^^^ That isn't a time out room though, that is a total abuse of the idea. Just because one school mis-uses the idea doesn't mean it needs to be shut down everywhere.
Well it breaks my heart to see you this way,
The beauty in life, where's it gone?
And somebody told me you were doing okay,
Somehow I guess they were wrong.
i used to have an isolation room in high school, i was in like the worst class in the whole school, we was all out of control , me and a guy once drew all over th walls we basically told to re paint it , how rude :0 lol, we was never watched tho , we was basically shoved in there
Not all the so called "time out rooms" we like the one with the carpet on the walls. Many were similar to the one like the picture at the beginning of the thread here, but not painted black. They were either wood, drywall or brick partitions with chairs facing the walls. Some with or without desks to make you do your school work. Some of the other schools I went to, if you got out of line didn't even have a time out area, they would just slam you on the floor and hold you down for 20 minutes to a hour. Claim you were "going off" and had to hold you down for your safety. One dude that did it to me on my first day there, accused me of taking a pen from him. When I refused to give up my pen to him, he took me and slammed me on the floor and after spreading me out like I was flying, he started digging his elbo into my shoulder blade till I was screaming. I am sorry, but staff today has too much power, and it goes to their head. True some kids need to be restrained so they don't hurt others. However, I think camera's should be installed in schools these days to keep everyone honest. To not only keep the staff honest, but to prove what the kid did too. The incident report filed by the staff member who accused me of stealing the pen read that I hit and kicked staff. I never once hit them. He attacked him. And the incident didn't match with the time it occured. Had someone taken a closer look, they would have seen something wasn't right. But who is going to believe the student? The staff are paid employees. They are trusted to tell what really happened and everyone expects that the student is going to lie. As far as what to do with trouble making kids? Continue to send them to principles office and suspend them. Like they did in the old days. Make parents accountable for their kids again. That's why power goes to staffs head like it does. They are told they can hold down kids and such, and like this dude that worked at my school, he was always looking for a reason to take a kid down. Even egging some on so he had an excuse. Things need to change
-Stanley
"It is said that those that cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. But what of those who cannot forget the past? Something worse?"
If children are acting up, there is something going wrong to make them act up. Maybe they've got an abusive family, maybe they're bored, maybe they just aren't interested in maths, and would much prefer woodwork or cookery.
I take these cells in the same way I approach prison; there's no point punishing people if you're not going to try and get them to change their ways. For some people, punishing them - in the same way as ASBOs - makes them proud, and more likely to act up. If you get 'street-cred' for getting put in the punishment cell, it'll do nothing.
^^ Sorry you've had a bad experience, but I have to set you straight on the "Power going to teachers heads" thing.
I'm a Secondary and Sixth Form teacher. I also have an MA in linguistic development and behavioural development. I have worked in Private school, I have also taught voluntarily in prison and in a YOI, I teach English in a "normal" comprehensive, I take mixed classes, but because of my qualifications I work a lot with the students who have (and I don't like the term) "behavior issues".
I (and my colleagues) have extremely strict legal guidelines which govern exactly how we are to interact with students. I can guarantee that if I ever "held down" a child, as you put it, I would lose my job and be permanently suspended from teaching. The guidelines are so strict, that if one of my students fell over and hurt themselves, I'm not even supposed to help them up. If two children are fighting and I have to get between them to stop it, I have to say to the fighting pair "I am about to step between you, I may make contact with you but it is necessary for me to intervene".
How ridiculous is that?
At my school we have an isolation room. It has partitions, in each partition there is a desk and a computer. The children sent to the isolation room have to take work from their teacher to complete in there. They can spend anything from one lesson to a whole day in there, but before they get to that point they have to go through 7 behaviour steps to get to it and then they can only be referrd to that room by myself, or a member of senior management. Every child that has an identified "behavioural issue" has a file, in it are all the background information we have on that child, reports from primary school, the educational psychologist's report, social services involvement, YIP, YIST, etc, etc. Any incidents that have happened in school, incidents outside school, peer influence, academic strengths, academic weak spots, lessons and teaching staff they like and dislike. I spend hours getting to know the students. If ISS is not for them I know, so they don't go.
Many kids don't care any more, that's the real issue. One of my favourite students is 14 in yr 10. They are very violent, known to lash out at staff, turn tables over. Has lots of power in school, comes from the local estate. Has no fear. I got to know them, they talk to me. They drop into my room whenever they feel "wound up". The are removed to me when there is a problem or I am called to them. I am 5'6" this person is taller than me (as are most of the kids) clearly tougher than me. But when they kick off I still go in and resolve it. I arranged for this person to attened college two days a week to do a course they wanted to encourage them back into training and education. It cost over a thousand pounds to get them on. They went for a month then started to skip it. I asked why, their honest answer - "Because I'm getting paid £200 a week running pills and powder on the estate, Miss." That's what alot of teachers are up against. The kids I teach don't need their education, they have calved thier way in life already. They don't want to be in school, unless it's to cause havoc to get attention. They're scared of no-one and nothing.
