Talk about a raging case of toxic masculinity, thinking the only way, the best way to discipline or manage children is to be violent with them; never truly examined, so called grown-up problem solving involves some level of violence against people younger, weaker and less able to defend themselves regardless of age. Relatedly, surprise, surprise the people who need lessons on adulting are older adults.
Intently look at the 2 videos directly proceeding paragraph 1 and people will no doubt conclude they are the same: 2 identically disrespectful, unruly, need to be whopped kids spelling out in visual format what’s wrong with society today. When video went viral in November 2018 of a student’s verbal turned physical altercation with his band teacher it evoked the typical, predictable public responses citing it as yet another example of the tropes ‘world going to hell in a hand basket’ and the subpar character/quality of today’s youth; not so suddenly out came the calls of he deserved it, people referencing their dad who whopped them calling for more parents to do likewise, one announcing for 5 minutes this young man had a father, insistence he deserved the beat down saying he (the commenter) never would have dreamed of speaking to a teacher that way, others, “you go to school to learn get an education not bring all that tough guy unruly bad ass attitude..[Sic];” more proclaiming the teacher needs a medal, a trophy, asserting we need more teachers like him in schools presumably to dole out similar poetic or karmic justice. When the almost nearly exact same thing happened at another school across the country it was a set of parallel responses in fact the second referencing the first asking fellow commenters essentially rhetorically ‘and we wonder why the California teacher did what he did;’ slow grinder of progress inching minutely forward, pleasantly missing are the all too familiar calls for maiming, castration, setting on fire, crimes if followed through upon would net the perpetrators years in prison far surpassing even comment suggested terms behind bars for the kids stemming from their actions. Still a cooler headed, saner commenter on case 2 raised this valid series of questions “And he assaulted the student trying to protect the teacher! What exactly was going on, in this classroom? The teacher is addressing the class, while 2 students are in the front of the classroom scuffling? Then the teacher gets hit? I’d like to know how this situation escalated to this type of behavior. I’d also like to hear exactly what was going on. This is absolute craziness in a classroom.” Putting more of the onus on adults to manage what is around them, asking a pivotal question about escalation otherwise ignored for comments on beating the kid, race, section 8 affordable housing and why residents don’t want it in their area; implying ‘punch happy,’ uncontrollable teens, ‘their negligent parents’ is what they get. A teacher gave the following refreshing analysis, “I don’t see anything unusual. Where I taught, the teacher would be at fault for turning her back to the student. That is what they call poor classroom management skills. If the teacher was facing the student, and properly monitering the student, the punch would have never happened. This student was not engaged in the class activity. Getting punched in the face is not part of the state standards. Failure to teach the standard is a violation of state law.” [Sic.] Despite the commenter’s wording quoting, perhaps too literally, state standards, clearly placing blame, they have a point regarding management, but for 45 odd years the consistent narrative has been how unruly, disrespectful, out of control, ‘bad’ kids are specifically toward their parents and teachers. Usually blamed on our cultural softening pertaining to corporal punishment, watered down words for spanking, how ‘weak’ parents are refusing to spank their kids. The laws we’ve enacted to prevent parents from spanking their children removing, in their view, a huge portion of parental leverage and control; simultaneously asserting taking spanking out of public school essentially tied teachers’ hands to institute and inforce discipline, practically shouting what do you expect? Independent statistical fact schools who use corporal punishment have no more or less discipline problems than schools that don’t; worth challenging, the idea, teacher or parent, you must use corporal punishment, spanking, some aspect of violence to control kids, if control should be the big picture goal to begin with, as opposed to if you have to spank, resort to violent control, you’re doing something wrong. Interestingly countering pro violence, pro spanking, pro corporal punishment adults quick to comment on such stories, teachers involved in last year’s predominantly red state teachers strike, currently participating in, supporting this year’s L.A. teacher strike have mentioned support staff, needing basics like full time, 5 day a week nurses, smaller class sizes, teaching sometimes up to 50 students in a room, describing students standing in the back of the class holding their algebra textbook, forced to become impromptu interior designers just to fit their students into the given classroom space. And yes a raise in pay slightly more commiserate with the endless extra hours they put into their students on top of the standard periphery duties of lesson plans, paper grading, teacher work days, teacher collaboration, teacher training they must attend, staff and administrative meetings they are required to be present for; updated textbooks, supplies, building safety, hardware like desks, a full time janitor so the teachers could stop going around with a cleaning container of self-bought materials to keep the rooms/areas on their particular hallway free of dirt, dust, debris and properly sanitary, also mentioned support staff in the form of counselors, mental health professionals they know some children need, have no other access to care, 80% of L.A. students qualifying for free/reduced lunch, even under care need school support/coordination between providers to succeed. Never mentioned, behavior of students as why red state teachers left one state for perceived grater prospects many times just one or 2 states away in a given direction on a map, shied away from a state when looking to ply their teaching license, get certified in an area; instead stating they were easily able to go to a neighboring state increasing their annual income by thousands of dollars right off the bat, a couple both educators with one child describing their ability to afford their rent, pay their bills, save for a home upon changing locations. When kids were referenced it was in the context of tools and supplies wanted for them to enhance their learning, facilitate teachers’ ability to enrich their learning; one teacher who would never go back to her former state because she believed school administrators and local leaders cared nothing for the young minds they were entrusted with the expansion of, charged with their preparedness for the real world and readiness for 21st century jobs. Even deconstructing the trope of helicopter parents and kids with zero discipline usually centering around incoming kindergarteners, missed is a child who has only been home with mom or dad for want of paying ginormous childcare costs, a child who simply misses their old (just left) pre- school, daycare environment, instructors, who don’t know you (their new teacher) and are naturally reluctant to trust; accurately explaining the behavior without resorting to redundantly trotted out excuses that, no shortage of ironic, conveniently mean teachers don’t have to change anything about how they do things, their approach. Curious what people think will inevitably happen if you keep shoving kids in like sardines, giant hint: more fights, more behavior problems, more classroom disruption because there is literally no elbow room; oh and where was this, Los Angles second big hint, same place those teachers are striking due to unworkable education conditions, nurses talking about the difficulty of counseling a student who thinks they could be pregnant when the nurses office is in the hallway, under the stairwell or in the closet, trying to ascertain from a younger child if there’s child abuse at home, by someone in the child’s life when there isn’t an office or a door to close making them feel safe, allowing them to know their business won’t be school-wide gossip. Cross country school was in Baltimore an urban area known for problems, suffering some degree of urban blight at least in that school/district producing kids living under some of the worst obstacles and hardships research steadily links to precisely the outcomes exhibited, prompting a level of pressure and stress that would have honestly broken most of the commenters adding their 2 cents, at the very least they too would be punching something or someone; where violence is a way of life if you simply want to survive, remain breathing, younger and younger children join gangs to stop the relentless recruiting to affiliate themselves with one, affording them protection against other violent forces surrounding them. Returning to California, intriguing on several levels mentioned commenter employed the young man’s father when, whether he’s African American, Hispanic as posited by fellow commenters, or some unnamed nationality/heritage Indian, Asian, Native American, he is a student of color meaning one of his parents is; translating to there is a strong possibility, if his father isn’t in the picture/in his life— something we shouldn’t readily assume, his father could very well be one of a growing number shot by police during basic traffic stops, accused of a crime and dead on scene before they can be arrested think footage of Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, Walter Scott, just a few of the dead African American men who didn’t have to be if police simply holstered their guns. People those same commenters will shout should have obeyed the law, followed police instruction and not run for police ‘authority’ without ever knowing what it’s like to be a target by virtue of your very existence, your street address, the color of your skin and automatic stereotyped negative conclusions made solely on those factors, more randomly applied ones besides; commenters conspicuously silent on scenes like security guard Jemel Roberson who caught the bad guy, was holding him for police when they arrived, told via bystanders he worked as security still shot dead, Roberson who was also a father with a newborn son active in his church. Or perhaps his father is one of the millions of felons/criminals of color serving exaggerated prison/jail terms for standard crimes, sentences multiple times their white peers, facts borne out by statistical data, remaining behind bars for extended periods of time without being yet convicted due to being unable to afford exorbitant bail compared with their charging offense, again multiplied several times their white counterparts even when an identical previous criminal record is a consideration; filed under dah when fathers, parents of either gender, are incarcerated they can’t effectively raise their children. Ignored again the boxes we place men of color into trying to provide for their children why Eric Garner had previous convictions for selling loose cigarettes on his record, why Alton Sterling was carrying a gun during the course of hocking CD’s out of the back of his car trying to support his kids, because we are quick to give persons of color a criminal record, a felony criminal record barring them from legitimate employment, no pathway to redeem themselves in the eyes of society to obtain a legal job left to their own devices; forgotten entirely is if they were innocent of the initial ‘crime’ they supposedly committed, realities borne out again by statistical data showing people of color are wrongfully convicted of various crimes at a higher rate than whites controlling for all other variables. Intriguing indeed if he (the band instructor) was the young man’s father and physically did that to him, multitudes of credible witness statements, video or no, he would be facing verbatim the same child abuse charges as the band teacher is up against now. Because you cannot do that as the child’s father, the child’s teacher or other adult and for good reason; further due to it being California and not Louisiana where Schaquana Spears was initially charged with child abuse after beating her 3 sons post their breaking into a neighbor’s home, until they bled, only for the local prosecutor to drop charges, believing like too many Americans continue to, she was just doing her best to discipline her children, be a good parent, keep them from becoming criminals, these charges in all likelihood will stick. Nor is this Shanavia Miller’s social media shaming video calling her daughter a THOT (standing for that ho over there) for having sex with her boyfriend and not knowing how to tell her mother she was sexually active, because it wasn’t abusive enough to hold the public’s attention other than in the usual fashion of congratulating her for being a good mother stopping her daughter’s promiscuous ways, again charges will stick and more importantly public sentiment denouncing the teacher’s physical violence outweighs downright primitive thoughts on discipline. Unfailingly perplexing enough, white kids are given the benefit of the doubt, the luxury of being kids, freedom to make a mistake without it being immediately attributed to what they currently are or will soon become, with few exceptions, reference the Covington catholic school kids participation in the March for Life, subsequent viral video of their faceoff with a native American that turned out to be a confrontation between them and an entirely different group, inarguably softball interview aired of the