Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
I presume you were allowed to read while in detention?
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I was. Teachers never knew what to do with kids who read.
I had had a few detentions through primary and middle school that were usually during lunch period or something. But I only had one detention during my time in high school (which is quite shocking when I think about how I spent my high school career - mostly deliberately causing problems for the administration and protesting), and I remember it well.
I got a detention for "insubordination." I was actually quite proud of that. There was a stupid rule, and since it was stupid, I refused to follow it. Nothing crazy. Of everything I did that could have or should have earned me a detention, this was probably the most mundane.
At my high school, detention was on Saturdays at 7am. I took the slip home to my dad, told him what happened, and told him the time and place I'd need to be there.
He laughed, called up my school, and said "You expect me to get up before sunrise on a Saturday so I can take my daughter to detention over some ridiculous idiocy you guys have about how far apart students must be seated? I'm sorry, but I have better things to do, like sleep. Either come up with a time that is within the realm of sanity or she's not going to your stupid detention over nothing at all."
So they set up another time for me; right after school, in the office. I got there and asked if I could read. The administrator stared me like I'd grown another head. "I... I guess?"
An hour later, they told me I could go. My reply? "One sec, almost at the end of the chapter." There was a groan from the administrator - the one who'd given me the detention - as he realized that he had essentially done nothing but provided me a nice chair to hang out in.
In detention, I was not allowed to listen to music, take out my phone, or do my homework. I wasn't allowed to do anything that could be seen as productive or enjoyable. The goal was to make you simply sit there and be driven half-mad from the boredom.
But they never considered that they might have a student who finds reading enjoyable. I don't know what's worse: the idea of what that says about how the adults look at reading, or the idea of what that says about how few kids actually do read these days.