Re: Should the "no recess" policy be banned?
On the flip side, I've observed parents who believed everything precious little Johnny/Suzie told them and were constantly down at the school railing against the teacher... and the teacher was not the one in the wrong.
Facts. I see a lot of that happening today, actually, with kids who are wantonly destructive and cruel. It's pretty disheartening to see even teenagers who don't seem to have ever had even the most basic lessons in empathy or decent behavior.
The side my dad took depended on what I'd done (usually indicated on the slip, or if he called). He tended to believe what they said about as much as he believed me.
Sometimes I got punished for things that were just stupid (like the sitting thing). In those cases, he simply signed the form as required and ignored it. If I got a detention, he would only take me if it was convenient for him. I recall when I was in high school -- the only detention I got in my teens -- they wanted him to take me in at 7am on a Saturday. He called them and said no ****ing way. He wasn't getting up that early on his day off over an infraction that was totally ridiculous anyway. The way the admin sputtered was hilarious. :lol: He thought it was important I understand people will react to what I do, but also important that I understand sometimes their reactions are stupid, thus why he never punished me for things like that.
Sometimes, especially in high school, I got punished for doing something intentionally adversarial, but that I felt was correct, knowing I might be punished (many of my actions on the paper, a protest I helped organize, me calling out a teacher for lying in "abstinence only" sex ed, etc). What he did depended on how heavy the punishment was. If it was light, same as above -- just sign it and forget about it. If it was heavy, he went to bat for me. And actually, so did some of my teachers. He wasn't alone.
On rare occasion, I just did something stupid or mean -- this happened a couple times in elementary school, like it might with any young child, but generally this was a small minority of my infractions. And in those cases, I actually got punished pretty heavily. He didn't dick around when I did something actually bad. He let me have a lot of freedom, so he came down on me like a hammer when I violated one of the rules.
I consider myself extraordinarily lucky that I had both a parent and several teachers who defended me when I did things that were legitimate but "against the rules." My journalism advisor was probably in the principal's office twice a week defending me.
A lot of my teachers actually loved me. I wasn't a kid who did things that were cruel or wrong, really. I was, in some ways, a model student: into lots of extracurriculars, very participatory, etc. I just required a modicum of respect, for both myself and other students. And that is in short supply in many schools today. They're simply training you to act like a whipped puppy for your boss when you get into the job market. And the result of that is clear. It's incredible that so many employers get away with things like unpaid overtime, full-time unpaid interns, keeping a "temp" working for 5 years and never giving them medical or any paid time off... That is the result of the way kids are trained in schools.
No such luck with me.
