Student: “I Appreciate You Disciplining Me.”

I expect my students to wear a school uniform shirt and an ID. It is my habit to check for these, and my students know so.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they always comply.

Last week, in one of my classes, I hit on a noncompliance bonanza of sorts. One had no school shirt. A second had no ID. A third had neither school shirt nor ID.

So, out come the detentions.

During the course of handling these incidents, I had an unusual response from one of these unfortunate three:

He thanked me for disciplining him:

His exact words: “Ms. Schneider, I appreciate you taking the time to discipline me.” 

Now, my first thought was that he was being sarcastic, but he was not. He was serious.

As I was writing his detention, I congratulated him on his maturity and told him that the willingness to subject oneself to authority…