young man featured; versus what we call teens in these school violence videos thug, hood rat, porch monkey, suggesting school personnel call animal control as opposed to police recurring popular ones. Unsurprisingly the L.A. band teacher merely the latest in an equally streaming laundry list of teachers, staff and school resource officers caught on video manhandling students; truly scary was the Louisiana middle school student being again thrown around by a resource officer, repeatedly punched while down on the ground, office staff having to intervene when the officer is so focused on honestly wailing on the teen versus restraining or arresting him, loses track of his gun falling from its holster (no the student never grabbed it) the officer’s whole body engaged in those punches. Female office worker seen gingerly picking it up and placing it on the desk, only to have to move it a second time as the officer hauls the student up, hands behind his back and slams him into the desk before applying handcuffs, roughly removing the student from said office, who not once offered any physical resistance or posed a threat throughout the video, no audio to be heard. Or is Baltimore mimicking the high school just last year in Pittsburgh which was a city where school resource officers were accused of abusing black students, principal aiding and abetting; lawsuit presenting video and pictures of several incidents where officers manhandled students, a photo of a student’s damaged teeth allegedly from officer or principal actions, audio of the principal making threats to punch a student in the face independent him being a meager 14 stemming from him being on school grounds after hours. Baltimore who has a history of excessive forced usually used against students/innocent citizens; Baltimore the lightening rod seeing riots after the senseless death of Freddie Gray, no convictions and dropped charges for involved officers in 2015, police investigating a school resource officer’s repeated slapping and kicking of a teen in 2016 and was where a 7 year old got his jaw broken by a teacher at school at the end of that same year. Was that present day charm city student so quick to hit teachers/staff because they’ve been knocked around by aforementioned officers; we’re reaching a point where violence against students has been going on so long, been woven into modern era education long enough the question we are left to ask is, are these kids ones who were once dragged around by their clothes in younger years, lower grades now big enough to fight back and doing so, phenomenon you regularly see with abused children, predominately males. Utterly contrasting the lingering trope seemingly unable to die about ‘bad kids’ and the outrageous things they subject their venerable teachers, the loving/doting parents who gave birth to them to, by now after closer to a half a dozen decades than not, shouldn’t teachers have adjusted their tactics, aren’t they forewarned what children are like preparing themselves mentally/emotionally, strategy wise before going into the profession of teaching forget the classroom itself, shoring up their mindset every year if necessary; closely aligned is the equally ludicrous notion, time-warping us back to their favorite decade, the 1950’s that if adequate discipline at home is in place teachers will never have to deal with anything. Mirroring spanking, spank happy parents and why this blog so ardently decries both the parenting practice and corporal punishment in schools, plus reactions like this teacher’s praised by the citizenry; because, too often parents think if they raise their kid right they will never have to discipline them, be embarrassed by them, wrong. Parents like Spears and Miller detailed above exclaim, shocked when shamed by the public, bewildered when charged by police, ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ ‘what am I supposed to do,’ broadly parents reduced to a common pattern ‘I don’t know what else to do so I hit;’ like they don’t understand spanking, even using its most expansive definition, has clear order and control, control Spears lacked entirely, Miller’s ranting tirade was ineffective at best, emotional and mental abuse at worst. Violence the go to rather than when thinking about having children, when finding out they’re pregnant, when their child starts to be mobile, crawling, getting into things formulating a plan for how you intend to discipline them, reading portions of a parenting book, online discipline tips, deciding on an outlined course of action you’re comfortable with, able to stick to; so when you are in the heat of the moment you can default to that plan without crossing the line to child abuse, as opposed to its counterpart ‘I don’t like I hit,’ something we train toddlers out of. Teachers too are prone to stagnated thinking, teachers who somewhere between frankly shout and whine ‘these kids are out of control so I hit, drag smaller/younger students around the room, down hallways, shove them, throw them, spit on them, shake them,’ ‘these kids are out of control so I rant and rave in the middle of history,’ ‘I’m so frustrated at my inability to teach basic mathematical concepts I will combine the ranting and raving with rip and redo, shame the child who doesn’t understand blaming them for their lacking comprehension before examining my teaching method, investigating closely the possibility of a learning disability, family difficulties, emotional problems blocking the child’s assimilation of material. Where people from that era who were kids between approximately 1950 and 1980, attended school through the allotted timeframe will tell you kids still fought on playgrounds, disrupted class it’s just they were sent off and paddled which perhaps worked for the rest of the day/week for some students but not all, students were still suspended and expelled for various behaviors just as they are currently; primary difference is, commiserate with the times, there wasn’t video showcasing the brutality of paddling, putting on display petty, arbitrary rule enforcement on statutes applying nowhere else but in school and condescending tones used with students for the sole reason the adults are in charge meaning they can, goading students into a sometimes physical retaliatory reaction. Parents, larger society weren’t privy to just how bad teachers were at basics associated with their job spanning resolving conflicts to holding student attention span, competently teaching their subjects effectively; absolute sacrilege teachers be asked to refine their teaching techniques, strangely however it’s millennials, young people who are ‘triggered,’ special snowflakes who need a safe space, all up in their feelings. Updating paradigms for information accrued in the last 40-70 years, encompassing the 45 plus year mantra of how bad and out of control kids are in the current era, changes in common knowledge on everything from child and adolescent development to cultural and social realities effecting children’s behavior, for instance we know what developmental delays and learning disabilities, dyslexia are versus dunce caps using shame and humiliation to compel kids to care about their educations; how many of the kids routinely kicking over chairs, spouting curse words did so because they needed glasses before regular vision screenings entered schools, were mandated before starting school, teachers were educated enough to recognize when a child needed an eye exam. Key when analyzing the rip and redo classroom understanding it was policy at a charter school for a disadvantaged area where a child’s vision screening could slip through the cracks; how many engage in related behaviors when asked to read aloud or do math at front of the class to divert attention from the fact they read poorly and no one has caught on to their dyslexia or slightly less known dyscalculia effecting only mathematical comprehension and ability. We know mental illnesses can manifest in childhood, some as early as infancy when dealing with conditions like depression; I can’t help but think of my best friend’s oldest son and his evolving diagnosis from mild learning disability after kindergarten, to autistic at the end of 3rd grade, to the added possibility of a mood disorder a few years later, mother caught in a waiting game for him to be tested for bipolar, to now just turned 14, on the threshold of ages to be definitively diagnosed, and acting like his aunt did at that age later in adulthood diagnosed, you guessed it, bipolar. We know what neurological disorders like Tourette’s syndrome are, not just horsing around, an excuse to curse, teachers are well acquainted with the autism epidemic, brain scans are now showing documentable difference between children with ADHD’s brains easily distinguishable from those exhibiting no signs of the disorder; not only lending credence to it as real condition not explaining away bad behavior, but exposing the root cause: smaller brain size on the whole cataloged in areas of the brain responsible for impulse and judgment more exactly. Fact kids with mild developmental delay are often misdiagnosed in their younger years as ADHD citing fidgetiness actually due to non-comprehension of concepts brought on by their learning deficits. We are aware, the way adults weren’t in the 1950’s until about the mid 80’s, of the prevalence of child sex abuse and the sexual predators seemingly running rampant in our society, we’ve come to the correct conclusion home isn’t a nice place for every kid who may be being physically, emotionally, mentally abused at home, neglected, seeing violence in their home if there is domestic abuse between their parents, neighborhood violence on their block; smart people noting the constant state of trauma residents of Chicago, young persons there are living under and the effect it’s having on them and will on society going forward. Suburban teachers got a jolting wakeup call during 2008’s recession and its lingering years that food insecure kids, kids skipping means are prone to behavior problems and concentration difficulties; also true for students battling sudden homelessness, whose parents were under foreclosure, facing eviction, family forced into pay by the week motel, suddenly living in their car. Incorporating the aforementioned and more, instead of having a plan on how to deal with disruptions, ‘uncontrollable’ students we see one teacher resort to violence, one inattentive unto getting hit and put 110% of the blame on the students none on the adults; as opposed to yes punishing the bad behavior but also seeking to solve the larger problem, take a single step to properly identifying it. Bottom line it’s not 1950 anymore we know about schools like Strawberry Mansion, the shocking lives behind students’ erratic behavior, we know about adult missteps/misbehavior, teachers responsible for a portion of that sexual abuse transpiring to present day; compartmentalizing that and the violence aspect, are the teachers caught being blatantly unfair, verbally abusive or threatening, name calling smaller students, abusing special needs children, student population a small percentage but making up 75% of the corporal punishment incidents where the policy is used. Children afflicted with conditions like autism seen dragged down hallways and that’s after the too common practice of scream/seclusion rooms, restraining bags and restraining holds literally leading to the child’s death; alongside experts telling news outlets situations never should have gotten to that point because specialists/aides are taught de-escalation and student safety unto removing everyone else from the scene/situation keeping the autistic child safe where they are. Marks left on one non-verbal autistic boy after his teacher texted his mother he wouldn’t get up off the ground led his parents to video showing his special ed. teacher and a school nurse dragging him around, his service dog forced to follow along; last month a teacher in Kentucky found on school surveillance dragging another student diagnosed with autism down the hallways of his new school, classmates lined up along the wall watching the humiliating spectacle. To quote Bill Maher, though he was speaking about the #metoo movement and the difference between Aziz Ansari’s bad date and Harvey Weinstein, the concept still applies equally to student/teacher violence: both are bad one is worse. Our collective problem is misidentifying that worse putting the mandate on children, teens to behave, show respect, never act out turning a blind eye to situational dynamics, the far from insane idea adults should act as adults, be in better control of their actions, hypocritically and illogically handing a social pass to adults, who when kids/teens don’t do that, to resort to physically lashing out. No one said the first student was anywhere from 100% correct to remotely correct for saying what he said, especially if bleeped swear words/racial slurs did include the n word, no one said he shouldn’t be punished under the parameters of school discipline and change his behavior drastically for the better; what they are saying is neither was the teacher 100% or remotely justified, provoked or not, in using physical force, especially when the adult/authority figure is the one throwing a punch, forget the first punch, as opposed to restraining a violent student for safety reasons. Said student’s words shouldn’t garner him a pass from the court of public opinion because the kid was mouthy. Teacher number 2 had an obligation to the rest of her students and general order to pay attention to what was happening in all of her classroom, she didn’t; thankfully she, and no one else, suffered the consequences. Speaking generally about these issues and California specifically, what happened to, older readers and many younger ones too will remember this adage or can easily decipher it, 2 wrongs don’t make a right?
