I wanted to run this experience I had in Kindergarten (Millington East, 1989-90) to find out if this was a common thing or something obscure that I only my teacher did.

Sometimes our teacher, Mrs. Smith, would leave the room. We had no idea why, she just said she had to step out for a few minutes. And while she was gone, she assigned one child to take names of anyone who talked.

When she returned, the child in charge had to tell her who talked, and those kids would get punished. Sometimes, the kids would lie and say nobody talked (one time some older kids were in the class and they told the girl in charge to not say anything).

But my parents drilled into my head that I had to do whatever the teacher said (I was a shy and unconfident child), so I ratted out my classmates, which led to bullying for the rest of the year.

I despise my time in kindergarten specifically because of this awful teacher (who took it upon herself to spank kids on the ass when they misbehaved).

Did anyone else have a teacher who did this? Or was this some obscure teaching method?