Detention (academia)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Detention is a form of punishment used in schools, where a student is required to spend extra time in school. A detention usually takes place during a period after the end of the school day. However, other times may also be used such as before the school day, weekend, and breaks in the school day, such as lunch.

A detention is typically carried out in a room that offers no amenities for leisure, so that students serving detention will have no outlet to distract them from their punishment. The students are usually monitored by a teacher, and may be required to either bring homework, sit quietly, or perform some punitive or non-punitive task, usually to decrease boredom. Such tasks may take the form of housekeeping, such as clapping blackboard erasers or picking up litter; academic such as writing an essay or answering questions on why the detention was given, or copying out paragraphs from a text, or writing out lines.

Detention is usually considered to be one of the milder punishments available to a school. Multiple detentions may be given as for more severe offences. However, if detention fails to cure the student's behaviour, and for more severe behaviour, harsher punishments such as suspension, or expulsion may be used.

Some students of Catholic school may be familiar with the term "JUG", also known as "Justice Under God."

[edit] Pop culture references

There are numerous pop culture references to the practice of detention. For example, the opening credits to The Simpsons depicts Bart Simpson in detention, repeatedly writing some ironic phrase along the lines of "I will not instigate revolution", "I do not have diplomatic immunity", or "I will not waste chalk" (see chalkboard gag). There is also a picture of him about to cover a chalkboard with the phrase "I will use Google before asking dumb questions".

Detention was also the name of an animated series that had a brief run on the Kids' WB in 1999 and 2000.[1] The series portrayed a group of misfit middle-schoolers who were constantly in detention, scheming to overcome the obstacles that said condition presented.

The movie The Breakfast Club revolves around five disparate students bonding during a day in detention. The movie Some Kind of Wonderful features a significant detention twist — a student intentionally misbehaves in order to be placed in detention with the girl of his dreams — but later learns that she has managed to talk her way out of the punishment. However, the student ends up befriending the dangerous-looking derelicts who are regularly on detention, and they ultimately help him out in his moment of greatest need.

In an episode of Recess called The Box/The Trial, Miss Finster claims that detention was invented by a woman named Mildrid Frisbone in 1952.