http://www.upworthy.com/a-notice-to-people-who-know-my-kids-please-tell-them-what-to-do
https://medium.com/@susan.speer/stop-making-everything-perfect-for-your-kid-bfba8ccc70a7
And it’s not just late baby boomers, gen Xers or the millennial neo-parents coddling their kids, shielding them for failure, constantly treating them as special snowflakes who say so; over and over teachers, young persons, not many years out of the K-12 classroom, or still attending standard education have offered a multitude of alternatives on how they run their classroom, how they would approach ordinary discipline problems you regularly find in schools, confront as an administrator. Provide unique perspectives not only from their point of view on theirs and their peers’ behavior but truthful, hard-hitting assessments of staff adults and how their expectations are unrealistic and unattainable, not in being too lenient but in terms of teen and adolescent development; in short, expecting tween/teen students to have the logic and reason of a 30 or 40 year old but the obedience of a child in what they termed a ‘teacher pleaser’ grade 6-9 years old. Extended author added observation, they expect budding independence and age appropriate critical thinking then punish them for asking questions stemming from that process, punish them for even vaguely attempting to use those skills. Going back to educator and student breakdowns of these ever recurring classroom outbursts, accurately describing the power trip too many teachers are on, in the profession to lord their given power over younger, powerless children; fellow teachers themselves outing their colleagues as treating their personal pet peeves as carrying the rule of law, which they don’t, using their position as a means to eradicate those pet peeves from the world, regardless of if that world only consists of the school/classroom, calling them obsessed with both aspects as well as respect defined only on their terms. Child sympathetic staff is who took the video of that handcuffed 3rd grader allegedly kicking the school resource officer in the shin during a bathroom trip gone wrong making headlines for the brutal absurdity, snapping photos of students being dragged down hallways by their hair, their hoodie; lunch ladies reported the teacher who slammed a little boy against the wall, grabbed him by his face, then shoved him back into the bathroom subjected to a berating tirade for taking too long in the bathroom or running back and forth to the bathroom treating it like a game, keeping in mind he was 6, school hallway cameras corroborating the lunch ladies heard accounts. Of course they (the school/district) expediently fired videoed band teacher, blog and author agreeing with the comment decrying the subsequent GoFundMe page set up by sympathizers purportedly for his pending legal bills having bonded out of jail for $50,000; citing “so he beats up a 14 year old and gets paid for it ?!?! Naaaaa what has this world come to.” [Sic.] Countering viewers concerned about the 64 year old’s legal expenses, ongoing job prospects ‘in light of what he had to put up with;’ borrowing from the cold personal responsibility they regularly endorse when attacking kid, teen, adolescent behavior, maybe he should have thought of that before he cold cocked a 14 year old loud mouth who is only guilty of being loud and obnoxious. Here is a teacher who didn’t have a plan for dealing with difficult students, here is a teacher who wasn’t familiar with all the tools he had at his disposal to handle so called unruly students and you see his actions, the consequences thereof; he’s in more trouble than the student because his behavior as an adult, a trained teacher, all probability been on the job for years, was more outrageous, out of line than his. Underscoring the unacceptability, here is a teacher who held all the cards, had the, here’s a word commenters love, authority to call down to the office asking the principal to come handle the student, defuse the situation, ask the/a school resource officer to come handle/remove the student; in the absence of a phone, send a trusted student to the office to retrieve one or both of the titled persons named. While blog and author argued against using a resource officer in the North Carolina math student instance where a student would not get off her phone, would not leave the room and was subsequently removed by said resource officer, that was because she was totally quiet, not creating a disruption any more than the one her teacher was willing to assign her focusing on her use of her phone more than teaching the lesson, putting the responsibility on her to pay attention; added to the unprofessional, violent actions of the officer who tipped over her chair, dragged her out of it then threatened her friend with juvenile detention for asking if his roughness was absolutely necessary, our teacher had it as an option to use, certainly preferable to his fists, and elevated reason to use it because his student was loud and disruptive to everyone else’s learning. The west coast scenario likewise assumes their resource officers are competent and capable of getting a problem student out of the room sans starting with confrontational language/threats, violent physical restraint; unclear from video footage released to media if our negatively highlighted teacher so much as wrote up, handed the kid an office referral, whatever they term disciplinary slips sending students to the principal, asking/directing him to leave the room before swinging on him for calling him a racial slur largely presumed to be the n word. Barring any of those he probably had the option of getting a fellow teacher to watch his class taking 5 in the bathroom to count to 10, manage himself before reengaging the student absent using his fists, get a teacher to watch his class and go speak with the principal about what pictured student repeatedly said, report to the principal to tenure your resignation; during hypothetical discussion with the principal about student X he potentially had the option to have that student removed from his class minimally for the remainder of the academic year, if not the duration of his education at that school since it was band class, an elective, not math, history, science or English, core subjects mandated to matriculate/graduate. Above all else he had the option, the professional discretion as a teacher to ignore the loud behavior turning his attention to the rest of the students, moving on with the class lesson; they were in band and could easily use practicing a new or previously used piece of music to drown him out. Now, rightfully so, no school will want to hire him, want the potential liability he represents in terms of lawsuits his former school will likely face; plus contrary to the supportive comments, an overwhelming majority of parents who found, find/watch given video, would be handed down links to the video from other parents, people who didn’t forget the case, circulated like wildfire if a school chose to hire him, would object to his presence based on what their own eyes see him doing to a minor. Next who said the student won’t face some facet of school disciplinary procedure for his part in the whole thing; linked news piece focused on the teacher’s fate because a student’s receiving guideline discipline for bad behavior at school isn’t and doesn’t make news, a teacher going berserk and attempting to box a kid in the middle of class then being understandably fired does. Confronting the probable use of the n word, brought up all of nowhere is the critical question of if the student meant it as the slur bystanders seemed to think it was or if he was using it to try and relate, talk to the teacher the way he would one of his friends/peers, using the n word spelled ending in an a or ah casually to mean close friend, (R. Kelly for all his subsequently documented and high percentage probability criminally illegal faults demonstrated this in the original track for Homies that we Lost/ I Wish released in the early 2000’s) as a way to ‘butter up,’ suck up to the teacher, wiggle out of punishment like students do to avoid tardy slips and their resulting detentions, a zero on an assignment for forgetting homework in their locker, at home; details that matter putting such a controversial word in appropriate context, realization it very well might have been an updated variation on Don Imus’ ‘nappy headed hoes’ supposed to be complement. Continuing did this young man say it/mean it with the full weight behind the word’s connotation or merely to get a rise out of him the way annoying teens do, using it to push buttons solely because he knew it would no other reason; substantial factors in determining the correct punishment, ensuring the boy learns the needed life lesson balanced against over punishment, accusations of racism that will fester resentment not foster wisdom. Working with kids daily why it behooves teachers, coaches, exc. to keep a pulse on kid, teen and tween trends so when they do/say things like the above we can digest the nuances, full plethora of meanings; because, had his band teacher, 64 or no, understood the student’s likely less horrible intent would he have prolonged the argument instead of opting to spend his time giving the ‘bratty’ young man an education on what that word means to a person, a man in his age bracket leaving off the fisticuffs, precedent says the latter. Case 2’s school released a routine public statement, responding to local news one might add, saying it was investigating, reviewing available video in its entirety yet it’s unequivocally predictable that student will face extended, up to 90 day, suspension if not expulsion for their actions piled atop the pragmatically, in the interest of justice, added reality of criminal assault charges in adult or juvenile jail depending on their age; either satisfying the public’s thinly veiled clamor for retribution, revenge disguised as justice. Lost in initial clamors to severely punish the kids who taunted their bus monitor years ago spawning endless inappropriate things people thought should be done to them, they were promptly removed to an alternative school for the next academic year, proving if anything consequences for bad behavior, as they should, go both ways. Glimmer of hope legal authorities are seeing the light 2 years after Spears faced no legal repercussions for her sons’ beating, videoed Louisiana officers are, in another small victory on both police brutality and rethinking the presence/role of school resource officers, exempting protections against school shootings, facing indictment for their actions; each having already resigned, the former why the video made national news. Ask yourself which one poses a greater threat to the school, carefully engineered learning environment the 14 year old middle schooler, who though we don’t know what he was being detained for by school resource officers, researching what students typically get hassled because of, odds are it wasn’t for drugs, gang activity, fighting, theft of more than lunch money, violent/prolonged bullying but minor classroom backtalk, a bottle of Tylenol, a Swiss army knife, a fight that didn’t happen yet, cases blog/author has extensively covered over the years. Or the officers so focused on their ‘beat down’ they lose track of their loaded firearm, push office staff to handle it in the interest of safety for themselves and everyone in the room; them who possess no training managing firearms, thankfully that poor woman didn’t drop it in her nervousness causing it to go off injuring any and all parties in said room, no one should be put in that situation working at a school, certainly not due to the recklessness of a supposed to be trained resource officer. Who believes the Pittsburgh superintendent saying lawsuit submitted video doesn’t constitute a pattern, a pattern no one should be willing to accept; begging the broader question, when did it become an anathema to society’s basic rules, functional dynamics to be able to reasonably expect trained educational professionals, trained police officers deliberately chosen to ingratiate themselves into the fabric of schools to curb bullying, drugs, gangs, violence, theft, prevent school shootings, to know how to execute their jobs effectively? When did obnoxious child, adolescent, teen student behavior, excluding the inner city trope of rape and attempted rape of female teachers, (how realistic is that really today) credible threats of violence/gang retaliation against teachers, unprovoked serious assault resulting in injury, become an excuse to erase adult accountability surrounding adults who actively chose their professions, sought out education/training to do? You see Pittsburgh footage of the young man calmly sitting in the principal’s office waiting to be seen, talk out his issue and if warranted receive his punishment, meaning too when directed there by his teacher, other staff he went obediently where he was told, wasn’t causing problems in the office while waiting; things don’t go haywire until the school resource officer begins talking to him from the hallway, prompting the question what did that officer say to escalate the problem, teens body language for all they ‘had words’ is how the news reporter framed it, not aggressive, threatening or mildly confrontational until the officer is standing over the seated teen then only pulling his hand back when the officer tried to touch him, hauling him up by his arm/elbow to put him in a headlock and maneuver him down the hall. The flailing you see him doing, the kicking of his legs, outward not at them, before being pinned, handcuffed and, his lawyer alleges tased, is because the officer has his arm around his neck restricting his airway, understandably scaring him. Another video shows two officers similarly manhandling a different male student into the principal’s office waiting area and into a side room, body language, position indicating resistance viewed, what little there is, would be eliminated if they weren’t frog marching him around; interestingly omitted if relevant to the story, any mention of gang activity, drugs, bullying, threats issued by the students rather than to them. Instead it’s teachers, when not achieving headlines for violence, making headlines for their social media comments denigrating little grade schooler students “if one more parent tell me it’s my job to teach