Detentions
I don't get the point of detentions. I get that they're supposed to be a deterrent, and that they're supposed to punish you if you do something wrong, but they're a weird punishment nonetheless.
I've only had two true detentions, both in Year 7. The first was because I was an idiot and asked my PE teacher whether my boots were good enough for football. They weren't because they didn't have the sufficient studs or something, so I lost my break, spending it by staring into the abyss of the sports hall.
This detention was pointless for three reasons:
- It was self-inflicted. If I wasn't an idiot and didn't confess, I'd have got away with it
- What's the point of proper football shoes anyways? In PE, football was a bunch of kids who thought they were cool when all they could do was perform a series of pointless skill moves. I wasn't Messi, no one was, and yet we were meant to wear a very specific type of shoe as if that would make a difference.
- It didn't teach me anything. It just made me resentful of the school and confused as to why they cared so much about such a minor issue.
The second true detention was also in Year 7, and was because I didn't do my homework. What should have been an hour was actually just 30 minutes, luckily for my 11 year old self who panicked if the bus didn't turn up in five minutes (this being London and me being pointlessly stressed constantly). The homework? Type out what these computer components did and learn them for a test. I happened to be on holiday so couldn't do this, so instead learned them off by heart for the test.
This detention was pointless because:
- It didn't even last the whole time - what was the point?
- The homework itself served no benefit. There was no difference between typing them out, which could be done from copying a provided file, and just learning them.
- It didn't teach me anything. Okay, I did realise I needed to do the homework better, but it didn't do anything more than that. There were no major changes otherwise.
The other detentions are lunch detentions, which are the most stupid thing to ever exist:
- they're an ineffective deterrent
- they eat into your lunch (pun unintended), which means that you get less time to be fully prepared for your next lesson
- you get one if you're late by a second or by an hour
- if you're late, it's often only for the form classes which don't do much for your education either way
- you can get round them by contacting the school and making it seem like you're late for a legitimate reason, when you're not
- traffic isn't an excuse, even if you wake up at 6am and it's bad you don't get away with it
- certain medical emergencies apparently aren't an excuse either, according to what I've heard at school
- I got away with one because I was quite upset, which makes me think they don't care about the lateness at all
- you should get further repercussions from being late often but that's never happened to me
- you do nothing but stare into blank space, and as such you don't get anything informative out of the experience
- by the time you leave the late detention there's no food left or it's gone cold
- you don't learn anything from it
I find them so pointless, and it's even more frustrating as I live far away and the school knows this, but every time I'm late it's the same story. I know that lateness can lead to worse results down the line, but I'd argue that's a case of correlation ≠ causation, as if you're often late it could be because you care less about school, not because a minute lost is a mark lost.
Detentions should ultimately be educational, but what I also find is that detentions are often full of the same people every time - so clearly they're not as educational as they may seem. They're also highly dependent on the teacher - one may punish you more harshly to set an example but ignore the other person as they wish, and it's arguably this which I find most frustrating about the process.
I know detentions aren't that big of a deal, but I still find them extremely bizarre and confusing, and maybe that was their intent.