My little brother is in middle school and has been in American school for the past 4 years and received his first detention. His detention was 1 hour after school with the principal and I assumed detention would be to write out lines or extra homework. My mum came to pick him up and she was early and when she peered in the glass doors, she could see my little brother mopping the entire 2 floor staircase, spraying and mopping. He had been severely bullied last year so she was grateful no other kids were around to see him clean like that otherwise they would’ve picked on him again.
Is this normal standard detention type stuff in USA?
Growing up in England, detentions absolutely didn’t result in manual labour like that (I don’t know if you can call it manual labour) but at the most I imagine would be to maybe reorganise some boxes or drawers. It shocked me a little bit as it feels a little bit degrading to the student, no? Or am just completely off and this is totally normal standard detention practice in USA?
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I have never seen this before, detention for me was usually staying late and either sitting there or doing school work.
Neither of my children have ever received detention or even been punished at all in school.
I have not been exposed to schools anywhere else than in my immediate area though, so it may be different elsewhere.
When I used to get detention, I had to sit in a classroom and be quiet for some amount of time. I typically did homework.
The only time I ever saw someone need to do cleaning or anything is if whatever they did to get detention resulted in a mess. I remember there was a food fight and the kids that were caught all had to clean the cafeteria.
I used to spend lots of time in detention.
I’ve had it both ways, in my 9th grade year the detention teacher asked me if I wanted to help clean up the school or write something like “I will not do the bad thing that I did it was very bad of me and I will never do it again” for several hours. I chose to mop the gym and clean it up while the teacher graded her papers.
Degrading? No not at all. Why is physical work considered degrading?
That was not something I have ever seen while in detention (I was a bit of a regular) or heard from others.
Usually it was no talking, doing homework.
Occasionally you might have a teacher who, in lieu of “official” detention, would make you do some work around their classroom or something. Like what you describe doing some organizing or minor cleanup.
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Do you really look down on janitorial staff that much? Seems like a pretty tame detention.
I spent a lot of time in detention and one time they made me help the janitors for a day, including cleaning up lunch in front of my peers. Was very embarrassing and an effective punishment imo.
My school didn’t have detentions out of class time like that, just ISS.
I also don’t think of cleaning as particularly degrading and would have chosen such over ISS just for something to do.
Why is mopping degrading??
In middle school it was in a room with others and you did homework or something quietly.
In highschool you did something karmically appropriate.
Made a mess? Clean it up or clean something else up. Waste class time? You had to sit alone with no phone or even homework and waste your time doing nothing but stare at a wall. Being a general nuisance, help teachers grade papers.
Not always but usually something like that.
There was one guy who did a donut on the PE field and made some pretty gnarly tracks. He was forced to (with parent permission) to push mow that field (about a football field) once a week after it was rehabilitated for that whole year.
That wasn’t a standard detention at the schools I attended or the ones my kids went to but it wasn’t totally unheard of. It really depends on what you did and what teachers/administrators were in charge of your detention.
I spent a week of after school detention sweeping hallways and collecting trash in middle school. I can’t remember exactly what I did, other that I was being a little shit and my shenanigans resulted in a huge mess.
He’s prob not trained in how to use appropriate cleaning chemicals and what to do if he gets it in his eyes and such. REPORT
We didn’t have that in my middle school, but we did in high school detention. People actually wanted that punishment because they were already sitting all day and cleaning gave them a chance to move around. What’s wrong with it? Do you see janitors as lesser beings? The kid gets punished and has to help keep the school clean. Now the janitors are free to do other work, and your kid now knows how to mop if they didn’t already.
I got Saturday detention once, and we were all sent outside to pick up trash. No big deal. Better than sitting staring at the wall.
Well no offence but it doesnt seem like “sit and do homework for 90 minutes” would really have the same diciplinary effect as mopping. Its meant as a deterent for bad behavior, so I dont really see anything wrong with it.
I’ve never heard of this. Is it even legal?
Not normal at all in my opinion. It’s one thing if they were directly responsible for the mess, but the school should not be punishing kids with hard labor.
And they never were in my experience. Detention was exactly as it sounds – you were “detained” in a classroom for a period of time outside school hours. That’s it. That’s what detention is supposed to be, just a “time out” for big kids.
>Is this normal standard detention type stuff in USA?
Yes. Using detention to help improve the community (here, through cleaning) seems like an appropriate punishment for someone who is in detention for violating the community rules/norms.
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>It shocked me a little bit as it feels a little bit degrading to the student, no?
No. What feels degrading is your looking down on people who do manual labor as unworthy or shameful.
I’ve never seen it, but I think it’s a pretty good idea. Just sitting in detention and doing your homework isn’t as much of a deterrent as manual labor.
Oh man, I spent many days cleaning windows, carpets, the lunchroom, etc. all because I was a little shit. I thought it was fair then, and looking back, I still think that.
Nothing degrading about honest work. Everyone should need to clean/make a place better at some point.
It’s very like the slave labor that southern states force on prisoners. I don’t think anybody should force students to work; they haven’t committed a fucking crime.
Depends on the offense. If the student was writing graffiti or making a mess in the lunchroom (think food fight type of situation) yes absolutely.
For talking in class no
We’re not quite as class conscious as you are on the other side of the pond. Cleaning (and manual labor in general) isn’t considered degrading.
As a parent, I would be OK with this and I don’t know why you would think it is degrading. Does no one in your house mop?
Cleaning was a fairly common punishment when I went to school. Perfectly fine, as long as the kid isn’t handling dangerous chemicals or something.
Honestly, learning to properly clean something is a pretty important life skill.
Seems weird you would think it’s degrading. Almost all of us need to clean our own homes, and my workplace would be horrible without the janitorial staff.
