'AITA for wanting to report a teacher who keeps cancelling recess?'

"AITA for wanting to report a teacher who keeps cancelling recess?"

So to start off, my son (he is 8 years old/second grade) is an exceptional student and child over all. He is very polite, smart and dedicated to his education. He is in chess club, robotics and does sports also. He is a little anxious and can be shy…just to give you an idea of my son. Here’s the dilemma:

He has math class before recess. The students in said math class have been misbehaving and not paying attention during class. Because of this, their teacher has been taking away their recess as punishment. She doesn’t single out the kids that are misbehaving but instead punishes the whole class.

He is still doing his work, keeping his head low, and he has a 95 in that class. I messaged the teacher and asked her if there is anything my son can do to make sure he gets to still have recess as this is a very important part of his day. She said “no, if my lesson is being interrupted, recess will continue to be cancelled until I can get thru my lesson."

I was at a loss here because on one hand, I totally understand where she’s coming from as I have gone on field trips with his class and I can see what a handful about 4-5 of the students in his class are. On the other hand, my son needs his time to unwind to be able to focus on his other classes.

It’s gotten to the point where he is crying every day before school from anxiety about his recess being cancelled and every day for the past week, it’s been cancelled. It’s affecting our mornings a lot because my sons used to get right up to go to school and now he cries and drags his feet to leave.

I don’t know what to do…I want to escalate the situation but my son's dad said I am over exaggerating. I looked up the laws about recess where we live (Texas) and it says schools 6th grade and under require recess time of at least 30 mins per day and it can’t be taken away from them as punishment…would it be bad to escalate this to the principal or counselor of school?

I don’t want the teacher to think I’m overstepping on her lesson. Should I maybe approach her again in a different more assertive manner? I know teachers have a hard enough job and are underpaid but I also know my son deserves to be heard…AITA for wanting to escalate the situation?

Here's what people had to say to OP:

NewDate6115 wrote:

NTA. Collective punishment is lazy as well as unfair. Not only are most of the class losing their break when they've done nothing wrong, but there's nowt they can do to stop it happening again.

I think the original idea behind teachers doing this is so the other kids will be pissed off and exert peer pressure on the misbehaving ones to change, but that's not how it works in reality.

It's also stupid because it's not an incentive to do the right thing. Even the well-behaved kids will soon get fed up and decide that if they're going to be punished anyway, they might as well do something to earn the punishment. Teachers shouldn't be teachers if they don't have the guts to discipline individual wrongdoers.

OP responded:

That’s what my son said she told them, she asked the good students to pressure the bad ones to behave. I’m like ma'am if you can’t get them to behave my shy son absolutely will not be able to pressure them.

Ok_Seat_5641 wrote:

NTA. I'm a teacher, though not in Texas, and she is absolutely breaking the law. Reporting it won't get her fired, or in any real trouble, but her admin will make sure she stops doing this.

I would do it anonymously though, because I have seen teachers get mad at parents and start passive aggressively taking it out on the kid. If after you report it, it doesn't change, go above the principal's head to the central office.

Fiigwort wrote:

NTA the law LITERALLY says it can't be taken away as punishment, this should have been escalated the first time it happened. It's not just your son that she's mistreating, it's all the students in her class, including the ones who are misbehaving. Group punishment doesn't work, it's just cruelty, this teacher needs to find another way to handle this issue.

Martha1001 wrote:

NTA This isn't an acceptable form of punishment from the teacher. You do need to go to the principal. Texas law requires at least 30 minutes of physical exercise. This can be gym class or recess. A Senate bill addresses no withholding recess as punishment.

You need to be your son's advocate when necessary. I tried to always let my boys handle problems on their own, but sometimes it's a problem only an adult can handle. The teacher needs to find another way to correct the misbehaving students.

notodibsyesto wrote:

NTA. At this age, I feel collective punishment is an admission of laziness on the teacher's part. She's basically saying "I can't be bothered to deal with the kids causing the disruption and I'm going to count on their 8 year old peers to do my job for me."

The unspoken thing here (edit: sounds like it's actually been outright spoken) is that the teacher is hoping that the other kids will start shaming them for losing recess for everyone and that will get them to change their behavior.

If your son's teacher can't get these kids to stay on task, why would your son, who is 8 and not a licensed teacher, be any better at it? Teachers aren't infallible and some pedagogical practices need to be left in the past.

RealisticSquirrel wrote:

NTA. Even if the lack of recess wasn't causing your child anxiety, the teacher is breaking the law by using this as a punishment. This is not how you teach kids how to behave. She's causing more harm than not here with her methods.

Royallyoakie wrote:

NTA. You've voiced your concerns to the teacher first, and they have been dismissed. It's time to go up the chain of command with your concerns.