their children, it’s gunna be popo time,” [Sic] (popo slang for police the news report notes); worth asking, if she doesn’t think she’s there to teach children as a teacher or teacher’s aide what does she think she’s there for, to take up space? Additional inappropriate comments from that batch, threatening violence against the smallest children for texture of their hair, condition of their clothes highlighting they are poor, inability to read in kindergarten, a skill garnered at the end of the year only with simple words, to catalog but one example of educators wishing violence on students too young to have done anything wrong enough to warrant their strong reaction. More obscure trend housed in earlier listed scenes, we can see actually came out of a school not a movie set, nearly every one involved kids in what is commonly known as middle school; though news reports on the California confrontation said high school it’s difficult to ascertain if that’s an error or how the state classifies it’s matriculation structure since he was 14. Louisiana student assaulted in video same age, Pittsburgh-the principal is caught on audio saying he doesn’t care if the student is 14 he’ll punch him in the face for allegedly calling him a swear word, educated guess listening to the bleeped recording, bitch; recalling that student’s initial ‘crime’ was being on school grounds after hours. Students in middle school anticipated as more volatile, harder to control and teachers know why, onset of puberty and its associated ‘raging’ hormones; so shouldn’t logical common sense say teachers teaching at the middle school level must have top notch de-escalation and conflict resolution skills, be able to put them into expert practice at a moment’s notice, polar opposite the half ass, there is no other way to say it at this point, de-escalation the band teacher lamely tried, too quickly abandoned for an impromptu boxing match? Solidifying refusal to permit such behavior in teachers is the inherent conclusion diametrically opposed to common educator thinking, educator refrain there was nothing else I could do; listed here are but a drop in the bucket of other things our band teacher could have and should have done over using his fists. Shedding light on a bigger all encompassing truth, he did it because it made him feel better not out fear for his person, the safety of the rest of the class or self-defense; also why the math teacher filmed repeatedly smacking a student in the back of the head was summarily dismissed and charged with low level assault less because he was left in any way injured and instead due to the unmistakable reality hitting him served no purpose in the marginal achievement of getting him to pay attention, not repeat his goofing off, but merely alleviated her frustration and physical violence, altercation, hitting, even mildly, should not be used to relieve frustration especially in a professional establishment as vital as a school. Nowhere else can you go to work slugging your coworkers, clients who seek whatever service you provide; this blog has pointed out if employers engaged in the corporal punishment coupled with humiliation tactics pro-spanking parents use regularly they would be charged with assault, face lawsuits for a hostile work environment among the top legal actions; and, when a country’s video went viral of employees being publically spanked for poor performance on a bank training exercise fellow Chinese citizens for the most part thought it was outrageous and ineffective, forcing the trainer to apologize. Circa America, how many of the offending personnel caught doing a wide range of jaw dropping things to kids in school are teacher’s aids with less training than full-fledged teachers (one of the problems L.A. teachers voiced about encroaching charter schools and the teachers staffing them), a-la the one seen in video throwing a kid over a science table and choking him while cursing profusely; vicious cycle following police justifications for violence against black and brown citizens, that teacher’s aide filed a lawsuit alleging the student, who had appeared in juvenile court on charges of strong-armed robbery, shouldn’t have been in school based on those charges. Forgetting completely what blog and author emphasized originally deconstructing the story he, the young man, was sentenced to the very thing that would hopefully and is proven to mitigate his criminal ways education, it’s eerily similar to the smear job done on Trayvon Martin post his shooting death by citizen vigilante George Zimmerman; alleging he too shouldn’t have been out among society based on his school suspension for marijuana, misleading characterizations of him fighting in school, carrying burglary tools, defacing a door (the only other thing he was actually disciplined for) and his school treating student criminal behavior as school infractions (which they weren’t). Nor was he on the recreational drug cocktail of over the counter cough medication plus soft drink, sometimes Jolly Ranchers known as Sizzurp or Lean, that ‘burglary tool’ was a screwdriver his teachers and parents say belonged to a teen who liked to tinker, thought about becoming an engineer. Beyond those contextual layers, if the Milwaukee teacher legitimately thought he had grounds to remove the disruptive, ‘dangerous’ student from his classroom he too had options, fellow students were witness to and told news reporters words were exchanged on both sides, the aide’s lawsuit goes on to assert the student kicked him in his shin, attempted to kick him a second time; (blog telling readers how unlikely it looked that’s what he was doing as opposed to demonstrating something with his foot, stomping it on the floor, regardless news report comments sided with the aide’s description on events) granting the benefit of the doubt momentarily in the aide’s favor, either of which are enough to earn him an office referral to the principal. Principal, assuming all claims to be plausibly proven true is likely going to suspend the student for minimally 3 days to a week, maximum 90 days based on severity of offence/discipline history, giving said aide time to formulate a strategy for dealing with him, tenure his resignation if he was uncomfortable with the level of violence in the school, an adjacent part of his lawsuit how he was never warned about students vis-a-vis the one he encountered; principal assuredly aware of the student’s juvenile court appearance the week prior, by virtue of the excuse he was submitting for missing school, principal reasonably responsible for making reports to the court on his attendance, academic performance then likely to call the young man’s juvenile officer or the judge themselves to report the latest incident. Maybe even landing him back in court, a stint in juvenile detention; just 2 ways the student he was so anxious to see out of his classroom could/would have been temporarily to semi-permanently removed taking a fraction longer than his method. That opposite removing the student saw [Mr.] “Pennix initially faced one count of child abuse, intentionally causing harm — and faced up to six years in prison. But instead, he is now pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of battery,” not to mention fired, unable to obtain another teaching job we sincerely hope, only avoiding greater charges and jail via a plea deal. Another who drug a student through the hallway by his neck trying to maneuver him back into the classroom after he kept walking out and told the teacher to go f*ck himself; teacher’s explanation, he pulled the student by his chin back into the classroom, piling onto the horrifying perception of events, his lawyer’s statement laying out how so far past the line the student was saying essentially the public could hardly blame him, lawyer himself believing he did nothing wrong, stating he didn’t choke him but put his hand under his neck and walked him back to the room. Except the surveillance video clearly shows him being choked, both the teacher’s hands on his neck, at one point literally lifting him off the ground by his neck, hauling him around several feet of the hallway not towards any door, though matched in height Joseph Golden, behavioral specialist having several pounds on the beanpole 13 year old; and oh how all too reminiscent his lawyer sounds to the police union representative who called what the officer did in choking Eric Garner to death a seatbelt maneuver. Again both sets of behavior not ok, but also repeating itself, astounding, the number of behavioral specialists, alternative school teachers who don’t comprehend what they were placed in the school to do, not because it is so far-fetched and out of the norm; rather because they seem unaware their professional title and its accompanying job description means they are to put up with that, their specialized training means they were taught specific techniques designed to try to reach at risk kids, get past what the commenter in the introduction referred to as ‘tough guy, badass attitude,’ given unique insight to manage their individual behaviors unto providing them the education the law rightfully demands children with varying behavior effecting diagnoses, bad pasts, histories of problems get. Belying somewhat the sane concept you should be able to go to work sans expecting to be bit, kicked chocked, punched however, the biting children are either very young pre-k-kindergarten or non-verbal children with autism, those with test confirmed brain damage impeding impulse control, documented mental health disorders. If school districts are not seeking out band/music, art, P.E. non-academic elective teachers who have experience, training in an educational environment specifically classroom management or giving would-be teachers in those fields access to that training, there’s the underlying problem; facts parents, politicians and city leaders need to know, start getting to the bottom of. Never questioned by the champions of the rough justice they believe mouthy, unruly kids deserve, why teachers can be so easily bated/provoked by kids, teens/tweens; knowing the high concentration of biblically inclined persons weighing in from sections of America they might want to mull over a bible verse, and it isn’t the redundantly cited spare the rod spoil the child quote, rather lesser attributed rules for parents that states: ‘do not provoke your children to wrath,’ a good adage for anyone working with children day in day out. Why then does it seem we are taking the most volatile of children at a critical crossroads in their development and provoking them constantly; told to keep their hands to themselves from kindergarten only to find their teachers, resource officers violently putting their hands on them, accumulating nicknames like officer slam, we teach kids to keep their hands off other people’s belongings, borrowing without asking is stealing only for teachers to confiscate cellphones and other ‘contraband’ items everyone in society, including children walk around with daily, so focused on healthy foods confiscating the dessert out of children’s brought from home lunch, police anything deemed unhealthy by lunchroom monitors/teachers, for little reason than the recurring theme they can. How twistedly overinflated does your sense of self have to be that you can be bated by a 14 year old, first rule of dealing with bullies and obnoxious people don’t engage, modified in this situation don’t engage the negative/bad behavior unless violent or dangerous to self/others; question in need of seriously positing, would they recognize, be surprised at how 3rd grade they themselves sound, he called me a name, she insulted me, he used a swear word in my class (not necessarily even directed at me). None of which should be a license to lose your shit, pattern emerging, most jarring way to say it at this juncture to eject people from their complacency, get violent as opposed to getting proactive, changing how you respond by not showing you are upset, by engaging them in the class lesson before they devolve to that point, asking them why they don’t want to do certain work if you are a behavioral specialist, alternative school teacher; teacher anywhere, look for talent students in your class(es) possess, even outside your subject presenting them with extracurricular and/or community offerings for them to hone that skill, invest in that hobby building confidence—what good teachers do, what none of the detailed ones did. Those teachers at the end of paragraph 1 placed on leave or outright fired, hardly anyone questioning the schools’ respective choices, note as well ‘officer slam’ was fired and there was rigorous public debate surrounding that student too, she shouldn’t have been on her phone, should have listened to teacher instruction to leave or the officer’s ‘peaceful’ attempts to calmly remove her; officer ‘I handcuff 3rd graders for kicking me in the shin’ found his supporters including his boss who insisted he did his job slapped down by a judge who ruled his actions violated the named students’ civil rights, legal proceedings and positive rulings for the children involved, children in classrooms throughout that state spawning an agreement with the department of justice (DOJ) to remove resource officers from said schools permanently. The Texas teacher smacking a kid has no public update on her legal case but as stated won’t return to the classroom; though the behavioral specialist was cleared of legal charges, largely because a jury of his peers would be similar aged persons and a at 51 are we really that surprised, he was immediately fired viral video a buffer against rehire anywhere. Drastically different from parents who when their child was born faced an unplanned pregnancy, got pregnant younger than they initially wanted to and made the best of it, these are people who elect to become teachers; paraphrasing Bill Maher again, who was talking about cops, police officers but yet the concept really all the more applies: there isn’t a draft no one is conscripting, forcing you to teach any more than anyone was forcing these scared, emotionally stunted, racist officers to become cops. Implication, put your own big boy and girl pants on, stop acting like someone’s put and gun to your head and either do your job correctly and efficiently making a positive difference in children’s lives or leave it for someone else who will do those things un-begrudgingly.
