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35 Unethical Practices That Are Common In Some Schools
Now, school ought to be a place of learning where eager minds would try to soak in every bit of knowledge and experience they can before they hit the real world.
Alas, schools are also a place where certain decisions beg more questions than they could possibly answer and, in some cases, it has reached unethical levels.
People of Reddit have been listing unethical practices that schools do, and nobody is really batting an eye about it. The discussion generated nearly 11,000 comments with over 24,000 upvotes.
Bored Panda has collected the most upvoted responses to this question and compiled a list which you can find below. Vote and comment on the answers that you think are the biggest problems, and why not also share some of your observations in the comment section below!
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#1
Harassing teenage girls for "dressing inappropriately" when a millimeter of their bra strap is showing (or some other s**t like that). Telling them it distracts the boys and invites unwanted attention. When they actually get harassed (or worse) the school does nothing.
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#2
Lowering a school's funding if the SAT scores are low. If the scores are low, there should be more funding to help kids learn!
#3
Bullied and harassed students having the same repercussions as their bully for defending themselves.
#4
How sports programs have way more money than any other programs at the school… because school is a business not education.
#5
Awarding “perfect attendance.” Encouraging kids to go to school while sick is pretty unethical if you ask me.
#7
Collective punishment; one or two pupils misbehave and the entire class gets punished for it.
#8
Too much homework. Let kids be kids. A little homework is good but god don't drown the kids in it.
#9
Requiring you to purchase textbooks brand new from the college's bookstore because that's the only way to get the access code to complete the required assignments on the publishers website.
#10
I was a decently misbehaved third grader. Told my teacher I had a stomach ache and I needed to go to the nurse. I asked a number of times. She thought I was just trying to get out of individual reading time. My appendix burst on the bus ride home. I was never one to ask to go to the nurse. Just a hyperactive kid my teacher apparently had enough of. Denying medical attention to an 8 year old seems unethical. This is not a "boy who cried wolf" story for all those saying "I told ya so".
#11
Bullied students are told to leave because it's easier to kick out a quiet victim than a loud bully
#12
This is probably very specific to my home country but period checks I'm from Malaysia and yes sadly this is a thing and I've witnessed it firsthand. Mostly to make sure girls aren't lying about their periods just to get out of prayer activities.
#14
Less severe but limiting kids access to water, I.e. you can’t have your drink bottle at the table. Which [is bad] when you live in Australia and at summer the temperature gets up to 36c and school is during all the hottest hours of the day.
#16
Passing students that aren't ready for the next grade because they need to pad their passing rates to keep funding. It's setting the kids up for failure down the road.
#17
Treating special needs kids subhumanly because they can’t speak up for themselves…then belittling/reprimanding the staff who do advocate for them.
#18
Giving preference to kids that parents donate money and fratranise with teachers/ headmasters.
#19
Our assembly room/gymnaisum had the fire escape doors chained shut, and the police department was aware of it.
#20
C9Juice says: 7 am classes S_thyrsoidea replied: 7am classes in complete disregard for what the science says about adolescent development and sleep schedule, and the effect of early classes on academic success.
#21
Making hair part of the uniform and dictating what hair styles and colours students are allowed to have. Also letting girls wear short skirts in summer but not letting boys wear shorts. I've seen quite a few schools in the news where the boys have had to protest and wear skirts in the summer because they weren't allowed shorts.
#24
Convincing kids that a 4-year institution after graduation is the best choice for everyone.
#25
Keeping bad teachers in their positions. Not the same as a good teacher with poorly performing students with bad home life etc.
#26
Humiliating and/or calling out students in front of the whole class also saying things like "you'll never pass my class/get into Harvard/get into college" to the entire class for some reason always with a stupid, arrogant smirk on their face... The first two are true stories, the first from my Honors Algebra II teacher to a class of 15/16-year-olds and the second from my HONORS SCHOOL to a class of 14/15-year-olds which was supposed to prepare me for that exact thing!! What makes the second even worse is that the person who said it was... wait for it... THE SCHOOL COUNSELOR!!!
#28
The pledge of allegiance, confiscating kid's phones, withholding graduation ceremonies because they've labelled kids troublemakers, zero tolerance policies, ignoring and covering up bullying
#31
Making kids sell magazines or whatever. Should be 100% illegal and I dunno what kind of parents stand for that s**t.
#32
Diagnosing kids who aren't interested in the curriculum with ADHD. Still don't understand how I get diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school just for it to magically disappear halfway through middle school, for it then to reappear freshman year of high school just to disappear again sophomore year.
#34
Put make up exams during lunch. I’m running on no food for the past 21 hours because I had to skip lunch to do a makeup exam. Thank god the school day is almost over Side note, I exercise a lot so I generally eat a lot so this s**t is really annoying
#35
Selling 2x the number of parking passes than spots actually exist for, then imposing steep parking fines.
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