Question of the Day - Monday, August 23, 2021

allmykitties

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Sitting off by myself and making up stories about miniature people (I was fascinated by the Borrowers series). Unless, as was all too common, we were subjected to the collective punishment (someone in the class had misbehaved, so we *all* had to stand in line for all of recess). In that case, I'd be standing in line but my imagination would have me far away. I'm really not sure why collective punishment was such a fad at the time, but they were always punishing the whole class because of a group of about three students in the entire grade.
 

Willowy

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I'm really not sure why collective punishment was such a fad at the time, but they were always punishing the whole class because of a group of about three students in the entire grade
Yes! That made me SO ANGRY! I think they hoped the rest of the kids would pressure the misbehavers, but the main instigator in my class was immune to social pressure and about 3 sizes bigger than anyone else, so there's nothing we could have done about it. Also, looking back as an adult, I'm pretty sure he had untreated ADHD plus family issues and couldn't help himself anyway. I don't know what they thought they were teaching us but it mostly instilled a sense of helplessness/hopelessness, and a pure fiery hatred for authority.
 

NY cat man

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At the first school I attended, my favorite was the one that would hold about 8 kids, and you could spin it like a merry-go-round. Two or three of us would run as fast as we could then try to jump on. Sometimes we didn't quite make it and our legs would stick straight out from the centrifugal force as we hung on.
After we sold the farm, the new school didn't have recess.
 
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MoochNNoodles

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I'm really not sure why collective punishment was such a fad at the time, but they were always punishing the whole class because of a group of about three students in the entire grade.
I had a few teachers try that. As a kid I found it devastating to be corrected in view of others and being group corrected was almost as bad. I still don’t like that at all to be honest. I’ve never understood what punishing the innocent with the bad was supposed to accomplish. Peer pressure doesn’t work on everyone. It was probably a fad pushed by the “experts” of the time. Which is another reason I roll my eyes in my head and keep doing my own thing with so much stuff. Especially the parenting advice from people who’ve yet to personally test their opinions. :lol:

I still remember my 8th grade history teacher tried to give our whole class detention because some kids were talking the day she was absent. They weren’t even talking much. She was so fresh out of college she hadn’t even been hired at the beginning of the school year. She was a sub brought in when the first teacher left and we loved her so much we asked for her to be our teacher. They hired her and then she tried that!:hmmm:

My mom called her and got me out of it.:lol:
 

Willowy

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It was probably a fad pushed by the “experts” of the time. Which is another reason I roll my eyes in my head and keep doing my own thing with so much stuff.
That's a hard one, because I've seen the unmitigated disaster that occurs when some parents try to deal with neuroatypical kids using "common sense". They should listen to experts. On the other hand, people who torture their neuroatypical kids with ABA are also following the advice of experts. Yikes!


I tried to find the origins of collective punishment in schools, all I could find is that it started in the '60s (as a common/sanctioned thing anyway; I'm sure some old-timey teachers did it too!), was touted to improve community cohesion, and experts currently do not recommend it. It's actually against the rules in some schools, but some teachers still do it. Also, it's a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, lol. Thought this blog post on the subject was good: Collective punishment: it doesn’t work but still it happens
Two or three of us would run as fast as we could then try to jump on. Sometimes we didn't quite make it and our legs would stick straight out from the centrifugal force as we hung on.
There was a rusty old swing set frame (no swings) at the far end that kids used to climb up and hang from the top.
We weren't allowed to do anything even mildly dangerous. We all knew that playground quite well, and used it heavily outside of school hours, so we all knew how to climb the swing frame, climb up the outside of the tube slide, balance on the concrete wall, play killer dodge ball, and throw persimmons (from the trees that lined the playground) at each other, but none of that was allowed during school hours. I can see why, of course, but it sure put a crimp in our fun!
 
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allmykitties

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Yes! That made me SO ANGRY! I think they hoped the rest of the kids would pressure the misbehavers, but the main instigator in my class was immune to social pressure and about 3 sizes bigger than anyone else, so there's nothing we could have done about it. Also, looking back as an adult, I'm pretty sure he had untreated ADHD plus family issues and couldn't help himself anyway. I don't know what they thought they were teaching us but it mostly instilled a sense of helplessness/hopelessness, and a pure fiery hatred for authority.
I tried to find the origins of collective punishment in schools, all I could find is that it started in the '60s (as a common/sanctioned thing anyway; I'm sure some old-timey teachers did it too!), was touted to improve community cohesion, and experts currently do not recommend it. It's actually against the rules in some schools, but some teachers still do it. Also, it's a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, lol. Thought this blog post on the subject was good: Collective punishment: it doesn’t work but still it happens
For reference, I was born in 1966, so collective punishment was the issue I dealt with through 8th grade (7th and 8th grade, we didn't have recess, but we did have collective punishment at lunch).

Likewise, the people who were getting all of us punished were immune to social pressure. At least one of them went on to have an adult career as a criminal (burglary).

In junior high, we frequently were punished with "silent lunches" (in which no one was supposed to talk *at all* during our lunch period). Then, if someone talked during "silent lunch" we would have more days added on ... it got to the point in 8th grade that silent lunch had become the norm. In that case, many times, the "guilty parties" (and here I put that in quotes because I really think the silent lunch was inappropriate in the first place) were people whose parents were "connected" and relatively immune to punishment *unless* the whole class was punished.:angryfire:

But as noted by Willowy, it taught me to have contempt for those involved.

