As a child I was punished three times without cause, including once when I was a straightforward victim and had several witnesses; and twice by a teacher who di

As a child I was punished three times without cause, including once when I was a straightforward victim and had several witnesses; and twice by a teacher who disliked me only because a troublesome family member had been her former student. One of those times I was "convicted" on the word of my bully for something I had not done and my bully regularly did. They tried to get me to admit to things in each case, but even though I denied it throughout, I was still punished. As a father, I remember the only time my kid got in trouble at school. I received a strongly worded letter from my child's school that my child had been disrespectful to a teacher and that he was going to receive detention. It was like pulling teeth to get them to tell me what my child had actually done that was disrespectful. When asked (in email) they just kept repeating that he was disrespectful and they talked a lot about the teacher's feelings but never told me what my specifically kid had done or said. I wrote them back a last time suggesting I meet with the principal and the teacher in person to discuss the issue. They never replied to me, but I found out through my kid that they dropped the detention. I'd have pressed further, but we were already moving our kid to another school because of other shenanigans and overall low education quality. I asked my kid for his version of events. He said that he took a test about the field trip they had been on, and he had left the last question "What did you learn?" blank. The teacher suggested he answer the question. My kid said leaving it blank was his answer and the teacher left to check on the other kids. If this bothered the teacher, it wasn't even addressed at the time. Now, I had a good talk with my kid about the situation and I agree that he shouldn't have left that question blank. (I also sympathized with him because the field trip was the same each year and not exactly information rich. It was overall I think a good learning moment for him.) But this was what hurt the teacher's feelings and she found disrespectful? If the kid refuses to answer the question let his score reflect it. If you're not okay with blank questions, make that a detention-worthy offense. But to bring me your hurt feelings and how my kid was disrespectful... and then to not even be willing to tell me about it? I thought maybe my kid had a tone or was otherwise rude in his delivery of his decision; but if so, they wouldn't tell me about it. And I've talked to my kid about this incident since, and even as an adult he has no idea why the teacher had the reaction she seemed to have had. Anyway, the point of this is that discipline in schools is mostly unfair, arbitrary, and not clearly effective. In the general case there are no trials, no weighing of the evidence, or anything to protect the student from unfair treatment or abuse. I don't know what the solution is; parents suck and let their kids get away with murder. But many current parents also experienced such 'guidance' and have no desire to see their kids experience it as well.