https://www.wtae.com/article/former-behavioral-specialist-on-trial/19676139
Often too, glaring are the extreme reactions, wildly disproportionate responses elicited, engaged in by adults to run of the mill, ordinary classroom management, maintaining order in schools issues or minor parenting difficulties at home found in any decade precious 1950’s to tomorrow morning; when you are kicking a kindergarten student in the head because they got up and used the bathroom during nap time oblivious to the potential concussion you could easily give one so small, chronic neck injury you could inflict, here is someone they should be saying firing is too good for, demand graphic punishments on behalf of, not even the jerkiest of middle/high school kids. Whatever happened to reminding the kid to ask before using the restroom, to go before laying down so you don’t disrupt your classmates’ rest since you are addressing a 5 year old new to the school experience; better yet, remember when kindergarten was half a day and naps were at home, going back to the golden decade there was no kindergarten and kids stared at 6 in first grade. Now the push is to potty train toddlers as soon as physically possible having waitlisted them on pre-school rosters the moment they were born; potential pushback to 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s universal childcare proposal is it includes early learning one step closer to making pre-school socially compulsory if not legally compulsory, drawing ire from parents of my generation who remember kindergarten as learning their ABC’s, numbers, sequencing, tracing their hand and they all did fine, wanting their children to have a toddlerhood as they did. Personally seeing my friend’s 4 year old who will begin kindergarten fall 2019 I question it’s effectiveness at kindergarten readiness up against all the things they want them to know at their beginning of the year assessment and that a year and a half in he’s still practicing his last name, is enrolled in a preschool pre-reading program but hasn’t begun reading even simple words while teachers assure his mother how smart he is, how fast her picks up what they teach him. Versus for advanced kids doing almost everything on their assessment being moved to first grade, which hasn’t changed in 35 odd years, and leaving the no pre-school kids in kindergarten to learn what they did in the old days instead of pushing too much too soon; or perhaps it was the fact this ‘teacher’ was a 56 year old dinosaur who should have retired from the profession a decade before. When you don’t know you shouldn’t hang a child up on the backboard by his belt for misbehavior, him already in a special needs classroom with only 6 students, the teacher and 2 assistants; how hard is it to work with, again a 5 year old sans arcane tactics? When you think it’s ok, don’t see the potential consequences of putting substances like pencil shavings, soap in a child’s mouth; as the parent who wrote about it stated the teacher forgot what decade they were in, probability the child could far more than choke with substance 1 but aspirate wood/graphite matter into their lugs leading to infection, long term damage, could equally aspirate substance 2 damaging sensitive lung tissue, have a life threatening allergic reaction, vomit and aspirate that leading to the latter problems mentioned under substance 1. Is it relay worth it to stop cursing, curb inattention, short answer no; all to alleviate their, there’s that word again, frustration, whatever happened to after and/or in school detention, changing up teaching tools with visual aids, interactive learning opportunities, technology or something besides a lecture, insisting the student goofing off sits in the front of the room, engaging them by asking them questions related to the lesson? Sobering for parents, the public are the teachers who don’t see the potentially devastating repercussions of yanking a student’s chair out from under them, that they could hit the back of their head resulting in concussion, brain injury, fall forward and smash most likely their teeth on the table in front of them seen in video, slam their whole head onto the table breaking any number of facial bones, poking out their eye if your timing is off and they are startled into ramming a pencil into it (physics class 101), extremely rare occasion causing a student’s death by the force of that pencil going up the child’s nose, the inertia of said pencil going into their eye straight to their brain. Be thankful all they did was fire the teacher, shuttering outcomes why we warn kids against leaning their chair backwards or forwards on 2 legs, playing with pencils while doing so; things we expect to have to tell tweens and teens not their long past adult educators. Whatever happened to flunking the kid who fails the project, test for want of paying adequate attention, calling their parent and saying every day this week/month he’s done this to correct the behavior minus violence; what happened to giving the kid a zero who won’t get into the pool on gym day because of ‘party hair’ versus creating a viral video of you the male gym teacher dragging a teen girl in a skimpy swimsuit all over the pool area? Time after time eye popping actions perpetrated by people who hate children not because of how out of control, unruly, wrongly unmanageable they are, how increasingly ‘bad’ they’ve become in succeeding generations but owing to they are children as in not adults, who don’t think or act like adults, who are not little robots who can easily be programed with instructions then follow with minimal interaction, be told to do something and have them snap to; people who when a child does something commiserate to their age and corresponding development level are everything from shocked, offended to nervous and uncomfortable as to how they are meant to respond to achieve the behavior they want, people who have explicably sought out a career educating children. Teachers who can become adversarial towards a child because they don’t have an identical personality to them, a personality they like, get along well with; many times their marks in class based on a popularity contest of whether the teacher likes you influencing their assessment of grade school report card metrics on following directions, staying on task, working well with others, a system documented as rigged against boys, boys disliked by teachers for their fidgetiness leading headlong into the band teacher boxing match years later, but kids need to change their behavior not we need to change the school system. On top of that there is the reality had a young person dumped pencil shavings down a teacher’s mouth, say in lieu of the rant featured in video 6 trying to get a better review for a test, a varied educational method other than ‘sit down do your packet and I’d better be able to hear a pin drop’ (because love him or hate him he touched on the absolute fact some people truly don’t learn like that) below; trying to get the teacher’s attention had resorted to yanking his desk chair out from him, tried to dump soap in their mouth for cursing because he’s supposed to be setting an example, it would be back to the screaming ‘horrible kids today’ trope. They wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to call it torture, demand the teen’s arrest for assault, call it workplace abuse for which they can win money out of a ‘justifiable’ lawsuit;’ however, when adults do it ‘well you gotta do something to keep kids in line,’ get them to focus, seen as normal or the desperate actions of last resort because nothing else works. Serious question though is that actually true, recall this blog’ coverage of the bizarre Ted Cruz rally where he suggested a young heckler be spanked shortly before he dropped out of the 2016 presidential campaign, what that author said about his/spanker’s motivations ringing true too for violent teachers addicted to their violent ways in the classroom exhibited in the following quote: “It was one of those moments when the cowardice of the conservative movement was laid bare. Unable to defend conservative views, even to a small child, the crowd hooted and hollered for the use of brute force. While Cruz used the word “respect”, what he was not asking for was respect. This was all about extracting unearned deference with the threat of violence. Does anything better illustrate the toxicity of conservative ideology better than the enthusiasm for beating children?”…That’s because spanking has a symbolic value to the right, one that is far too precious to give way to mundane concerns about efficacy and human decency. Spanking appeals because it is about asserting authority. The spanker is in charge not because they are in the right or because they have earned that authority, but because they are bigger and might makes right. It doesn’t even matter that spanking doesn’t work. The assertion of authoritarian power is all that matters. The moment at the Cruz campaign really crystallized this. The reason given for why the child should be quiet while Cruz is speaking isn’t because of basic good manners or respect for democratic systems. No, the reason is that Cruz is an adult and the protester is a child, and therefore the child owes deference. The adult can be a screaming moron who is spewing nonsense, but the child is expected to just sit there and take it, not because of any legitimate reason, but under the threat of violence.” Similarly teachers, teacher aids, resource officers, exc. expect and demand parallel unearned deference based on identical flawed logic shouting respect me because of my title alone not because I’m only doing my job, I’m doing my job well, I’ve demonstrated my competence doing that job therefore there is no reason to disrespect me; equally as guilty as pointed to students responding with depicted violence if they don’t get it. Setting aside the title of teacher has never garnered exorbitant respect or that if they were so revered as a sensei in other cultures would you, parents, we society still think that if those sensei behaved like teachers regularly seen in video, regularly generating articles for corroborated witnessed behavior, teachers aids and related support staff right there with them; resource officers earning their own bad reputation again rivaling ‘horrid students’ for the precise things seen on news footage/internet disseminated viral video. What about any of their actions exudes an air indicating worthy of deference; what about all the resource officer lying, covering up, downplaying incidents that could have resulted in serious or permanent injury, the hall pass story in the next paragraph’s officer who confiscated a witness’ phone to delete recorded video, the knot over one student’s eye after being body slammed to the pavement before a fight broke out probably necessitating a doctor visit to ensure she was ok, that officer fired for failure to report student/officer altercation, then lying and downplaying the incident as an accident, video clearly showing its not, signals deference is their reward? Majority understanding we should never encourage the actions that led to the girl who tried to preempt a fight between her sister and someone else being rendered unconscious from overzealous school resource officer intervention; where in that behavior is anything thing saying parents/society, let alone kids should give them deference? Who truthfully believes that math teacher who calmly stood aside and let ‘officer slam’ flip the student out of her chair, throw her toward the top of the room should have gotten deference; at least the students have a legitimate claim of being stunned into silence someone still summoning the wherewithal to record, all fearing they wouldn’t be believed absent visual evidence. Why pray tell should we be giving deference to the old bat who knees a special needs pre-school kid in the back sprawling him through the doorway apparently caring more about the things in her hands than him, or the teacher who cuts down on excessive talking by putting duct tape on first grade students mouths; humongous clue if you are using the belt off your own pants to ‘spank/beat’ kids in your class for misbehavior you are in the wrong, the line several miles behind you, deference-try a check for dementia. Correct bullying by making the class line up to punch the bully and you want deference are you serious, no what you got was just in your firing. Representing a different kind of violence still housing the potential to endanger kids, the litany of drunk bus drivers galore going back over a decade including the older student who had to convince her drunk bus driver to pull over in the middle of nowhere, another who asked students if they were ready to die before speeding his bus through streets ultimately crashing killing 5 children deference, how about a legal term using the letter D- pre-trial detention. Willfully diminished in what little public discussion there is, is it’s the students not their teachers who end up seriously, rarely though it has happened permanently, injured; yes the upper eastern seaboard teacher was hit in the jaw totally beyond unacceptable, but what we didn’t hear was that it was broken, teeth were loosened, knocked out, permanent damage was done. We hope none of that 7 year old’s permanent teeth were the ones missing after his teacher broke his jaw for ‘being disruptive;’ if his permanent teeth were involved hundreds to thousands of dollars will be too in ensuring he can eat properly, on the school’s AKA the city’s, dime. The Pittsburg student pictured with his damaged teeth will need several hundred to thousands of dollars in dental surgery, possible implants to restore both his smile and full eating ability, injury sustained not from riding bike, skateboard or scooter sans mouth guard, a stupid fight in the neighborhood or with a fellow student but inflicted by an adult; stark reality is that Georgia 16 year old in video 19 below lost his leg after a fight at school because of delayed medical attention the school was obligated to initiate him getting, can you imagine the picture of that 5 year old kicked in the head after going to the bathroom during nap, battery of long term tests she probably should have (i.e. CT scan, their expense) to detect lasting damage? A doctor would need to calculate the increased risk of stroke or neck vein issues after that accidental sleeper hold in the name of breaking up a slapping, pulled hair middle school girl fight; additionally it’s not as if violent teachers punched a kid holding a gun, trying to shoot students and staff at school, broke the jaw of a kid wielding a knife trying to prevent actual death by stabbing, knocked unconscious a kid planting pipe bombs, starting a fire, holding a grenade, used a correct sleeper hold on a student savagely beating a fellow student close to death or permanent injury, oh no it’s low level, typical school problems that merited being dealt with non-violently with basic ‘too soft’ school discipline parameters. One of the primary reasons these stories also make headlines isn’t the shocking behavior of the kids, isn’t the necessitated extremes resorted to by adults to keep safety and order rather because things like videos, articles depicted aren’t supposed to happen; no parent sends their kid to school to be thrown around like they’re in a WWE match, younger kids dragged around like ragdolls, no teacher should be throwing desks like wrestling participants on TV throw chairs, news at 11:00, that stuff staged for effect. You’re not allowed to threaten to leave