Hello Darkness, my old friend...Follow

Oh, ffs. Study hall is not the same as detention. Detention is being kept after normal school hours.

I beg your pardon, but are you referring to Guantanimo Study Hall?

As Samira pointed out, Detention = Detained, as in "after school hours". Unless you're arguing that study period every day is the same thing as being in detention. If they weren't having regular classes since most of the students were on the field trip, what exactly should they have done with everyone else? A day's worth of study hall was always the alternative to a field trip when I was in school regardless of where we were headed or what educational benefits it held.

And what the hell is "in-school" detention? As opposed to the detention where they make you sit at McDonald's for an hour after school?

Most schools use what they call ISS (in-school suspension) as a punishment preceding an actual suspension. It's basically a study hall. At some schools the ISS teacher is a counselor or perhaps just a generally caring person and may engage in some character-building activities or try to help out but afaik it's not the norm... just quiet homework time.

As someone who has enjoyed in-school suspensions before, I didn't see them as the same thing as a study hall. Study hall was much more relaxed and we could read the newspaper or a book, they didn't care if you passed notes and my senior year study hall even let us listen to Walkmans and the like.

In-school suspension was "Either do homework or sit silently and stare at your desk". Even reading non-homework related literature was prohibited. Of course, your milage may vary depending on what school you went to.

I participated, (and co-organized) the Day of Silence in my high school during my four years there. We went through hell to get it going, and the first people who participated were beaten against lockers, had rocks thrown at their cars, and bricks thrown at their houses, just to name some offenses. In my high school, the Day of Silence was a way to show a very WASP closed-minded community that there is a gay population in our little Maryland town, and that those who are gay or bi should not have to hide. It's a very good program that I can happily say is still held annually at my high school and many universities in the area.

We encouraged participants to answer teacher's questions - by writing. We also made students aware that if they had a presentation to give, they had to speak. Many of the students carried around white boards or doodle pads. It wasn't like they were completely mute. Also, it was impressive to go into a class where 2/3 of the students were not talking because they support openly.

After school we always had a "Break the Silence" discussion in which anyone - parents, teachers, community members, and students could talk openly about the experience and any questions they had about what it was like to live "in silence".

I can happily say, in my senior year, my principal and a few close teachers participated in the day of silence as well. One teacher even had her gay son come in and talk to her classes about what it was like to be gay in America.

As a future teacher, I think it was a great learning experience for all. At least in our neck of the woods, being gay/bi was not something widely discussed. To me it is just like discussing ethnic differences, which we also had a number of festivals for over the years.

So, to answer your question, I don't personally believe that it is counter to our children's academic learning. I think it makes them more well-rounded and less closed-minded to the world around them.

If we are to teach acceptance of religion and ethnic heritage in schools, acceptance of the gay/bi community should be taught as well.

Wtf! Mrs. Danalog is here now too?!












hi :) a/s/l?

Suspension =/= Detention.

Seriously, I don't know what terms they use in CA but I have never heard anyone refer to an in-school suspension as "detention".

Study hall is not punishment. Sorry if you think that "doesn't matter" but, yeah, it does. Study hall is the standard alternative to not attending a field trip or whatever and, honestly, the fact that an assembly was optional at all is something of a wonder to me. When we had assemblies, we were simply required to attend.

I thought the scenario in the OP was lame and I think that driving students to attend a rally as described was a bad move. But I draw the line of righteous indignation somewhere before "Oh no! They had to be in study hall!!". I guess that's why I'm not a Republican yet

Having been pretty much raised in California and gone to school here I can tell you, unless the terms have changed in the last eighteen years, suspension and detention mean two completly different things. Suspension meant your *** was kicked out of school for a set time. Basically a holiday where the teachers don't forgive you for missing class or homework. Normally given for fighting or the like. Detention was something you did after school for an hour or so when you pissed off your teacher but didn't **** him off enough to get you suspended. Talking in class a lot or habitually late or whatever got on their nerves, for example. My high school never had a a study hall, if you wanted time to study there was always before school, after school, lunch and detention.

*Shrug* Students feel put upon and abused all the time for stupid shit. It's part of the teenage experience.

If the bulk of the school is in Point A and a few stragglers are in Point B, the school needs a way to keep the Point B students under control and hopefully productive. Study hall doesn't sound all that onerous to me. Unless someone can cite that study hall at this particular school involves draining ditches and having spiked metal balls thrown at you, my heart doesn't really bleed because "the students were probably sad that they had to be in study hall".

Edited, Mar 27th 2007 6:30am by Jophiel

The first student will get sent to the special ed class until he learns that the correct grammar is "Bong Hits for Jesus".

The next group of students, after listening to Chomsky, will be required to read Zbegniew Brezhinski's new book and write a report, at least ten pages double spaced with footnotes, comparing and contrasting Cuba under Castro to the United States under Bush II and their respective use of fear and mass hysteria as a unifying political force.

All of this will be done in complete silence, using only whiteboards to communicate. All dry-erase markers will be in rainbow colors to symbolize the silent gay/lesbian/bi-sexual/transgendered community; or Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, I'm not sure which.

What's unfair? Accoring to Gbaji:If study hall is too much of a burden to bear, go to the damn assembly. It's an assembly, not a week-long camp. Christ, I'm supposed to be worked up because some high school students had to be in study hall for ninety minutes? And maybe they didn't get to talk to their friends but had to work on homework? During school hours? And this was a voluntary choice they made?

Oh, God no. I'm suprised United Nations peacekeepers haven't been deployed yet. Probably because the school is in the hands of liberals in cahoots with the UN.

TaruRyu didn't mention what the fate was of the poor non-black students who didn't get to sit in an assembly for two days. I assume they simply went to class. Which, honestly, is what I'd rather do than sit in a two-day assembly but your opinion may differ. Not that I agree with the premise of a two-day blacks only assembly in the first place (but then TaruRyu is in another country).