I know NQT's and people doing their teacher training who have spent ages in the staff room crying as they get bullied by the students. I was asked to go into an NQT's English lesson to survey what support she needed. The class were a middle set, supposedly four badly behaved kids out of sixteen. The class were wild when I walked in, throwing stuff out of windows, screaming, throwing coca - cola and sweets at the teacher. She was trying to regain order in the class, they laughed in her face and said "What the **** are you going to do, you sad bitch?" This may sound extreme, but I've worked in and visited many, many schools and it's more common than you'd think.
I know I've been going on, but the issue of how we correct behavior in schools really gets me going, so I apologise. Unfortunately, most schools have the same approaches, and we all get the same government directives, that are way out dated and useless. The kids always want to talk about my teaching in prison. They always say "Where they all really bad in there?" And the truth is they were as good as gold, because the lesson's were the treat. That's not how it is for schools. Teachers have no power and kids know it. I had a kid who skipped all his GCSE RE lessons so they ask me to ring home, their parents response was "Well does X have to go? They aren't really religious."
These isolation rooms aren't the answer, but they can help in some cases, sometimes the most disaffected kids come to ask me to put them in there. Detention still exists, there's a policy for getting parental permission now so you can only really give DT during break and dinner. Most kids don't turn up, so you waste your break waiting for them. You can spend a month chasing them, writing home etc, but they still don't do their DT.
The point of me writing this is to give you an inside view of what it's like and to say there is no good way of dealing with these issues yet. I love the kids I work with, i think they are wicked some of them do have issues that affect their behavior and I and my colleagues work hard to help in those instances, we also have a permanent mental health co-ordinator to asses the kids, but I also know that some are violent, criminal bullies, who could easily beat the heck out of me and that they love being like that, I can try to encourage change but how? They don't want our incentives. The school I teach at isn't in the bottom bracket of league tables and we got "excellent" in our ofstead report. I have friends who teach all over the place and we all have similar concerns. Nearly all the teaching staff i come into contact with, most of the members of my union, are sick of being told we always do the wrong thing by kids and we do nothing to sort out the behaviour, the truth is we give over most of our time ansd energy to help kids, but we have no power, no back up from parents and the constant threat of knowing that pretty soon we'll all get sacked from our jobs for sneezing near a kid.
Last edited by N.Bluth : 27-11-2008 at 11:54 AM.
Reason: Blah
Play the game out
Amor Vincit Omnia
Dad 10/11/2008 Always our sunshine, I'm still playing for the town hall clock
I agree with the use of the rooms. The kids getting sent there get time out, also the other kids in the class they have disrupted get time out too.
People complain that we are too harsh on children, but then they also complain that kids run riot and have no respect for other people. What do people want? Discipline or anarchy?
And I think the Dad complaining is an idiot. He seems to me that he's one of these people who don't like anyone else disciplining his child, accusing him of not being a decent parent, but he won't do the discipline himself, also not being a decent parent.
Teachers need to be given the ability to teach respect and discipline to the kids in their care. They are acting in loco parentis after all. Why can't they be allowed to do their job, instead of being muzzled by some do gooders who have never been on the receiving end of a nasty little brat who needs to be shown that that is not an acceptable way of behaving?
And basically, I agree with: if you can't do the time, don't do the time.
Loz x
You don't have to be a monkey to recognize a banana!
I wish we had a teacher like you in our school. who wouldnt jsut sit back and let things happen. Our school is one of the afroe mentioned 'if we didnt see it, it didnt happen' schools, ranging from bullying, to self harmers /peopel with EDs.
As for the 'punishment cells' i think isolation rooms would work, yes. if anyoen has seen 'waterloo road' on the BBC (a drama serioes) i think a system liek that woudl work. it was fictional, yes, btu they had a 'cooler' basically, a normal classroom, but it took you away from everyone else bar the teacher/other students in there. complete isolation from everyone and everything excpet in that room. i do NOT think a tiny spac eiwht no windows and blacked out walls is the way to go. I dont care what the kids done, doing something as bad back is not the answer. though i do fidn it ironic the dad complaining.
"I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell." -Picasso
"No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war." - Picasso
'I have scars becuase I have a past; but they, like my past, do not define my future'
My school had one of those and looked just like that picture but without all the blackness and had a few every cubicles, we used to get sent into there all the time even just for silly things like if we were late three times a week but to more serious things like fighting ect, when we was in there the teachers used to just ignore us and everyone would mess around and throw letters to one another so they where pretty pointless for punishment but good for getting the bad behaviour outa the classroom and disrumping the reat of the class
Keep holding on, Cause you know we'll make it through,
Just stay strong, Cause you know I'm here for you,
There's nothing you could say, Nothing you could do
There's no other way when it comes to the truth </3333
I am sorry that it's so hard to control the classroom where you are at. I should have been a bit more clearer with where I was when I spoke about what I did. I live in the US, more exactly, in southern california. Here in the special education schools teachers and teachers aids are given the right to put their hands on kids by the parents of the kids when the children are enrolled in the school. I knew before my first day what could happen if I "went off". However I never hit or attacked anyone.
