'A teacher punished my kid brutally as though it's 1925'

EXCLUSIVE: A Melbourne mum shares the "old fashioned and cruel" consequence given to her son. 

When Melbourne mum Kate* arrived to collect her Year 4 son from school, she wasn't prepared for what she was about to hear.

"Mr X made me face the wall in English," Oliver* sadly told her.

He said it quietly, knowing his mum would be upset. He was right.

"At first, I couldn't understand what I was hearing," Kate tells Kidspot.

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"Stand in the corner and face the wall"

Kate says she pulled over in the car park to confirm what her son was saying.

"Mr X told me to go to the corner and face the wall," he explained.

"I immediately saw red," Kate says. "I asked him why, and he said, "Because I was laughing too loud and making jokes."

Kate reports that she immediately took her son to the Junior School Principal.

"I knew I couldn't sleep on it, I had too many questions. 

"Humiliating a child in front of their class as a form of punishment is absolutely unacceptable. Cruel. Brutal. Is it 1925?"

Image: Supplied

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"Not the school's style at all"

Kate says that until that afternoon, they enjoyed a solid relationship with all staff, and her son hadn't been labelled a "troublemaker."

"I was so confused. I get that it's annoying for a teacher to have a class disrupted by kids distracting others. I know that. But this seemed like an excessive response.

"I can remember, even 30 years later, the kids who were made to do that in class. They would be utterly destroyed in spirit, and humiliated. 

"What does that even achieve? 

"I could accept being sent out of the room to break the dynamic. Even as a 'now you miss out on some class time because you were warned.

"But what does standing in the corner with back to your peers teach anyone? Except to humiliate, and have that memory ingrained in the class so the child can be labelled as 'bad'."

Kate says that the first thing the Principal did was reassure her that "This is not the school's style at all."

"He was amazing," Kate says. "He recognised that the consequence was outdated and promised to look into it."

Kate admits she spent the night wondering if she had one the right thing.

"But every bone in my body was burning. One of my best friends was the kid always sent out, or put in the corner, and it still shows decades later. She thinks nothing of herself. 

"She was the scapegoat for the rest of the time, as soon as the kids worked out the teachers would suspect her, first. She could never do anything right."

Luckily, the Principal acted quickly. By the next morning, he had spoken to Mr X, and asked to see Kate and Oliver.

They were told that the junior school's disciplinary policy did not include standing in the classroom's corner, and/or facing the wall. They were also promised that Mr X now understood that "his approach needed to align with the school's policies."

"Apparently he apologised, too. I'm not sure about that, but even if he did, that wasn't what I needed. I just needed for it to never happen again."

Kate reports that since the incident, there have been no further negative experiences.

"I've never been a big believer in punishment because I don't think it teaches kids anything. Consequences? Yes, absolutely. 

"But never anything that's designed to control a child with isolation, rejection, or humiliation. People who believe in doing those things to kids think they're teaching them, but all a young mind learns is how to bully others into submission."

Kate knows that other parents might think she's raising a "snowflake", but she promises that's not the issue at all.

"I am not saying my kid is a perfect angel," she says.

"But I was very uncomfortable with how this was handled. I understand time out can be necessary, but the public shame isn't.

"Oliver told me he was just standing there for most of the lesson, feeling sadder and sadder as he could hear whispers and giggles.

"By all means, teach him manners and respect. But not by making him feel like a nothing."

*Names have been changed to protect the child in the story.

Originally published as 'A teacher punished my kid brutally as though it's 1925'