Punishing the whole class for the actions of one student

[Elfgore]

It turns the class against each other, makes disobeyance something everyone looks out for, tones down.
Creates anxiety. Stressful environment.

I don't know if this is the right or the wrong way, don't know a better method. It works.

No it doesn't. It turns a class hostile to the teacher. Creates an environment of total hostility towards a teacher, where their only allies are maybe one or two teachers pets. The rest of the class on the other hand gets closer to starting a riot at the drop of a hat.

Also for all those who said that this teaches the lesson "life isn't fair." No it really doesn't. It teaches the lesson of "fuck anybody in a position of authority." Because arbitrary punishments don't breed thoughtfulness they breed resentment.

Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding!!!! We've got a winner ladies and gents.

My manager at my last job tried something like this when two people called off in two weeks. Instead of us turning against each other or learning that life isn't fair, we just got even more pissed off at her than we already were. This method is lazy and does nothing for morale or teaching people a lesson. It just makes me not give a shit.

 

[dragonswarrior]

Add another one to the "it's stupid" part of the thread. As a teacher myself, it does nothing. Absolutely nothing. It makes it harder to teach in the long term, because now all the kids justifiably think you're an ass. The disgruntlement factor doesn't work at all; if the perpetrators had friends in the class they won't lose them over something like this, and if they didn't have friends then they don't care what the rest of the class thinks anyways since they're already feeling lonely and ostracized.

And any method of discipline that tries to alienate a student from their peers is horrid and counter productive to a child's social and emotional development.

As others have stated, school=/=boot camp.

Finally, about the whole "life isn't fair" thing. Fuck that. That's the excuse of the lazy and the incompetent. Yea, life isn't fair. So shouldn't we do our best, at every opportunity, to make it as fair as possible? If you're a good teacher, there will be plenty of situations where your children will have to learn how to cope with disappointment that do NOT involve you creating artificially unfair situations.

 

[Joccaren]

The theory behind it is that it discourages people from doing those things again. If you're the guy that got everyone into a classroom detention over lunch, you're not going to be liked, and thus peer pressure will be on you to not do it again. Its less about being sure that you punish the wrongdoer, and more about getting people to stop wrongdoing. You also can't just let it pass. I had a teacher who did that. It just resulted in the same one or two kids being absolute fuck ups for their entire school career, because they never got punished. It actually got everyone to hate them, because they were just plain annoying by the final two years of primary school, and they never got punished - it wasn't fair - meanwhilst one of us would decide to twiddle our thumbs because we were bored in church and it was detention time.

Its a battle teachers can't really win though, and it needs a lot of thought in dishing out the punishment both for it, and for various other wrongdoings, if its to be at all effective.
As an example, the reason that it works in something like bootcamp is that you're stuck with everybody, and the punishments are HARSH. If it was half rations for the next 1 meal, nobody would really give too many shits. It'd become everyday, and its not really that stressing - until you start being under-nourished for training, but then you just have resentment for the instructor for not letting you eat enough to train. Yet this is the sort of punishment teachers give to students. A single lunchtime detention, then telling people off because they didn't do their homework during lunch, and nobody really cares that much about missing a lunchtime anyway - as the whole reason you're probably staying in is some people were fucking around in class, and god knows they're just going to fuck around in detention too.
If, in boot camp, everyone had segregated themselves into a set of cliques within each platoon, the punishment would be equally ineffective. The clique of the fuck ups would bond over the fucking up, and the other cliques wouldn't like them, but they wouldn't necessarily WANT to be liked by the other cliques, and could just deal with it with their own bonding. This is exactly what happens in schools. The clique that fucks up doesn't care about the other cliques, and tends to bond over the fuck-up and punishment experience, whilst everyone else resents it. This CAN foster discontent among other cliques who'll then dob them out, however often the clique doing the fuckupery is a more popular one, and since everyone in school wants to be popular [Except Tim, Tim just doesn't give a fuck], nobody wants to cross the popular kids.
Additionally, I'd hazard a guess that in general, drill instructor punishments for various fuck ups are more proportional than school teacher punishments. Sure, the drill instructor may start off harsher, but from that harsh point you know what to expect from your fuck ups. If you mess up in training, everyone might get pushups or something. If you start a fight, its going to be a lot worse than that, and if serious, you could end up getting discharged.
As said, at school, I got a detention for not paying attention in church. The school bully who beat up kids and stole their lunch money? Same punishment. Exact same. Never got any worse for him either. That didn't make the class resent him [Well, it did], but everyone resented the teacher too for not punishing him more.

If you had harsh punishments, managed to break down clique barriers, and dished out proportional punishments for various things, it could work. Sadly, this is rarely attempted, and thus teachers fail before they start when using the method. It is the best method at their disposal - seeing as they are incapable of planning out even that punishment so that it might work, they won't be able to execute a more elaborate punishment in all likelihood, and school restrictions may prevent them from doing so - but its also ineffective. TBH the entire education system needs a bit of an overhaul, but its pretty entrenched, and there are some who'll argue doing it this way has its benefits. We can only hope one day it'll improve, but I won't be holding my breath.