The closest to me "going off" was getting up and leaving the classroom quietly. It wasn't ok in any of the schools, but in this one school, if you attempted to leave the room at all, you were slammed on the floor and held there for 20-30 minutes. Yes it's true, there are always going to be some who are violent and some who want to disrupt the classroom. And I can indeed see the use for trained staff to step in and regain control, remove disruptive students from the classroom and so fourth. The problem occurs I have to say is when they take it farther than controling the violent and disruptive students.
Before I give this other example, it needs a bit of backround to explain why it escolated like it did. Shortly before the day it happened my mom had sent me to the psychiatric hospital, saying I was suicidal when I wasn't because I had gotten sent home from school for defending myself from a bullie. Again, they stuff didn't see the bullie hit me, they only saw me defending myself, so I got sent home to a waiting ambulance. During my stay at the hospital I got a back injury there.
Anyway, this particular day I was in class trying to do my schoolwork, but I was having trouble understanding the material. I asked the teachers aid for help, but he would not take the time to come over and assit me so I could finish the work. So out of fustraightion and closed my book and sat back in my chair. The teacher called the time out room staff who came over to talk to me. This whole time I am quietly sitting in my seat. This guy comes in and tells me I need to do my school work. I tried to explain to him why I couldn't do it. Then he tells me "do we need to call the people?". Puzzeled at his very odd question I asked him what people he was refering to. He replied "the psych ward people". Scared of being sent back and further harm I got up and ran out of the class room. After about 2 1/2 hours in a hiding place I was found and because I wasn't able to be calmed down I had to be sent home.
The staff of the time out room, had they taken the time to listen to me about what the problem was, could have solved the entire incident. I was willing to do the work, that wasn't the problem. I just needed help so I could complete it. Instead of working to defuse the problem, they went beyond what they were suposed to do, and made a threat they had no right to make. With the time out room, all they do there is place you in a chair facing the wall. They don't work on any ways to help you to work to prevent the incident from happening again. How about after your done "going off" one of these staff members in the time out rooms sit down, find out what happened to cause the child to end up there, and work on ways to deal with the situation without having to "going off".
-Stanley
"It is said that those that cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. But what of those who cannot forget the past? Something worse?"
^ Well I'm sorry you had to go through that experience, it shouln't happen to any child. All teachers have a duty of care when we're working, so ensuring you were calm and safe should have been their priority. I'm disgusted that the treatment you received was legitamised, I'd never want to hurt or domineer any of my students. In honesty the kids I teach aren't that badly behaved by any national standard, you'll find the same level of "difficult" children in most UK schools. I'm not complaining about working with them either, I love my job and that's because all the kids have their own character and finding a way to help each one of them achieve is more rewarding than I can say. I just wanted to show you the story from a teacher's standpoint so you can be aware that many of us are trying the hardest we can to provide a safe and positive learning environment for all our students, but that we are facing a massive undercurrent from puils and parents alike who are devaluing and rejecting education, leading to disruption, bullying, aggression and violence towards other pupils and staff in school. As of yet we have been given no solution to counteract this situation, hence why many schools are forced into removing and containing disruptive pupils in ISS.
Last edited by N.Bluth : 28-11-2008 at 08:57 AM.
Reason: Did't read through!
Play the game out
Amor Vincit Omnia
Dad 10/11/2008 Always our sunshine, I'm still playing for the town hall clock
Not Important, did this happen at a private school? Sorry if you've already mentioned that.
My school had CCTV in 'the unit' so that no one could claim something that wasn't true. I still want to know what people want to do with disruptive pupils or where they want to put them.
Yea, all the special education schools were basically private schools. The special education classes didn't share a campus with regular kids or classes. We had our own campus and busses. The last special ed school I attended did have camera's, but they were only in the halls and stairwells. Not in the classrooms and outside on the blacktop area. When I was slammed on the ground, or egged on it was always done off camera. My word against his. Having the camera's in place would not only protect staff from a kid saying staff did something to the student, but it would protect the student from staff like in my case. I hope it's rare, I honestly do. It's just happened alot of times for it to be a isolated incident. Perhaps it's just a US problem with school "time out room" staff being too hyped up from the incident and using too much force or something. Perhaps they need training on how to control their feelings during an incident. Who knows. But something needs to change. It took me attempting suicide to be heard and get the one staff that was attacking me stopped and he was fired with a perminent mark in his record so he couldn't work with children in the future. It shouldn't have to come to that. A kids report should atleast be checked out....atleast.
-Stanley
"It is said that those that cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. But what of those who cannot forget the past? Something worse?"
My school had this exact same thing, but with more of them little boxes.
I thought it was a good idea,and when i was in there for the first time i was scared,because it is scary.But after that it was a very long time before i went back in there.
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