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Comment by smoldesu | Hacker News Reader

Another fun punishment that far outweighed the crime, my Algebra teacher assigned me lunch detention in 7th grade for every day I didn't do my homework. I made it a grudge match, and ended up serving 181 total days of lunch detention that year. I barely passed, and on the last day of class he told me to never come back to his classroom. It was a helpful reminder at a young age that old people can be equally as petty (if not moreso) than young people.

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I was similar to you. Picked grudge matches I felt and to a degree still feel were justified. It’s only really as I’ve seen my friends and some partners become teachers I’ve realized that it’s mostly (not in every case) one sided. The really harsh truth is they barely think about it. Even if it’s a regular thing. Just a git commit.

My sixth grade teacher decided that I would be sent outside of all her classes (all of them except music and PE) if I missed any homework I had failed to do from the start of the course. She didn’t even notified the principal, which asked for an explanation when he found me wandering on the soccer field the 5th day this occurred and then notified my parents. After a series of homework related problems where even the principal had to intervene on my behalf, I was able to pass grade, only for the same teacher who had been teaching the same grade for more than 10 years to pursue a change of grade. Afterwards, since the principal on which was in charge of the following grade was more sympathetic to her case, I was spelled of said school because I missed 5 homeworks in 2 months. Afterwards I heard the teacher came back to her old position.

To this date, I still don’t understand what the hell was going on on her mind, yeah, I was irresponsible, I was defiant, as there was some formalisms which I found absurd. But I was a quiet child, who payed attention to class and wanted to be left on his own and was able to ace any test because I did like learning. I didn’t even had friends so it’s not like I interrupted her class with any chatter. I guess the lesson is that some people are petty?

Since it was a grudge - have you ever thought of ever calling them up as an adult and telling them a piece of your mind? They're likely the same kind of adult as they were back then. Maybe being told how their actions were stupid could bring them down a peg?

I feel like there was plenty of pettiness on both sides here.

Yes, except one was a 7th grader.

As far as school punishments go this one seems a relatively benign and actually almost reasonable? You chose not to do the homework, so the teacher assigned you a mandatory time during which you could complete the homework without being distracted during lunch.

From the details you provided,my understanding is you could've just completed it during lunch detention and that would've been the end of it, that seems pretty fair to me. You were aware of the consequences of not doing your homework and chose to continuously not do your assignments either at home or during the lunch period.

Because teachers have rotating lunch duties because it's often against their contract to make them work more than x lunches per week/month, while the child can be arbitrarily put in punishment for more than that.

Just because he was aware of the punishment doesn't make the punishment appropriate. At some point the issue should be escalated or a compromise reached. Allowing to it go on for the majority of the school year is the teacher being unable to control the situation so taking it out on the student to the students detriment instead of benefit.

> You chose not to do the homework ...

Bull. Schools only have authority over you while you're on their grounds.

Once school time is over, they can want whatever they like. Just like anybody.

They have no authority to actually do anything about it though, nor should they. Homework is just them trying to waste people's time.

While I agree with the broader point, this is grade A BS and I think you know it.

Anyone who's ever spent time in a classroom viewing the experience with an objective eye knows that teachers can't be reasonably expected to teach everything they need to within the constraints given to them. As a result, they assign homework (reading, projects, busywork) over the course of the semester to ensure that the knowledge they're asked to pass on actually sinks in to the minds of the students.

Good teachers make good homework. Bad teachers make bad homework, but not necessarily because they're trying to waste their students' time.

Most homework during K-12 was time wasting busywork I doubt it was much different for anyone else. I think the broader point was that only a child has a grudge match with a child. The penalty for not doing homework is a zero on that portion of the class. Let them hurt their own grade if they insist. The math teacher was a childish incompetent unfit for his position.

Again, that's bull. There is no need for homework.

Maybe in exceptional circumstances to achieve a specific once-off outcome, but not in _any_ way as a routine thing.

Please, stop encouraging people to waste kids time. :(

The problem is he got detention for not doing an assignment which he could do at home. I don't understand how American schools can detain children like that.

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