Am I being over sensitive?

erichamster

tiamai_d wrote: »

since you say that children should be subject to such horrors cos other folk are expected to do it, why don't we just send them over to Iraq?

Yes because thats the same thing (!)
I'm surprised people are so shocked by the scraping off of chewing gum as a punishment, I am only 21 and this was a standard and notorious punishment at my school (a well regarded comprehensive) and I think it worked as a deterrant ( I never had to do it :j) We also had to do (horrors) litter picking! I personally think these were good punishments that served a purpose and instilled responsibility. I honestly can't believe how precious people are when it comes to their little angels now, the things we used to do would turn your hair white, I remember "chicken scratches" being one popular craze.

tiamai_d

erichamster wrote: »

Yes because thats the same thing (!)
I'm surprised people are so shocked by the scraping off of chewing gum as a punishment, I am only 21 and this was a standard and notorious punishment at my school (a well regarded comprehensive) and I think it worked as a deterrant ( I never had to do it :j) We also had to do (horrors) litter picking! I personally think these were good punishments that served a purpose and instilled responsibility. I honestly can't believe how precious people are when it comes to their little angels now, the things we used to do would turn your hair white, I remember "chicken scratches" being one popular craze.

I never agreed with it when I was told to do it. I wouldn't have picked up litter either (unless I dropped it). Chicken scratches, chinease burns and what we used to do with a can of cola are different, adults did not order us to do it. If I would not have done it, why should other children?

I can think of many other deterents that do not involve health and hygeine issues. What happened to good old lines? I hated lines.

The issue is, the kid didn't put the chewing gum there so it didn't fit his 'crime'.

bandraoi

We used to have to scrape the chewing gum off in school and it wasn't even a punishment, it was just one of the tasks we had to do on the last day of term.

Primrose

I'm surprised at all these references to chewing gum stuck under desks. Our pavements are also littered with the stuff. When I was a kid I always swallowed mine when I'd finished with it. Someday somebody told me it would gum up your insides and kill you if you did that. As I'm still here over forty years later I can happily dispell that myth so perhaps we should all encourage people to swallow it rather than sticking it everywhere. (on the basis of what goes in comes out again!)

seven-day-weekend

Only just come to this thread, but asked my husband (a retired Geography teacher) his opinion and he said the punishment was far too harsh. He would have asked your son to repeat the homework and at the same time sent a letter to you his parents pointing out that there may be a problem and could you encourage him to do his best and stressing the importance of the assignment. Then it would have been forgotten.

Acc72

erichamster wrote: »

Yes because thats the same thing (!)
I'm surprised people are so shocked by the scraping off of chewing gum as a punishment, I am only 21 and this was a standard and notorious punishment at my school (a well regarded comprehensive) and I think it worked as a deterrant ( I never had to do it :j) We also had to do (horrors) litter picking! I personally think these were good punishments that served a purpose and instilled responsibility. I honestly can't believe how precious people are when it comes to their little angels now, the things we used to do would turn your hair white, I remember "chicken scratches" being one popular craze.

That is what I thought.

Some comments about - properly trained adults, using PPE (Gloves, Masks !!), the proper equipment etc. were unbelievable.

What lesson is that to teach children - you are too good to remove chewing gum (although some less fortunate person somewhere will have to do this for you !)

KarrieBee

Children don't go to school to clean desks. If they choose to work as a cleaner then they will.
I don't have a problem with litter picking - we did that as part of environmental awareness stuff when I was at school and had pickers and bin bags the same as the caretakers did.
As for it being a deterrant at my school detention was enough of a deterrant - I certainly never had one, I would have been mortified. Happily I didn't need to be humiliated to instil a sense of social responsibility.
I agree with the poster who said that as the child did not put the chewing gum there then the punishment did not fit the crime - surely it would make more sense to make him redo the substandard work?
I have little time for the 'it never did me any harm' school of hard knocks brigade.

seven-day-weekend

Although I personally don't think that the punishment in this case was appropriate, in general I have no problems with the chewing gum scraping or litter picking as a 'penance'.

My son was once told to read for a detention, to him this was wonderful - a whole lunchtime reading! Scraping gum would have REALLY been a punishment!

bandraoi

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Only just come to this thread, but asked my husband (a retired Geography teacher) his opinion and he said the punishment was far too harsh. He would have asked your son to repeat the homework and at the same time sent a letter to you his parents pointing out that there may be a problem and could you encourage him to do his best and stressing the importance of the assignment. Then it would have been forgotten.

The OP did state however

"as usual", it doesn't seem like this is a one time incident.

pinkcandyflossprincess

hi
my son is 12 and pretty much the same and often ends up with what he deems as totally unfair punishments for not handing in decent homework etc however i fortunately have a 13 year old daughter at the same school who does her homework properly and doesnt get punished:rolleyes:
thankfully i have a comparison so know its my son that is usually to blame for not paying attention/ being lax in his work etc and its not the school victimising him!
all i can do is try to point out why he is being punished and what he can do to ensure it doesnt happen again...sadly with my son it usually does:eek: hopefully your son though will have learnt a lesson here and next time be more encouraged to prepare his work earlier.
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