the school doors unlocked to let in a school shooter if they don’t behave, you do and you’re looking for deference; keep on looking. Thirdly it rightfully makes news when teachers face criminal charges, to say nothing of lawsuits, for their dangerous, abusive, reckless behavior toward students during school; filed to send a message to the whole of the teaching profession, incoming teachers than incarcerate all but the most egregious cases, that such brutality won’t be tolerated, that there are higher standards than that so called ‘old school’ crap. Distorting the perception on frequency slightly overall these upsetting scenes are comparatively rare alongside the millions of teachers teaching millions more students nationwide; why they again spark such visceral reactions in the students’ defense. Fourthly and arguably most importantly reaching news when teachers don’t face charges for their bizarre and violent actions, when in lieu of firing teachers are given slap on the wrist punishments; teacher who tormented that 6 year old receiving a measly 10 day suspension, the teacher/coach who put a 13 year old in therapy letting his fellow classmates spend class time tormenting him putting socks in his mouth, hold him down, haul him around making innuendo laced comments about keeping his pants on suspended 3-5 days and transferred to another school, teacher who cut a student’s braids to keep her from playing with them returned to class as was a teacher who threw a student’s shoes in the trash to prevent the same fiddling of a beginning grade school child. Teachers credibly accused of hot saucing, yes dipping an autistic students crayons in hot sauce to keep him from eating them, a grim emerging pattern among teachers concerning this specific group of developmental disability sufferers, using arbitration and policy, legal proceedings to get back into the classroom, citing no training as an excuse to regain their job; as if you should need training to tell you, you don’t drag a 7 year old through the halls by his clothes to the front office for ‘being disruptive,’ better yet if you need training to tell you that, you don’t belong in a classroom teaching children. Speaking of screaming moron adults, incidentally who also happen to be teachers/some facet of school administration, confusing where we got the idea those 2 things were somehow mutually exclusive; when recordings of the principal at a special needs school find her referring to one student as ‘retard’ literally barking at a graduation rehearsal everyone knows this is a school for kids with problems, cursing, whistleblower teacher also testifying to administrators about seeing kids thrown and that teacher, not the wayward principal, gets the pink slip. Entire school systems borrowing pages from the catholic church’s worst instincts ‘passing the trash’ AKA writing glowing reviews for suspected sexually abusive, sexually inappropriate teachers just to get them out of the district without the school having to go through the criminal and removal process, and we have older generations, adults who still think teachers are owed deference by holding up their teaching credentials and thinking that’s all the explanation needed? Elevating the case against anticipated deference over denouncement of such behavior is teacher after teacher, aide after aide, staff member after staff member, resource officer after resource officer caught on video, not from smartphones of students, fellow staff but in complete view of school surveillance cameras dispersed through hallways, common public areas; so emotionally gone, or brazenly flagrant of, independent district rules, school policies, just human decency doing horrifying things plainly in the open with no shame, no fear of punishment, no compunction they are doing anything wrong. Mounted cameras the teachers have to know are there, see them daily as they go about the building doing their job; few showing any kind of remorse are usually doing it in the from a tears signally they are sorry they got caught, sorry to direct such a negative national reaction at themselves far surpassing genuine regret, comprehension of the emotional/psychological scars they may well have imbedded into the young people they were hired to teach academic subjects to, not the cruelty of life visited upon you by people you were supposed to be able to trust. Moving away from the violence aspect, included is one drunk teacher story, a woman who showed up on the first day of school, arguably the most outrageous in a legion of drunk teacher cases, found by staff in a classroom intoxicated wearing no pants before school had even started on the first day of what was to be her new job; others sending students beating feet to the front office to alert staff there is something wrong with their substitute, ranting and raving, cursing, one who made a scene banging his head on the outside of the building, another found sleeping it off in a spare classroom during a work period. Hardly the strangest thing to befall students in the course of a school day, ranking up there would be the chemistry teacher randomly announcing it was haircut day; student shot video showing the female teacher with a pair of scissors in hand bellowing the Star Spangled Banner while a student sits in a chair at the front of the class, her tossing chucks of his already short hair behind her as she sings and the panicked moment he and the rest of the class realize she’s serious producing screams and scrambling chaos as he moves away and others dodge her chasing them holding said scissors, unsure her full intentions. Logically there may be a mental health issue at work yet she had her credentials suspended twice, several of the drunk teachers, substitutes had been caught that way at least once prior to the news making event and that bus driver with 5 young lives on his conscience shouldn’t have had the commercial license to drive a school bus combing through his abysmal driving record, should not have stayed on at the bus company reading the numerous complaints from parents before the crash. The disturbing part about the Slack Chat work e-mails exposing teachers badmouthing their students isn’t technology/social media elements, it’s the highlighted teachers mocking a student’s poor spelling by calling her dumb demonstrating how she spelled author, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates’ name; (Tonahese quotes) as if his first name isn’t unique enough to send seasoned journalist/show anchor’s stumbling, never mind has she seen it written ever at any point before being asked to write something that secondarily included his name? Working with her continuously throughout the academic year providing the extra tutoring/editing for English class sans picking up the markers of a possible learning disability, sans asking if she had ever been tested for a learning disability, arranging a meeting with her parents to get her evaluated for learning disabilities this novice can guess exist in the form of generalized slow learning, a possible hearing or auditory processing disorder when she thinks Coates sounds like quotes. Disturbing is the utter incompetence permitted to roam the halls of, piling insult on top of injury a private, touted as better, school that wouldn’t have been found out if it wasn’t for the accused teachers’ carelessness. Compare that to 2 of my best friend’s public school teachers who A- very quickly suspected a learning disability and sent her to the school’s testing help for LD and ESL (English as a second language) students and B- went back through her school records trying to ascertain why she struggled to such a degree coming to the educated guess she was dyslexic proceeding to inform all her other teachers of her findings resulting in the testing help being uniform across all her classes, extra help/tutoring now having a direction because a high school teacher cared enough to bother seeking answers rather than calling names. Mounting proof teachers too can be ‘screaming morons spewing nonsense,’ count the number of them caught on video, audio berating students excessively for normal childhood behaviors, normal age paralleling mistakes, huge percentage special needs students exhibiting behaviors commiserate with their diagnosed disorder mocked and made fun of, taunted, denied food, teachers lecturing students for things they have no control over like checking their homework, giving them behavioral negative marks if they don’t tell their parents to check their work, demeaning a students’ parents who don’t speak English, caught on tape telling a high school student to speak American that soldiers died so she can speak American, just a tiny sliver of examples. What part of a charter school letting menstruating teen girls bleed on their clothes for want of enough bathroom breaks to see to their hygiene needs, their solution to amend the dress code allowing sweatshirts to be tied around their waist, speaks deference required? Same school known for perp walking students from the school for minor infractions, teachers conditioned to close their door and pretend nothing untoward is happening, comment panel highlighting they had never seen a place/school so apt to condition students turned out as either low level assembly line style workers or to survive incarceration in some section of the prison system; unconscionable considering here was a charter school meant to provide opportunity to disadvantaged students primarily of color yet this is how orchestrate it. Where in the unspoken rules of how society once was and we want it to be in the future says we should meet rank incompetence, and that is precisely what you’re looking at on every level, with deference instead of metaphorical disinfectant in terms of changing systems, the people who run them? How does dressing up as ‘Mexicans’ and ‘border wall’ at your elementary school during Halloween net you anything but the suspension it garnered the 2 teachers who did it let alone deference , most recent in an exhaustive string of poor staff decision making telling African American students to remove slave costumes for decades day, history projects simultaneously okaying a white student to dress up as a KKK grand wizard; dido yanking kids out of their chair for refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance, trying to relegate them to a hallway if they opt not to participate, in that case denying the student both medical attention via the school nurse who ‘refused to serve her’ due to her stance on the pledge the denied her the ability to call her parent(s) about the whole mess, doling out detention for refusal to stand while protesting governmental corruption, inane policies trying punish a fellow student exercising their right not to participate in the pledge, even lowering one native American’s grade who sat out the pledge based on how her people have been treated over the centuries until it was made public what they had done. Up to the minute stories, a 6th grader arrested for refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance saying it was offensive and racist charged with the bogus ‘crime’ of disrupting a school function and resisting arrest; disrupting a school function throwback laws on the books from the turbulent late 1960’s, 70’s national protests about Vietnam, presidential administrations, social issues, a charge leveraged over students as a control mechanism and the beginnings of the school to prison pipeline. Worsening this latest story, it was all sparked by a substitute teacher questioning why he wasn’t standing ignorant of both the law and school policy he doesn’t have to, ratcheting things up calling the police paraphrasing ‘because she didn’t want to deal with him anymore;’ you haven’t gotten past the pledge of allegiance at the top of the morning and you already can’t deal, instances that denote need for dismissal not deference. ‘Elder’ problem solving that doesn’t make young people respect authority, quite the opposite, completely despise it shorter paraphrase of what one student said regarding the ‘haircut day’ teacher; why, adding to the adjectives used here already because it is needlessly unfair, not even trying to be fair, placing that as a priority, what is sharply a priority, the comfort and convenience of teachers, administrators and school resource officers. Once again spotlighting what this blog has said consistently over it’s decade long existence indications we need a new practical litmus test for teachers beginning with do they have a facility with children, temperament to be in X age level classroom, do they resort to violence when their ‘authority is challenged, their ‘knowledge’ is challenged; if they do the latter they don’t need to be teaching end of discussion. Constructive comments honed in on the truth featured young man needed guidance not a beat down, imagine if he had that instead of his teacher reinforcing every peer, cultural reference to toxic masculinity signaling violent and out of control is part of what a man is, what a man does, the ideal, acceptable picture of what a man looks like while at the same time there is a Gillette ad tackling toxic masculinity, demonstrating what men need to be aware of, call their friends out on, show their kids to make the world better for women, girls and themselves. Young man given a firsthand account of toxic masculinity not coming from movies, demonized rap music, TV, dark expanses on the internet, bad actors/famous persons, prominent figures exposed by the #metoo movement, bad choices of peers/friends narrowing his view to the worst of society, but by his teacher someone built into the fabric of society to be a role model.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o0NTpI1GSE
https://abc13.com/news/fbisd-teacher-removed-after-desk-flipping-incident/2005402/
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/teacher-threatens-to-have-students-shot-599674947661
https://www.salon.com/2016/06/27/ousted_teachers_get_a_lesson_dont_badmouth_your_kids/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/idaho-elementary-teachers-dressed-mexicans-160127722.html
