There was this show on TV in the 90s where I live. They were making fun of what’s happening in the news and politician.
One of the characters was a lowlife rocker called Bob Binette, and at 11-12 years old, boys found him very, very funny and would sometimes impersonate him in show and tell, or speak like him on the school grounds.
Well, of course, it got to a point where they would apply an interdiction of imitating Bob Binette on school grounds and in class.
My secondary school had a card system based on behavior. If you got in troubled 3 times that semester you had to go to the “trainee” lunch line which had really long lines and less variety of food. You was also restricted from areas of the school at lunch like IT suite, music room and library.
I’m sure I can think of more but I remember an assignment in middle school where I could type it out or write it out by pen, but if you wrote it in a pencil, you get a zero.
I attended a Catholic high school. One of the rules was that if you did not serve detention within a week of it assigned you could face suspension. During my school’s weekly mass a friend next to me cracked a joke. And I burst out quietly laughing. The assistant principal, sitting in the pew behind me, scolded me then gave me 7 hours detention. This was a on a day before a long weekend so it was physically impossible for me to serve all 7 hours within a week. My parents were called in and the school informed them I was facing suspension. My dad ask what I did to warrant to 7 hours detention leading to the suspension. The assistant principal said well he laughed during mass. My dad looked at me then looked at the assistant principal. He sigh and said “that’s fucking stupid”. My dad then turned around and walked out of the office. Days later at school the assistant principal said they were going to show me leniency. Removing the suspension charges.
I was taking classes at a community college around I wanna say 2011 or 2012. Teachers didn’t want you to use phones during class because they didn’t want you to cheat or be distracted, but there was a big push from the administration to get students to buy digital copies of the textbooks (I assumed because physical copies can be sold used and that was eating into their profits). But reading the digital textbooks on your smartphone was in direct conflict with the no phone policy. So the workaround they found was to say, “phones are not allowed but tablets are ok and encouraged” (which is silly because a tablet can do anything a phone can do). To add confusion around this time phone manufacturers were exploring with making bigger and bigger screens, meanwhile tablets were exploring being more portable, so there was ambiguity in the distinction between the two both in function and physical dimensions. So how did they determine what devices were allowed and which ones were banned you ask? They landed on an arbitrary dimension of 7 inches. Anything smaller than 7 inches was a phone and was clearly being used to cheat, anything larger was a tablet and was an instructional tool. Teachers were given rulers to measure devices and if you were caught using a device smaller than 7 inches you would be disciplined for academic dishonesty. Mind you we also had laptops that also were not viewed as an issue, the school had free WiFi everywhere on campus, and we had apps like fb messnger for messaging and Skype and google voice for phone calls and also access to just Google, so there really was no distinction in mechanisms for academic dishonesty or for distractions between the two.
The school where I did the equivalent of elementary/middle school education had a strict “absolutely no hats” rule.
I have no clue why, but if you were caught wearing a hat (or cap or…) you’d get into trouble. First time a warning and you take it off. Second time they take the hat away from you and return it after seven days. Third time you get suspended.
My high school had a "no hats indoors" rule and even that was regarded as dumb. No hats at all? Screw you if you wanna keep the sun out of your eyes I guess?
Was in an AP English class, and we were given a book on AP format for writing essays and such (think proper way to cite sources, alphabetize authors, other grammatical and formatting rules, etc). The class was given an example handout and told to group up into fours and go over the handout, finding mistakes and such based on the book previously mentioned.
When we went over it as a class, every group found basically every mistake except one. Every group missed this one mistake, and none of us flagged it because the book we were supposed to base all of this off of stated that it, in fact, was not a mistake. Since it was a graded assignment, we started debating with the teacher that since everyone didn’t flag it, and the book we were given said it was actually correct, we shouldn’t be penalized for it.
The teacher, however, refused, stating that it was incorrect based on AP formatting standards. Students even showed her, in the book we were given, where it said that the “mistake” was in fact correct. She refused to budge, and arguing continued.
The discussion ended when she (the teacher) finally said, “I’m the only one in this room with a Master’s degree in English, you got it wrong, I’m not hearing further debate on this,” and took the points off from all of us.
