Yesterday, my mentor was attending the teacher workshop out of town, therefore I and one of my college friend, Kak Komang were assigned to supervise some of her classes. And finally at the end of the school we had the chance to observe the detention segment after school for the students who had misbehaved during the classroom process.During my time in that class of 20 students consisted of different grades ranged from 7 to 12, I kept pondering upon this matter of discipline, especially about detention. When I looked up this term in Wikipedia and some other resources, I was struck by the original meaning of this word is associated with imprisonment and resistance. What a strong word it is. And although I have learned about this term in the psychology course in college but it's really a new thing for me to directly observed and to be in the detention class.
I kn
ow that I have not really understood about this matter and it can somehow make me misunderstand. So, in this time reflection, I just want to think about what I have seen yesterday in practice and list down some pluses and minuses of this process.When the students arrived to the class, they seemed to feel not good and not comfortable. It also could be 'another job' for a teacher if it's not done effectively. And actually for the students who have the right understanding of being in the room, they will surely understand that this is time for reflections and think what they had done which were unacceptable. But since this was the culmination of 'warnings in the classroom', some students would feel so bad about themselves and saw this time as a reinforcement of that image. And I am still reluctant to continue this reflection because I am still not really sure about this. I'll ask this soon to my lecturer as soon as I come back to campus.
Lord, have mercy!
Detention is just a humanly imposed "time out" from regular activity, given to students who need to "think about" their behavior, and what must "change for the better."
ReplyDeleteTraining a child this way has its effects, good or bad.
When I first started school, I was 5 years old. One morning my dear mother brought me there. The room seemed very large and it was mostly empty, like a physical education hall, with a large red circle painted on the floor.
The mothers were bringing their children that first morning and leaving them sitting on the floor at a point on that painted circle, so when they left (and there was much crying of children, but I did not cry then, but felt like I wanted to cry), there were about 30 strange children, none of whom I knew. In fact, I had never seen any other children till then, except for my sister and brother and cousins, only children of my own family. I was scared.
I tried to do whatever the teacher told me to do, but one day I must have disobeyed or perhaps I was talking when I should not be talking, and perhaps this happened too much. The teacher put me in "detention."
This was a small room like a large closet. There was a door and one very small window, or maybe it was a window that had a shade that was pulled down. It was very dark in there when she closed the door. There was a large chest full of wooden building blocks and some other toys and games in there, because it was actually the storage room for the class, but I did not want to play with the blocks, even though they were my favorite toy.
I was just feeling bad, very bad, about being detained in that room. When I was in there I decided that I would never let that happen again. And never again was I put into detention, not in that class, or in any class until I graduated from high school twelve years later.
The effect this experience had on me was that I wanted to "follow the rules" at all times, and I became the obedient one of my family. This even extended to the rest of my life until now, as my basic mindset, although I have not really been completely obedient to what I know is right. No one ever is, of course, even when we think we "follow the rules"—no one does. It takes an entire lifetime of struggle to kill the "old man" in us and to resist temptation and so on.
I just wanted to tell you a story that may help you understand what detention is and how it affects people. This was "humanly imposed" detention, but God puts us "in detention" many times in our lives, by letting misfortunes happen to us, to give us pause, to open a place for us to think about our actions or our lives, to "come to our senses."
By the way, Yudhie, this was a very nice picture of you with your friends. Thanks for posting it. I saved it in my "Yudhie album."
ReplyDeleteThanks, Romanos, your story is very helpful for me to understand about the detention. I get the point that it's about a time provided for students to think and reflect of what they've done (altough it's in the setting that's not comfortable to the students)so that they would not repeat --or at least to avoid or 'think twice'about the behaviour. Thanks very much.
ReplyDeleteAbout the picture, that was taken in the front of dormitory :). Thanks. I am glad that you like it.