Repeatedly amassing greater details if we’re paying attention we learn there are mitigating circumstances putting wayward, disrespectful, unruly ‘violent’ students in a different light; so logical enquiring minds want to know what was going on in this kid’s life, that day to evoke the antagonistic response, is videoed student a chronic discipline problem in band class, his other classes, is there a negative history between him and that specific teacher to explain either of their exaggerated reactions? Refreshing memories, the student who beat up his principal upon being asked to remove his headphones had just lost his mother; a student confronted about attempting to use the bathroom without a hall pass frustratingly throwing an orange at the opposite wall trying to explain why he really needed the restroom now, later body slammed to the ground by the school’s resource officer reporting found out has had past kidney or bladder problems necessitating he not just hold it. You can hear people saying if he had a bladder/kidney condition why wasn’t it on file with the school/nurse so scenarios like his wouldn’t happen, but if he’s never had a problem before, never been denied the ability to use a bathroom pass or no, why would he or his parent(s) go through the extra steps of informing, medical exemptions, for up to 6 teachers in his high school, single him out, make him different at that critical age when all they want is to fit in. Personally I had experience with that merry-go-round, to prevent kidney infections I was required to drink so many glasses of water a day, many at school meaning the special dispensation of carrying a water bottle and extra toilet breaks, when I got to junior high/middle school being able to ask teachers to use the restroom during class, but I had an obvious physical disability, walked with forearm crutches and was already on an IEP (individual education plan) to meet my physical needs at school presenting less of a problem to simply add that to its parameters. Versus kids who look perfectly normal and their issues from autism spectrum to named learning abnormalities get chalked up to behavior problems caused by bad, permissive parenting, ‘ghetto/thug’ culture stereotyped to persons of color like our cataloged students. That the most recent argument, the altercation started over a uniform violation, class plainly not going to a performance where they needed provided band outfits paralleling the marching band, matching outfits correlated to their music theme, translating to this was a school uniform violation solidifying blog’s feelings on such regulations and the ultimate disruption they cause far surpassing the ‘distractions’ they were purportedly designed to eliminate; that the other one just mentioned started because of a lacking hall pass screams it’s time for teachers, particularly in light of the recent strikes, for American teachers all to stand up and communicate enough is enough. Say I am an educator; my job is to impart knowledge in general studies, P.E., art for elementary students, to teach my subject to the best of my ability science, social studies, English, government, cooking, computers, child development in middle and high school grades. Facts that mean, my job is not, and frankly I don’t have the time to, enforce uniform adherence, dress codes, to police the width of a girl’s top straps, shorts/skirt length, visibility of cleavage, bra no bra, cleavage no cleavage, graphics on t-shirts concerned about Star Wars’ storm trooper shirt because of a gun (never mind it’s a fantasy laser gun that’s not real), political views of Duck Dynasty, MAGA shirts or hats. Therefore the only time I will enforce a dress code is pertaining safety: open toed shoes barred from shop and welding class, no overly long/baggy sleeves in science/cooking rooms where Bunsen burners and stoves are in use, mandating excessively long hair be tied back or braded. That band teacher should have had the discretional authority in his classroom to ignore the uniform violation, the way ‘inappropriate report card comments’ discovered, Natalie Monroe should have been able to ignore the ‘sexually suggestive’ pencil topper and to tell the kid who kept using the word shit’n as vocabulary if he wants to be heard in her class he chooses different words or will be ignored; further, if their school administrations won’t support them, would deign to fire them for not adopting such rigid enforcement it’s time to strike, protest, vote for administrators, make the argument to parents, local leaders, those in charge of final choices to choose ones who will. Even for administrators, their unified stance needs to be my job is to support my staff in creating a maximized learning environment while keeping students safe and maintaining a reasonable amount of order; and no, my concept of maintaining order is not to suspend a grade school student for shaving her head in solidarity with her friend battling cancer, police a child’s hair for ‘distractions’ based on style, police their clothes for modesty, ‘controversial’ slogans, top straps, shorts, dress/skirt length, banning hoodies on students who merely attempted to remedy being cold, enacting a new dress code of polo shirts and kaki style pants only to send students home for ‘bright’ colored tiny horse design on said shirt. Keeping a smooth-running school doesn’t mean having students in my office lectured, severing detentions because of baggy pants, tank top straps, pushed up pants legs, drugs/alcohol shirts. I will at each change of season go down the aisles of my local Wal-Mart, Target type store and look at the clothing in the kids, juniors and miss departments before I rag on a student for the skimpy outfit. Yearbook staff and the accompanying blue haired old ladies will not be Photoshop-ing yearbook pictures for modesty, erasing tattoos and bra straps with summer dresses because that’s not what school is about. At my school we will not waste valuable time and schoolboard, related meetings discussing the potential of a dress code for parents dropping off, picking up their children, attending parent teacher conference appointments or school functions and if formal attire is required for an event we will notify parents on the flyer for the given occasion. If that’s not your child’s school administration policy it needs to be and you have a role to play; younger parents who’ve been dress-coded in their school years need to stand up and when given the opportunity to vote on vacancies for schoolboard, superintendent, principal where applicable, vote for would be holders of listed titles who won’t spend their time enforcing such rules. Slightly older parents need to stop sympathizing with their offspring admonishing them to follow the arcane, hypocritical rules instead joining them in defending their rights; one of the chief reasons teachers and other adults who think they had it so good in the 50’s did, where that’s an accurate description, is because students didn’t know what was possible, rights they could fight for-they do now, having absorbed the lessons of civil disobedience, activism and protest, fought and won the right to wear casual clothing over church clothing, Sunday best, suites and ties, skirts and dresses only, for girls, to school. Fights they continue to wage when old fuddy-duddy adults spend inordinate amounts of time and resources objecting to leggings, yoga pants, ripped jeans and natural hairstyles knowing most of the drummed up excuses are BS, no one missing the inherent racism in the natural hair debates; boldly telling boys they shouldn’t think themselves entitled to girls/women’s bodies instead of girls and women thrown out of class for shorts, their education is not more important because of their male gender, saying boys should learn to control themselves rightly stating they aren’t the only ones susceptible to distraction but the only ones an accommodation is demanded on behalf of. They know they are NOT wearing leggings and yoga pants, skimpy shorts, tank tops to sexualize themselves, look more grown up or older, wiggling their ass to get a boys attention (again put that way to show just how absurd it sounds) signal their promiscuity, willingness for sex but to be comfortable, have a freedom of movement in said pants, those were cheaper than other pants at the store, skimpy was the only thing available in the age and size section for shorts and summer tops, parents who refused to buy them longer shorts in the boys section, boys tanks reveal too much and it’s too hot for tees. They are not wearing baggy pants to imitate prison or thug culture but as a part of black identity, admiration for the style, desire not to be in clothes that are skin tight, don’t have the body type for the resurging in popularity skinny jeans, hair as much a part of themselves as any other body part wishing to fix it in a form of self-expression, lacking money to do extensive treatments to it, why braid and corn rows are used to keep it neat at minimal cost. What right do you have to dictate what’s on my body especially when you are wholly wrong about my motivations? Why are you working for a school, sending your child to a school who cares more about what’s on a student’s body in terms of clothing, piercings and hair instead of what’s in their minds, secondarily their hearts; yet again if you ask, you answer your own question, reiterating concepts in the previous paragraph, odds are the band teacher actively chose not to ignore the nuisance uniform violation less in fear of his boss, in the interest of keeping his job and more because it was a moment to assert his authoritah. Select parents several years from blue haired old lady/ little old man status still think like them assigning meanings to their child’s clothing choice, agreeing with the school’s choices of clothing restrictions based on what ‘kids these days’ are wearing in public— oh the horror. Kids who have high BS meters on all topics and broker no room for hypocrisy, pre boxing match part of the video featuring our ancient band teacher shows the student repeatedly saying ‘you’re lying stop lying bleep; oh so at some juncture the kid thought his teacher was lying, well you’ve lost the battle before it’s even begun if that’s the case. They rightfully refuse to tolerate arbitrary unfairness, stupid rules for the sake of making rules or avoiding decisions; makes you ponder too exactly what that student thought the Baltimore teacher had done. I can’t help think of my friend’s defense of her 3 oldest children attending k-12 when alerted to their cussing or ‘backtalk’ to a teacher where she bluntly asks what did you do to piss him off, things that piss them off, generate their ‘inappropriate’ response items just listed, rules based on what the teacher doesn’t like not actual policy; warning her second son’s teacher every year not to piss him off or he won’t listen to you for the rest of it, again pissed off by the above, chronic inability of teachers to get the German spelling of his name correct, told by his mom to grab his brothers’ things from the lost and found if seen only for teachers to give him flack, ignorant of whose family to each other. At the same time we need new guidelines for administrators and teachers making certain things both against policy and illegal so they simply cannot happen, she was on her cellphone is not grounds enough to immediately eject a student from class let alone summon the school resource officer to do it for you; because, despite the people who saw the latest video of 2 school resource officers stepping on and tasing a student who wouldn’t get off her phone or leave the room when instructed, said the standard things we’re used to hearing, she should have listened to either her teacher or the cops, she fought the cops she deserved it (leaving off she didn’t begin kicking and trying to hit the officer until he stepped on her leg to prevent her moving it to sit up, at one point stepping on her crotch, didn’t begin to try hitting him until he bends down either activating the taser or attempting to slap her, hard to tell which), not once has a fellow student supported the teacher in radical moves like this bringing up the noise the phone makes impeding their learning. In fact classmates in the North Carolina case mentioned her quietness, the only person to talk about how distracting it is to teach with a cellphones’ dinging alerts in the background was Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks on an old video deconstructing a video of a student beating up his principal for taking his cellphone and Uygur’s support for not having cellphones in class talking about some tutorial he had done and how hard it was to do with smartphone noise; he is not teacher instead an independent media news anchor. Uygur also shooting down student excuse they are on their phones looking things up, saying they were instead checking Facebook, social media; not always he was proven wrong on the latter count when 2 years earlier Pam Stenzel’s sex ed. speech went viral for bringing god and her religious beliefs into a public school and the administration retaliating against a student who objected, several attendees looking up her so called facts on their phones unable to find more than her YouTube videos, due to there being little medical or statistical truth in her words. Gone should be the days of banning UGG boots because kids are want to hide food and forbidden calculators in them instead of fixing the crazy lunch schedules, suggesting teachers do core parts of their job monitoring class during a test for banned calculators giving caught students an F on the quiz/exam like teachers have been doing since the intersection between compulsory public education and the advent of the hand held/pocket calculator; as referenced in Indiemusic’s teachers strike story under the solutions for failing schools, subpar school performance channeling the LA unified school district we don’t suspend kids under so called ‘willful defiance’ for forgetting their notebook. Unless it involves violence to self or others, particularly others, students should be left in the classroom and teachers made to deal, those who repeatedly can’t fired for their inability to do their job instead of being allowed to eject students at the slightest sign of a problem or disagreement, student asking ‘excessive’ questions because hey genuinely don’t understand. No one is ever allowed to ask if the rules make sense, and ok the rule about no cellphones in class makes sense, but does the extreme reaction to its violation; short answer no, it simply pulls everyone else’s attention away from the lesson as student Y is hauled out, erupts if there’s a power struggle when they leave, refuse to leave the room. No one allowed to put forth the radical idea if you can’t compete with the cellphone don’t teach, teachers have always had to compete with more fun things outside the classroom and the notion you the educator rise to the challenge isn’t total blasphemy you just think it is; here’s an adjacent thought proven anecdotal fact, if you are vibrant and engaging, barring that relevant, they will put their phone down. Broader fixes for the cellphone distraction is, leaving off the too far-fetched Star Trek angle of a computer terminal built into every desk to push your school for technology integrated classrooms, tablets and computers phasing out the textbook, yourself using flipping the classroom techniques whenever/wherever possible sending the lecture portion home to be viewed on YouTube, a tablet and doing the worksheets in class with an interactive demonstration of science concepts, practical applications and locations of math being taught, visual showcases of the solar system, movies, interactive materials teaching history. But it’s an affront to their pedagogical prowess for them to be asked to incorporate technology, incredulously prone to saying they need to come up to our (the adult) level of learning, assimilating information, not us going down to theirs; instead of it mattering more that they learn vocabulary, multiplication tables, planets in our solar system, than whether they learn it listening go your lecture, doing the operations on a smartboard, worksheets or an educational computer game. Chronicling dominate learning style of the students in your class/classes every year for grade school teachers, each hour class for higher grades, endeavoring to teach to that learning style, teaching to all learning styles in lower grades can manifest a marked improvement in student comprehension and decrease disruptions because everyone is able to absorb what you are presenting in a way that make sense to them; learning how your most struggling students learn best and incorporating as many aspects as you can will bolster their comprehension and cut down on their acting out for the same reasons, now if only we could get teachers to do that instead of expressing their indignation at the very idea they should. Which one of the next video better represents how we expect our younger kids to be treated when they go