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I Was Given Lines At School

Detention was combined with lines so that you could not use the detention time productively in any way whatever. Instead of lines that could be repeated, you were asked (really, required) to copy symbol for symbol dictionary pages. Phonetic symbols were the hardest. I didn't learn anything during detention. It just was unpleasant and embarrassing. Probably "worked" as a substitute for something more physically painful like running laps or licks with a paddle and definitely strokes with a cane.

There was no attempt whatever to make it morally educational or a positive experience in any way. Just judicially administered unpleasant moments.

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MaryJanine · 70-79, F

To me, detention was a fancy name for "study hall" - I hated those, too. No, I didn't get detention (thank God) - I was on time, did my work and homework, minded my own business in general. Mom was strict about our behavior in school - especially so after my stepsister kept getting lines or kept after school. She was a chatterbox and talker early on, and the one time she had a teacher who made the student write "I must shut my big mouth" a thousand times. The point was,the student had to stay home until the lines were finished and got no credit for the days missed. Well, when Linda got it, my mother saw her and she, my mom, another classmate and her mother went to see the principal the next morning. The principal was unaware of this punishment. She took one look at the lines, called the teacher in, and said in front of the assemblage, "Since when do you, or anybody else in this school, tell students they have a 'big mouth'?"

That was what my mom objected to. I heard her telling Dad later, "No damn teacher is going to tell MY daughter she has a 'big mouth'!"

That ended that particular punishment in that classroom - but the teacher had it in for my stepsister and her friend for the rest of the year.