I see nothing wrong with it. I remember I served detention once where they made us wipe down all the cafeterias tables. A little manual labor isn’t that bad and frankly it’s not like it’s going to hurt anyone. It’s hardly degrading.
I don’t think I ever had to do that for detention.
But personally I think that students should be required to clean their own classroom. At least at middle school or higher. When I taught English in Japan that was standard at schools there. It is something that I have always felt we should adopt here.
Either way I certainly wouldn’t see it as degrading. Unless they gave him a toothbrush and asked him to clean toilets with it or something. But if it was just standard sweeping and mopping, I would generally not see an issue with that. Though as stated I would rather have that be standard practice for all students rather than something used as a punishment
Why do you look down on janitorial work?
I was a terrible kid at school and did my share of picking up litter, cleaning marker boards, and organizing bookshelves. I would be concerned about a kid spraying cleaning chemicals without adult supervision but doing light cleaning duties in general doesn’t seem like a bad, productive punishment.
Cleaning my classrooms and school in general was just a part of the routine in my high school. It was not punishment. We were not expected to mop or do anything that involved particularly strong chemicals (industrial floor cleaner). Instead it was stuff like sweeping, picking up chairs so the floors could be mopped by somebody who knew what they were doing, wiping down desks with common sanitizing products, and straightening up furniture.
My schools always had a custodial staff to do the mopping in hallways and stairs. At my high school, after-school detention was only 15 minutes thanks to bus schedules, so that definitely would not have been enough time to do mopping.
When I was in Catholic school, detention was cleaning: straightening the desks, washing the chalkboard/clapping the erasers (yeah I’m kinda old) and sweeping up the classroom.
When I was in public school, you just had to sit there. You could read or do HW, but that hour just took soooooo long.
I much preferred the cleaning over just sitting there.
BUT – I don’t know how appropriate it is to have a young kid mopping staircases. Floor cleaner has a lot of chemicals in it, and there’s the slip and fall factor too.
I wouldn’t have a problem with that, personally. But it is a little unusual. Detention in my school was basically just time out. They just made you sit there for an hour or however long. You could do homework or read but you couldn’t talk at anything.
But generally “manual labor” that’s productive isnt a negative thing. I don’t mean digging holes for the sale of it. I mean pitching in to make the school better in some way. It’s a better use of time IMO and definitely shouldn’t be embarrassing.
I only got detention once and it was because I was very late for class. The teacher had me help clean her classroom. I preferred it to just sitting there.
Why do you think cleaning is something that one should be made fun of for? Why do you think cleaning is degrading?
To me this shows that you have very little respect for people who clean for a living. Janitors, custodians and cleaners are an important part of society and what they do has integrity and value. One of the ways one learns to have respect for such jobs is by doing them.
I went to private school and we had to do chores as a matter of course at the end of the day/week. We even had a chore chart.
It’s not usual from what I have seen but it sounds like good punishment if applied consistently.
I don’t know about degrading but I promise you it’s better than sitting, staring at a wall for however long.
The only time I got into serious trouble was during my junior year of high school. I had 3 days in-school suspension, and it was terrible. For 6 and a half hours, I was sitting in a windowless room, couldn’t talk to anyone, and basically finished up my work in a couple of hours, so I sat there bored out of my fucking mind.
I mean – if you disrespected the facility then you should learn to respect the facility by cleaning it… sounds good to me. The only thing I can think of that would make it inappropriate is if he’s got a disability that makes it hard to clean or an allergy to cleaning solution or something.
There are schools where paddling/corporal punishment is still used. If that’s allowed, then I don’t see why mopping would not be allowed too.
If your little brother caused the mess he was cleaning up, then I’d say that’s a logical, appropriate punishment.
If you want to teach them that cleaning is a punishment, I suppose.
Yes it is.
In elementary school, the teacher had the whole class help clean the classroom one day during “spring cleaning”. It involved sorting the cabinets, dusting, mopping the floor. It was actually fun.
I’ve had detentions in middle school where I just had to sit at a desk and do nothing for an hour. It was torture, I was bored out of my mind. I would have gladly done mopping if given a choice.
Feels like an old school way of approaching detention but not out of the ordinary.
Why would taking care of one’s school be degrading? My elementary students all have class chores and help keep our shared space clean.
I don’t think so at all. It’s better than making them sit in a corner all day or a paddling like the old days . It’s constructive. Why is cleaning degrading? In Japan, students often clean their classroom.
When I was a kid, my friend got into a fight with another boy. When we lined up for lunch, we saw him outside another classroom sweeping with a big grin on his face. His punishment was to go help another teacher tidy up her classroom. We teased him and thought it was funny, but didn’t think it was degrading. Especially if it’s the same consequence for all students. If he was the only student ever forced to clean, then yeah that would be degrading. But I’m sure that’s the known punishment in class for whatever bad thing they did.
Sorry to hear about the bullying though. That’s awful to
go through and hope he gets past it.
E: also a question comes to mind. Yesterday just happened to be “national custodian day” when schools show recognition and show thanks to the custodians that keep the school grounds clean. They give them a small gift, do a little gathering to tell them thank you, do a shoutout on the schools social media, etc. Would this be something common in the UK?
Do you feel it’s degrading when an adult cleans the floors?
I believe in logical consequences. If your brother got detention for making a mess at school or mouthing off to the janitor, it makes total sense for him to do this. I did a stupid messy thing in middle school and I cleaned school bathrooms with my partner-in-crime for a few hours as a result.
Kids aren’t fragile incapable beings, let them work through mistakes. Not to mention cleaning one’s own residence is just part of adulting, so regardless of whether a kid gets in trouble or not, a little light cleaning is a necessary skill to acquire.