There was, however, one time when I stood up for myself and won, though mostly I had learned that there wasn't much point. In that case, I was in 3rd grade and the teacher had divided the class into two teams with trees that started with an even number of ribbons tied to them. Every time someone misbehaved, they had to remove a ribbon from their team's tree. We were told that when one tree was empty, the other team would get a pizza party and the "empty tree" team would be segregated on the other side of the room doing math problems. Well, the worst student in the class was a team leader and had picked me for his team. Predictably, my "team" lost, even though he had removed some 70% of the ribbons himself. During this time, I had not removed a single ribbon.

So, when the announcement was made when the last ribbon on "our tree" came off, I stated that I would *not* accept the punishment, as it was unjust, as I had not removed a single ribbon, while--and here I named several people on the other team, with the number of ribbons that they, personally, had removed from their tree; and then I listed several more people from my team who had also personally not removed a single ribbon (yes, I had tracked it, because I had known as soon as I was picked for the team I was on that I had been picked for the "losing" team). They decided to have a pizza party for the whole class with #1 misbehaver removed to another room.
 

Lari

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For reference, I was born in 1966, so collective punishment was the issue I dealt with through 8th grade (7th and 8th grade, we didn't have recess, but we did have collective punishment at lunch).

Likewise, the people who were getting all of us punished were immune to social pressure. At least one of them went on to have an adult career as a criminal (burglary).

In junior high, we frequently were punished with "silent lunches" (in which no one was supposed to talk *at all* during our lunch period). Then, if someone talked during "silent lunch" we would have more days added on ... it got to the point in 8th grade that silent lunch had become the norm. In that case, many times, the "guilty parties" (and here I put that in quotes because I really think the silent lunch was inappropriate in the first place) were people whose parents were "connected" and relatively immune to punishment *unless* the whole class was punished.:angryfire:

But as noted by Willowy, it taught me to have contempt for those involved.

There was, however, one time when I stood up for myself and won, though mostly I had learned that there wasn't much point. In that case, I was in 3rd grade and the teacher had divided the class into two teams with trees that started with an even number of ribbons tied to them. Every time someone misbehaved, they had to remove a ribbon from their team's tree. We were told that when one tree was empty, the other team would get a pizza party and the "empty tree" team would be segregated on the other side of the room doing math problems. Well, the worst student in the class was a team leader and had picked me for his team. Predictably, my "team" lost, even though he had removed some 70% of the ribbons himself. During this time, I had not removed a single ribbon.

So, when the announcement was made when the last ribbon on "our tree" came off, I stated that I would *not* accept the punishment, as it was unjust, as I had not removed a single ribbon, while--and here I named several people on the other team, with the number of ribbons that they, personally, had removed from their tree; and then I listed several more people from my team who had also personally not removed a single ribbon (yes, I had tracked it, because I had known as soon as I was picked for the team I was on that I had been picked for the "losing" team). They decided to have a pizza party for the whole class with #1 misbehaver removed to another room.
That reminds me of when I was in upper elementary, they decided lunches were too loud, so they got this stoplight thing that would change colors depending on the volume in the room, and if it got to red it would make this annoying loud beeping sound until people quieted down. But I guess it didn't bother people, so most of lunch would not only be loud, but the stoplight was also screeching which made it unbearable.
 
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MoochNNoodles

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That's a hard one, because I've seen the unmitigated disaster that occurs when some parents try to deal with neuroatypical kids using "common sense". They should listen to experts. On the other hand, people who torture their neuroatypical kids with ABA are also following the advice of experts. Yikes!
I really don't think that was recognized so much when I was in school. At least not like it is today. And yes; disaster. We had this one poor adhd kid who got sent out of science class almost immediately every day. The teacher was a coach; and a good coach, but he had zero patience for this kid. I do remember him losing his temper on occasion and things; but so many times I never knew what he had done to warrant that. He moved after that year. My cousin was 15 and sent to a juvinile detention center before diagnosed with ADD. She got SO MUCH BETTER with medication. She's still on it as an adult I believe too.

But how many kids were on the Autism spectrum and they just didn't know? One of our friend's son had to be put in an inpatient program in order to be diagnosed. They knew he was on the spectrum. The teachers probably suspected it. But man getting to that diagnosis was SO long coming and heart-wrenching. Once they finally got that diagnosis he went to a separate school in the district but after 6 months or so he was able to be brought back to a main-stream classroom. He's made huge strides.

It's very frustrating as a parent you can have SO many people telling you how to parent. And because the "expert" advice changes so often; it's hard to take anyone serious. It adds way more stress than necessary.
 

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I kinda did whatever I felt like. Either joining in with the larger group playing tag (or playing winx club with the girls lol). Sometimes I just hung out with my boyfriend, sitting around and talking. Or I messed around in the hill we had or with the plastic barrels we could play in
 

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Playing tag, jump rope, kick ball, dodge ball, swing and play on the monkey bars. When I was in the 3rd grade I fell off the monkey bars and broke my right arm on the last day of school. I also loved to go to a near by store with some other girls and by penny candy. Someone told on us and we had to stop. I always had a sweet tooth.
 
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