at best and stupid at worst.

No, but he (and all kids in traditional schools) are definitely expected to sit still and follow someone else’s schedule for everything that they wish to do far more than adults. We say that the rigidity of school is meant to prepare children for the workplace, but it really is far, far more structured, even on the high school level, than any sort of work outside of the service or manufacturing sectors.

Think about your workday. If you’re the average office worker, the sequence in which you work on projects is usually up to you within discrete periods of hours or days. (e.g. A report might have to be done by Thursday, a phone call will have to be returned before noon, at 2 you’ll have a meeting.) And in most roles you are free to leave your desk periodically to visit the restroom, the vending machine, get some coffee, stretch your legs.

Instead of e-mailing or calling a colleague across the building or on another floor, you can walk down to see them to ask them a question and have a discussion about something, and if you spend a few minutes shooting the breeze about how their family is or if they’ve gone fishing lately or about the motorcycle you just bought, no one minds too horribly.

And you take breaks mid-task, to take or make phone calls, to check e-mail, to surf the SDMB. You might have music playing in your office/cubicle. You might have specialized task or ambiance lighting. You probably have something personalized in your work area, whether its pictures or desk toys or even a throw rug, designed to make it a more comfortable and enjoyable place to be. If you prefer to do your heavy reading at home? You print things out (or e-mail them or put them on your accessible-from-home network space) and deal with them as you wish in your own comfort.

Compare that to being made to ask for permission to even go and use the restroom or get a drink of water, and facing the possibility of having those requests denied, periods of enforced silent reading, whether you’re in the mood to read or have the acuity to absorb what you’re reading or not. We expect a lot (too much, IMO) in regard to time structure from children, then punish them when they don’t meet arbitrary standards of behavior in ways that no adult would ever dream of imposing on anyone outside of a prison. Silent lunch? Standing facing a wall? What exactly is learned from this?

60

Third graders here get “Funtastic Fridays” - Third grade is the transition year for being responsible for your own homework - forth is when it really starts counting against you if you don’t turn it in. I think its the same deal.

As to this punishment, perfectly appropriate as a general concept. Here the teachers get 45 minutes for lunch by contract when they aren’t on duty. The aides have lunch and recess to fit in during that 45 minutes. There isn’t staff to watch kids do homework. Also, in Minnesota not doing your homework so you could sit in the media center and do your homework in January might be a technique to stay out of the cold. Most of the year not all students see recess as a treat (my son always does, even if its freezing. My daughter would quickly work the ‘how cold is it going to be tomorrow’ angle to maximize TV time at home and no recess at school).