 

[Nimzabaat]

It's an attempt to teach kids about real life. In real life if someone acts like an idiot there can be grave consequences. It doesn't matter if it's military or civilian, at home or at work, your stupidity can kill people other than yourself. Now if you don't think there's value to trying to teach kids to own their small mistakes and learn before they make a bigger one like...

[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster[/link]

[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill[/link]

[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._friendly-fire_incidents_since_1945_with_British_victims[/link]

(I could go one for pages, but I hope you guys get the idea)

... then we'll have to agree to disagree I guess.

EDIT: I understand that trying to get people to be smarter is a mostly futile exercise, I just don't believe that it is completely futile.

 

[Twintix]

I remember our teacher used to make us all go outside of the classroom just because one guy tried throwing trash into the trashcan like he was playing basketball. Fun times.

Ha, I remember in 6th grade when a P.E substitute teacher took the entire class inside and chewed us all out just because two of the boys were goofing off. You know, as 12-year old boys usually do.

But he was an ass overall; He even yelled "DON'T PLAY WITH THE TREE!" at one of my other classmates...who was a calm and unassuming boy...who was leaning against a tree.

Actually, "an ass overall" sums up most of the teachers at that school. In my first year at that school, that sub was apparently just a taste of what was to come. Good God, middle school, that's three years of my life I'll never get back...

Also, on topic, "Life isn't fair and there's jack shit you can do about it" is kinda a shitty lesson to teach. Like somebody said, isn't "Life isn't fair, but let's try to make it as fair as we can" a better lesson to teach?

 

[Tilly]

It's debatable you're actually punishing lots of innocent kids.

C'mon lets face it, school is about 5 years of useful information spread across 11/13 years because they need to keep your off the streets until you're 16/18.

Being forced to stand outside instead of making a papier mache nativity scene is hardly punishment.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

It can work in certain settings, like the heavily discipline-oriented military, but I don't think it has a place within an environment of schooling. You shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of somebody else in an environment where you are typically judged on individual accomplishments and merit. In a military environment where a structure of cooperation, camaraderie, and group merit tends to be more important, I'd say it can work.

I mean, if you like having a class that hates you, it could work out fine, too.

 

[RedDeadFred]

From what I've experienced in my teaching practicums, it's rarely the case that it's just the one student. Often, the classroom environment is degrading because a large amount of students are pushing the boundaries. One student feels more confident because of this and ends up doing something that the teacher really can't ignore (this can usually be avoided by being strict right off the bat). Regardless, from personal experience, the only time I consider group punishment acceptable is when the teacher has allowed the students to push the boundaries too much. Then again, sometimes you get a particular group of kids who are particularly challenging.

In the case where it really is just one student, I'd never punish the whole class. You remove the student (while giving them the illusion of choice), and don't make a big deal out of it.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

It's designed to encourage group self-policing; no more, no less. Whether it's because of lack of effective alternatives or instructor laziness can vary from one situation to the next.

 

[Captain Marvelous_v1legacy]

The punishment is woefully ineffective. I should know, I've been on the receiving end multiple times. It didn't make me want to clean up me act because I'm not the one that got us into trouble. It didn't make me want to deal with the asshole student because he's not the one who punished me. In the end all of my resentment went toward the jackass teacher that decided the class should be punished because the asses in the back were talking. I never gave a damn about the other students, but I always hated the teacher. Case is, it doesn't work.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The only time that ever happened to me well the class was back in primary school when a pupil broke the teacher mobile phone. The punishment was just stopping the whole birthday card (the birthday boy or girl get a large card signed by everyone in class) and song. I was never bother by it cos this happened AFTER my birthday but in saying so she knew who did it and he was punished via a different means.

Other than that meh, I have no real opinion on it since the only time I seen it in action was in that Full Metal Jacket and in the recent Red Vs Blue episode which to me seen to have mixed effect depending on the person whose suppose to be punushed at.

 

[Eddie the head]

It's to exploit peer pressure. Social rejection sucks. It's a good way to get people to do what you want.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Add another one to the "it's stupid" part of the thread. As a teacher myself, it does nothing. Absolutely nothing. It makes it harder to teach in the long term, because now all the kids justifiably think you're an ass. The disgruntlement factor doesn't work at all; if the perpetrators had friends in the class they won't lose them over something like this, and if they didn't have friends then they don't care what the rest of the class thinks anyways since they're already feeling lonely and ostracized.

And any method of discipline that tries to alienate a student from their peers is horrid and counter productive to a child's social and emotional development.

As others have stated, school=/=boot camp.

