Reprimand's Final Resolution

There are many different opinions circulating for quite awhile now about whether punishments along the likes of detentions in schools are really effective ,if at all, at dealing with and preventing future classroom disruptions. Many people say detentions are effective because of the supposed ‘fear of authority’ in all students will keep them in line if strict disciplinary rules are shown to be enforced in schools. However, I would like to think otherwise.

While I may have never really been in detention during the entirety of my educational career, I have come to know a few people whose daily schedule usually included at least one trip to the principle’s office. Usually this wasn’t because of outbursts of rage but of normal ,and seemingly regularly scheduled, pranks my friends would pull on either a specific teacher or the class as a whole. After reading the article we were given, however, and thinking back to these events in my early childhood, I can safely say that the statement on detentions said by most people is pretty much either false or a “back in my day” kind of statement. The reason for this is because if every student had the inferred fear of authority from detentions, there wouldn’t be people going to detention on a regular basis. All people are unique, this includes their thinking of the outside world. With this said, as anyone can probably tell, I do not find detentions that effective for several reasons, one of which being the scenario described earlier. The second reason I do not find detentions very effective is because of the way students are usually treated in detentions. In most detention sessions that I’ve seen/ heard of, the student is given a worksheet to do while he or she sits quietly at a desk for a certain period of time. Now, there’s nothing inhumane or anything that screams cruel and unusual punishment in that, but those aren’t the problem I find in this scenario. The problem I find is that the student isn’t socialized with to say why he/she did what they did and why they felt they needed to do it. The reason I find this peculiar is because, if a student isn’t told specifically and/or explicitly why what they did was wrong and not given options on how to better resolve the problem in the future, then how in the world to teachers expect students to never want to do what they did that got them into detention again? This is my main driving point for why most detentions are ineffective: they don’t seek out solutions to the actions of the student, only slightly reprimand them for what they have done and nothing more.