An entire class should never be punished for the actions of one or a few students.

Thank you for responding in a quick and timely manor, I was out of town this weekend and didn't have a chance to. Opponent: Teachers have the choice of being watchful. If a teacher pays attention to what happens, this wouldn't be a problem. You sure are asking a whole lot of teachers. A similar analogy would be "Murders should never happen, because the police should know everything that relates to the safety of a community". Teachers don't have eyes in the back of their heads. They can't watch 100% of the class 100% of the time. No one can. Opponent: Additionally, because this targets everyone, it punishes innocent people, and I think that not punishing anybody would be a better alternative, in this case. Not punishing anyone would be better? Wouldn't this only encourage future misbehavior? Teachers can't let students run right over them; they need to put their foot down and say "The buck stops here!" Opponent: Telling on someone else in front of the rest of the class can lead to huge downfall in reputation, especially if the wrongdoers are popular. To have a social life, a kid has no choice but to take the punishment with the rest of the class. This makes the tool completely ineffective. Who said it had to be in front of the whole class? You could approach the teacher after class, and I'm sure the teacher would keep your name confidential. Opponent: I've had to sit out from recess before because of a few kids in my class. Once, in the class down the hall, something was broken in the classroom, or something of the sort, and the teacher suspected that one of the kids in her class had done it. Therefore, she said that every student in her class had to sit out from recess every day until the kid turned himself or herself in. Other students were incapable of turning in the wrongdoer, because only the wrongdoer knew who he or she was. This ended up lasting about a week until the kid turned himself in, and a week without recess is pretty severe in fifth grade This is the problem with Generation Y, they see everything as an entitlement. Recess, by no means, is an entitlement, it is a privilege. You have no right to recess, and plus, their could have been worse things that could have happened. Opponent: Punishing innocent people is unethical. They didn't do anything wrong. Thus, they don't deserve the punishment. And yet, they receive it. How would you like it if you had to sit out of gym or recess every day for the entire year until a student, who may or may not be in your class, who you didn't know turned himself in? This isn't a rhetorical question; it is a question to be answered. It doesn't matter how I "feel". The teacher is the highest authority in the classroom, therefore he or she has the right to decide what is in the best interests of the class. And punishing innocent people might be unethical, but isn't the teacher the one who decides what is unethical or not, he or she is the utmost authority in the class. Opponent: It is ineffective. Quite often, the wrongdoer isn't even part of the class that is being punished. Thus, punishing the wrong people gets nothing done. I actually think it gets a lot done. It encourages students not to misbehave in the future, especially when the teacher isn't looking. Another point: Punishing everybody happens a lot outside of school, and it is fair. Take for example you work with a firm that sells farm equipment. One year, sales are far below average, mostly due to the inabilities of two or three salespeople to meet their established quotas. You, on the other hand, as sold almost 150% of what you were suppose to sell. However, no one that year will receive Christmas bonuses because of a lack of sales. Is that fair? No. Is that right? Yes. Spending money you don't have is bad. Just as not punishing anybody for misbehavior is.