Same thing happened with a math teacher (who was an absolute piece of shit, literally everyone including the staff hated him, but that’s for another time). Everyone got a problem wrong, and when he went over it, several students pointed out the answer we all got was correct based on how we were initially shown how to solve the problem. He pulled the same “I’m the only one here with a degree in mathematics, so none of you are getting the points for it because you’re just wrong.”
Several students went to other math teachers and showed it to them, who in turn went to the piece of shit and not only pointed out that he was wrong, but the head of the math department was basically demanding either the points be restored or the question thrown out. The next class he went on a long spiel about how “after conversing with several of my other academic colleagues, it was brought to my attention it was a poorly designed question, and thus I will be removing it from all of the tests.”
Just fucking admit when you’re wrong, all you’re teaching us with your fancy degrees is that you’re a prick and to resent authority figures.
Yeesh. I’ve had teachers that will give points back if all (or nearly all) students get a question wrong on a test because they know it’s more likely their own failure than the students. Maybe the question is confusing or poorly worded, maybe the material wasn’t covered or it’s too difficult with the amount of time available.
Just fucking admit when you’re wrong, all you’re teaching us with your fancy degrees is that you’re a prick and to resent authority figures.
This is correct; there is a section in the Aviation Instructor’s Handbook about this. It is important for a teacher to establish themselves as a subject matter expert, you absolutely should appear knowledgeable and competent. There are ways to do this wrong. For instance, if you don’t know something, just make shit up. If a student asked a question I didn’t know the answer to, I had a go-to technique for handling it: I would turn it into a lesson on aviation reference materials. “What book would you look for that in? Let’s see if we can go find it.” Another way to undermine your own credibility is to insist you’re right no matter what. Your students WILL see through that and it WILL undermine your credibility.
And it’s one thing to pull that shit when you’re a high school English teacher and you’re not responsible for anyone else’s safety. A flight instructor is not only a teacher, but also sometimes the only qualified airman on the plane. “I don’t want to fly with you anymore, you scare me. A real expert pilot doesn’t have to pretend to know what he’s talking about.”
Your students are smart, capable scholars and they should be respected as such. It’s remarkable how many people are in education professions that don’t get this.
Reasoned argument is a learned behavior. Humanity’s default is tribalism, where the people above you must be correct and smart and handsome, and the people below you better know their place. Some folks never progress beyond that view of reality.
For some goddamn reason we keep letting them become teachers and administrators.
Write each vocabulary word 20 times if you have to go to the bathroom during class. Not a great policy for seven year olds and resulted in several accidents (including me).
We also could not talk to each other during lunch at all. Paddling was also still allowed.
Lose your punishment stamp card? We’ll assume it was full and get the next card(it went green, blue, then red.) and detention essays. Fill or lose another card double the previous punishment. I burned the cards I got and handed the ashes to the principal at the end of the year.
When I was in high school boys would get suspended if their hair touched the collar of their shirt. I was suspended all the fucking time because I refused to cut my hair. I eventually ended up getting sent to a different school.
No talking during lunch. This was in a public elementary school in the early/mid 90s, at the first school I attended through second grade. Literally the only school I attended that was like that. It was so fucking stupid.
Of course, kids tried to talk to their friends, whispering and such. I got in trouble once because a teacher saw me whisper to my friend who asked me a question and so I got moved to sitting with older kids I didn’t know for the rest of the lunch period. That was the first time I got in trouble at school, so I was crying.
Never understood why we couldn’t talk. I think because it’d eventually get too loud in there? Which, who cares? Didn’t matter; family moved and I switched schools. Where it was totally normal and acceptable to socialize during lunch.
Nope, this was in the Midwest! Missouri, to be somewhat more specific. I do know our principal (who I didn’t mind) was often in the lunchroom. Maybe she was from the south? No clue.
HOLY SHIT! Mine had the same stupid-ass rule! It was the mid 2000s for me, and I managed to get myself in trouble ONCE. The yard duties told me that I had to spend the rest of my lunch in the multipurpose room instead of getting to leave for recess. And you know what I did? I sure as hell didn’t stay. I snuck out as discretely as I could because even at my small age, I knew that rule was bullshit. Never got caught, but I’m still salty that I even got in trouble in the first place. Thanks for reading.
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