Finally, about the whole "life isn't fair" thing. Fuck that. That's the excuse of the lazy and the incompetent. Yea, life isn't fair. So shouldn't we do our best, at every opportunity, to make it as fair as possible? If you're a good teacher, there will be plenty of situations where your children will have to learn how to cope with disappointment that do NOT involve you creating artificially unfair situations.

This is the exact truth. Also take it from a teacher there, a real teacher. We can sit here and practice arm chair psychology all day long, but the experience of a real teacher in these situations is the only one that actually matters. People need to stop defending this practice in schools. It's not only counter productive, it's also bully fodder. If one or a few kids get the whole class punished they might get bullied, which absolutely won't fix the behaviour, it'll make them anti-social. If it's the bully pulling the crap, they'll pull it specifically to get everyone in trouble, because they think it's funny.

What works in the military will not work as a practice in schools, period. Schools are not military environments(excluding military schools, but that's generally where you send fuck ups anyways.)

These sort of practices can ruin entire classes actually, it was used a lot in my schooling days and before that. Like starting in the sixties, or seventies. It's probably why we have so much trouble with self centred, idiotic, assholes, who are chronic fuck ups today.

 

[IceStar100]

Sadly it teach us in the military to take care of our self look up blanket party. It can make trust between the unit fall apart if not use correctly.

 

[EOTD]

In my Junior School (this is going back 20+ years), two boys had a fight, leading to one of them being taken home. This made the teachers decide to give an extra playtime in the afternoon, But only for the girls. They where also given things to play with: balls, beanbags, etc. All the boys on the other hand, where taken to the hall, given a right bollocking and made to sit in silence while listening to the girls having fun outside for 15 minutes. This was not a single class punishment, we're talking the whole school!

It was a church school after all.

 

[Olas]

It sucks, but it seems like the alternative is punishing nobody and letting the culprit get away with it, which then encourages repeats.

Whether it's a good idea comes down to the size of the class, the nature of the punishment, the nature of the crime, and the likelihood that punishing the whole class will prevent it from happening again.

And ya, it's unfair, but rarely in life is anything ever "fair".

 

[Johnny Impact]

When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is difficult only for others.
It is the same when you are stupid.
-I have no idea who said this but it's fucking awesome

OT: This happens everywhere.

Some psychotic kid in a trenchcoat shoots up his school, every school in America bans trenchcoats. Miss the point much?

Some moron who's too busy texting crashes his car in the middle of a busy intersection. An entire town's worth of commuters are late for work due to the blocked roads, thousands of man-hours are lost, and everybody's insurance goes up just a tad. Not to mention the fact that if any of those people were, for example, a surgeon rushing to the hospital for an emergency, the patient probably just died waiting.

Some lady is too stupid to know how to order a pizza. When the husband shows up for the order, and it's wrong, he doesn't feel like getting into an argument with her about it, so he takes it out on the restaurant crew instead.

Assigning a "cooperative" project to one good worker plus a gaggle of fuck-ups is basically punishing good workers for being good workers. This is a bit backwards from the OP, punishing one for the bad performance of several, but it's the same principle. It teaches fuck-ups that there will always be some sucker to cover for them and it teaches hard workers that the value of their work is measured only by the number of fuck-ups it can support.

Original sin. The entire human race is vile and unclean because some chick was hungry.

 

[kurupt87]

If your class doesn't punish the offender itself (with some sort or social punishment, ostracism/exclusion/insults) after the teacher's punishment is over then that's on your class. The reason it isn't working is because you're making it not work.

The teacher cannot let a misdeed go unpunished, and if no one comes forward or is grassed up then no other option is left. The rest of the class is supposed to be pissed at the offender and dish out its own punishment after the fact.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

If your class doesn't punish the offender itself (with some sort or social punishment, ostracism/exclusion/insults) after the teacher's punishment is over then that's on your class. The reason it isn't working is because you're making it not work.

The teacher cannot let a misdeed go unpunished, and if no one comes forward or is grassed up then no other option is left. The rest of the class is supposed to be pissed at the offender and dish out its own punishment after the fact.

Except that's not ever how it works. Instead all the kids are pisses at the teacher. Remember that the teacher is always the "other" when it comes to kids. So the kids will solidify in a position against the teacher.

 

[Angelowl]

Nope, just no. It is stupid and highly unethical. Actually it is illegal in Sweden to do that, for the reason of you punishing people for things they did not do if not for the others. If it is someone that simply does not care and intentionally ruins things for everyone else then they will just keep doing so and the good kids will just by fuming but they are not kill the unruly kid for the teacher if that is what people want. And it if is because of a mental syndrome like autism or ADHD then you really messed up, you punish the class for the actions of one kid. When that one kid possibly did their very best. And since the kid is different, in comes the bullying. It is essentially the teacher punishing the class for not bullying the weird kid. And then people wonder how school shootings happen??