Ce, Ion? Vrei detention? Ti-e distractiv?

Moldovans, in general, are always running late. If you tell a group of Moldovans to meet you at 7 p.m., you can call them at 7:15 and they probably haven't left home yet. The first guests at a 7:30 wedding will come at 8:15. School events that are slated to start at 6 p.m. usually start at about 7 or 8. One punctual Moldovan friend of mine often gets to work at 8:55 a.m. to start the day at 9, only to work alone in the office until someone else comes at 9:45.

This is part of Moldova's culture to the point that "to be late" is its own verb in Romanian. When planning weddings or social events, Moldovans automatically factor in the delay and there are no problems. But there's one place where tardiness corrodes the work environment and the respect structure, and one place where tardiness cannot be tolerated. School.

At every class in a Moldovan school, at least one student always comes late, and it is usually more. In a 45-minute lesson, I usually lose at least the first three minutes because kids come late. Students come to class as late as they want and there is no discipline structure in Moldovan schools to punish tardiness or reward punctuality. In fact, you're often lucky if your students are only late; they often don't even bother coming to class, and they aren't disciplined for that, either.

Teachers often complain to one another about students who are consistently late or don't attend school, but schools don't structure a system that expects punctuality and attendance. Unlike in America, students who cut class (or translated from Romanian, "run from the lesson,") don't receive calls home to their parents, nor do they risk failing a course or serving detention if they are consistently late or absent.

Not a single Moldovan will say that student tardiness and class-cutting are good things. Students coming to class whenever they want without reprimand damages a teacher's credibility as an authority figure and encourages laziness and irresponsibility later in life. However, the problem does not receive much attention.

Last year, my school announced a system in which multiple tardies or absences would be punishable by a fine paid at the mayor's office. I think I was the only teacher who wrote out tardy slips, and when I gave them to students' homeroom teachers, the teachers didn't carry the process out any further. At one teachers' meeting, I told the teachers that the system was "a shark without teeth".

I refused to teach a second year under this system, so I introduced one of America's greatest institutions: detention.

This year, students who are late to my class must serve a five-minute detention at the end of the day, unless they have a note from a teacher who kept them after class in their previous subject. In addition, students who miss class and do not have a written excuse from a parent receive 45 minutes of detention. Students can also receive detention for bad behavior in class. In my English lessons, I also have class rewards and punishments for attendance, tardiness, mutual respect and homework participation.

On Thursday, I gave detention to eight students for tardiness and one student for misbehavior. I only taught 50 kids that day. All of them served except one, who had to leave school early, and he will serve it when he returns to school. On Friday, my first day teaching computer class, I gave detention to over 15 of my 120 students for tardiness. Because most of the students only had five classes and I could only run detention during seventh period, only five of the students served today, but the rest will serve Monday.

So far, my authority to give detention has only been contested once, and that was by an 11th grader who complained that he was only late because he had been talking to the school principal. After class, he walked away from me as I tried to talk to him.

"Vitale, if you don't come back right now, you won't touch a computer all next week," I called after him in Romanian. He came back, and I told him that if the principal wrote an excuse for him, he wouldn't have detention. I also told him that I didn't care whether he liked my rules or not, because those were the rules. I'm sure I wasn't his favorite teacher for the day, but I'm not bringing the concept of detention to this school to win popularity points with the students. Also, I have plenty of popularity points to spare.

It's not just the concept of detention that is lacking in these school systems; it's basic accountability. No teachers seem to want to teach accountability, especially in my school, and I think that is partly because the faculty comprises 16 female teachers and 4 male ones; among the male teachers, I am the only one who both teaches every day and is under 60 years old. Male students lack a positive young male role model at my school, and those whose fathers are working in Russia, Portugal and Italy completely lack male role models, just like fatherless children in America. Also, the vast majority of young men who stay in my village after finishing school don't attend university and simply get drunk and go to the disco. They are not good role models from which to learn accountability. Girls, while less likely to cause major discipline problems at my school, are just as likely to come late to class or not do their homework.

To put it simply, students of both genders need a young, strict, male teacher who won't put up with their bullshit. I'm happy to fill the void.