to school part A or part B, everyone will immediately say part B. That was a promotion for changing how we talk to kids, interact with kids can have profoundly positive effects on boosting literacy levels in beginning grades, elementary years; but, easily doubles as a primer in how to and how not to engage kids on their level to elicit what you want from them absent barking at them, talking down to them or treating them like an inconvenience. Latter form of classroom management establishing a pattern of mutual respect virtually eliminating problems from the opening videos of the piece because you’re not being arbitrary, petty, catty, cruel condescending or mean, it’s not about a power trip or the fact you expect the worst out of them, it’ not about superficial things like clothes, hair, uniforms; if only teachers past elementary school could be convinced to do so. For nuisance problem students letting come to pass natural consequences handed students for inattentiveness, they want to be on their cellphone in class tally up how many times they do in a time frame then when they come asking for extra help because they don’t understand, extra credit because they flunked the test refuse citing your tabulations, reveal collated information to their parent when they come inquiring; they advise this for parents of toddlers, they throw the cookie on the floor at 3-5 they don’t get another one. When other students think you’re being unfair, asks what gives as to why you’re not enforcing the rule, doing it the way other teachers do posit they want to pass the class, not see your mug next year, Mr./Ms. ‘playing with their phone’ probably won’t, end of questions/complaints. Circling back to the premise opening the paragraph, extenuating circumstances consideration always extended to the adult not the child illustrated by the following comment on the Baltimore story, “I must say this is rather sad day for the school system. Nothing new really this has been going on for years. A child recently pulled a gun on a teacher in class because he didn’t like his failing grade. What happen to the days when parents would tell the teacher to call them directly in front of their children if they have any issues in class.” More relevant question what kind of pressure, what kind of fear was that student experiencing he thought he had to pull a gun on a teacher to do something about it; an exaggerated fear response lines up with the results of a new study finding increases in child abuse correlating with report cards sent home on Fridays. Study unable to conclude why the results were what they were; blog/author’s educated guess, report cards issued on Friday’s leads to parents unable to contact teachers over the weekend and discuss their child’s performance, at the same time younger children can’t answer their parents’ questions about why they are behaving in ways delineated in their report card spelling severe punishment for the child, readily crossing the line to abuse. Also true if the parent misunderstands what their teacher is trying to communicate, exaggerate in their own minds the depth of the problem; we’ve seen kids run away from home over bad grades either after arguments with their parents about academics or fear of their parents’ response, scared witless kids will do desperate things including grab a gun. Next extrapolating on what we know about student lives where are the supports for students found readily in alternative schools that should be in all schools like the Arkansas program that has teachers noticing when a student can’t stay awake because they worked the night before, younger kids have a new infant sibling keeping everyone up, comprehending the day will not be ruined by a nap, provide the mental health supports, one on one instruction and meeting a student where they are and catching them up, shunting them to vocational training and practical career opportunities at the high school level allowing them to picture their future. Surrounded by both peers and staff that understand what the student is going through with a rough home life, grappling with mental illness or struggling to support themselves in high school as opposed to so many staff, teachers who are clueless; solutions in the form of after school activities and community support giving kids some place to go once school is done instead of threatening a student found after hours, simply asking why he was there like you care not like you’ll throw the book at him. Seeing student frustration and attempting to do something to alleviate it rather than throwing up your hands saying I can’t teacher that, calling them dumb while insisting they already should have learned that named skill, aspect of history instead of understanding for some reason massive things got missed with this student and you have an opportunity to help catch them up or blithely allow them to fail, something that should not be an option for an educator getting paid to perform a job. Varying considerations from you were provoked, you were upset to trotting out information the child couldn’t have known to make the adult look more sympathetic than they already did to their fellow adult audience always used/applied when talking about the adult in the violent equation but never the child, regardless the child being the one with less development, less life experience, no training to manage teachers as teachers have been subsequently trained both to teach and to operate a classroom; just like the detail on the Baltimore teacher’s cancer, did the student know about their teacher’s health status, that they had been on leave let alone why? Or was it a repeat of the abused bus monitor case where the students suggested something to do with suicide concerning her and news reporters put out there one of her sons committed suicide, a fact they unearthed the students couldn’t know, but reported it as if they did and still taunted her with the subject anyway. More importantly did they hit the Baltimore teacher because they thought her weaker due to her health or because they were upset with her, what was going on in the room, if not her other things in their life; instrumental because one deserves one kind of punishment the other a lesser type. Entitled cellphone girl 2019’ was on a behavioral intervention plan persons involved refused to follow; video displaying the results, plans they don’t use for general delinquency and the ‘bad behavior’ she’s accused of with little information. FYI all legal charges dropped on the teen once the video went viral and was seen by prosecutors; I can’t help but harken back to my best friend’s oldest son circa first grade and the new principal who was trying to earn her stripes plus teachers who said they didn’t have time to follow his calm time routine laid down in his IEP and the almost kick in the head that principal got for violating that routine and getting too close to an also documented claustrophobic, or when teachers asked his mother in kindergarten how she managed him at home, she told them and they ignored everything she said. His alluded to diagnosis of autism and the teachers’ whose response was we thought so but did little to employ techniques known to work with spectrum kids; I can’t help but think of her second son diagnosed severe ADHD at age 5 before starting school on a cocktail of medications and an IEP before leaving kindergarten sent to a specialized school program after— grade and only now in 5th grade has the teacher stop sitting him near the door though he has a tendency to run, stopped sending him home when he does run new principal there listening to his mother to merely send him back to class or to ISD with work. He runs much less; that built into his IEP for middle school him slated to attend with a specialized class where he can earn his way into the complete mainstream. No one asking if the Baltimore student was bipolar, depressed, suffering anxiety, had ever been spoken to about or tested for that and more emotional problems common among teens and adolescents, the California young man either; how much access do we think those 2 examples alone had to mental health services when 80% of L.A. county students are on breakfast and lunch programs, the old line stating students in a minority concentrated area are always underserved options for such services. Contrast California’s band teacher with the New Orleans band teacher who set out to reach his students by shattering perceptions of what a teacher is supposed to be, look like in a good way showing them they can have the nice things they want, symbols of success via continuing education versus selling drugs; contrast the golden state band teacher with profiled red state teachers last year working anywhere from 3-5 jobs and yet they aren’t throwing punches, throwing desks, throwing students, dragging them around by their clothing until red in the face, crying and sporting marks on their neck. Scrutinize for yourselves the inherent laziness in the negatively profiled teachers versus the red state teachers highlighted when they went on strike for improved materials, facilities and supports given to students who were juggling multiple jobs and fighting harder to make sure their students didn’t gain any inkling how much they work, didn’t suffer educationally, academically for their divided attention, said attention didn’t impact their teaching quality. Red state teachers who likewise didn’t have classrooms resembling anything forming the catalyst for the current piece, students weren’t at the top of the classroom scuffling, resource officers weren’t tossing kids around anywhere let alone out of their chairs, onto the concrete or unto unconsciousness, no one was ranting and raving about a student’s inability to do math, unchecked homework by parents, kicking, grabbing or shoving a child for going to the bathroom even if they thought it was a game. Decent people across America can’t help but wonder if teachers paid better attention to important things and less to desserts in school lunches would they have found the Turpin children years sooner based on what one former classmate articulates they saw including the teacher telling her to toss out the impromptu hair scrunch-y made from the tinfoil of a Hershey bar; if they’d filed it under I wonder if something’s wrong odd instead of the bizarre things kids come up with today- both Turpin parents pleading guilty to several counts of child abuse and related charges. Spankings/beatings, suspensions and expulsions for that matter don’t solve, mitigate or manage learning disabilities, spankings/beatings, suspensions and expulsions won’t diagnose, treat or suggest coping skills for mental illness, spankings/beatings, suspensions and expulsions can’t create solutions to adult issues kids have no hope to solve alone like divorce, job loss, eviction, foreclosure, homelessness, parental drug addiction spawned by the opioid crisis. Spankings/beatings, suspensions and expulsions can’t remove children from sexual abuse happening at daycare, after school programs, camp help children, teens adolescents process the aftereffects; spankings/beatings, suspensions and expulsions don’t curb bullying because they don’t help bullies solve their problems causing them to act out which is a symptom not a core reason behind their behavior. Spankings/beatings, suspensions and expulsions don’t solve food insecurity, housing insecurity for LGBT teens thrown out of their home due to their sexuality/gender status. And we see the results of it not working in the adults gone before them and what they are doing with their lives, the trouble they get into because they were spanked, beaten, suspended and expelled, not taught what to do instead of bad behavior, not treated for known conditions producing such behavior.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/this-school-dress-code-is-straight-out-of-the-1950s-212211504.html
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/speaking-slut-shaming-19529855
http://www.latimes.com/sdut-la-unified-teachers-suspension-ban-creating-2015nov07-story.html
https://www.apnews.com/219c75c6183e45a4972e0c2f3afd186f
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/30/arkansas-spurns-warehousing-of-floundering-students_partner/
https://www.apnews.com/6e0efa1738fd47e6b296a67055731575
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/taco-bell-hot-sauce_n_975950.html
http://www.newser.com/story/271633/police-mayor-fired-at-swat-team-serving-warrant.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvNsNiY5V8g
https://www.komu.com/news/house-bill-would-add-medical-alerts-to-ids
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X13zTdZrOk8’
The problem then isn’t obnoxious behavior of students just as the problem with the father who shot one of his sons during/after an argument erupted from a debate over NFL players kneeling wasn’t the gun, wasn’t the prevalence of guns in multitudes of homes across America; it’s that the golden age good old days weren’t so good and the people brought up in it weren’t/aren’t as perfect as we originally thought they were. It’s that people are going into critical societal professions for all the wrong reasons from teachers to police motivated by the power they will gain not educating children, enforcing the law, helping people through that enforcement. When you have on camera a daycare worker throwing a 3 year old around the room, into a shelf so hard her head splits open and she needs stiches, when parents concern about how their child got the injury from a ‘fall’ turns up not only that but another instance, another worker entirely grabbing a small child’s arm so hard the adult’s nails broke skin on said arm, the primary issue of contention certainly isn’t the toddler. More broadly it’s that betraying the rose colored glasses of nostalgia middle age plus adult problem solving, had then and does now, contain only 2 defaults, call the police on people who are going about their business, especially if they are anything but white; how we ended up with the 1955 death of 14 year old Emmet Till because a white woman made up a tale about him whistling at her, 6 years earlier in1949 4 Florida men who would become known as Groveland 4 accused of rape not pardoned until 70 years later after 2 of them had been executed decades previously for a sex assault that never happened, fabricated because the well to do white girl’s family wanted the black man’s rightfully owned land. Though Till’s death represents vigilante justice the court returned not guilty verdicts for his killers, at least one of the Groveland 4 executed on his way to court or back to jail by a white member of law enforcement authority. 21st century says the calendar though little has effectively changed, how we got Permit Patty, Barbecue Becky, License Plate Linda, Pool Patrol Paula, ID Adam, Coupon Carl, Golf Cart Gail, Cornerstore Caroline, Hotel Earl to name only a few people drunk on the power given them by their homeowners association, being appointed game monitor, security guard or are perfectly comfortable throwing their adult weight around against kids. Regular readers doubtlessly recall white Permit Patty called police on a black10 year old selling pre-bottled water to earn money for Disney land, white or other Pool Patrol Paula used her non-existent authoritah to demand a 16 year old black young man leave his neighborhood public pool, charged with assault after video shows her hitting him though he was complying with her exorbitant request having done nothing wrong but be there, white Cornerstore Caroline firmly believed a black 9 year old groped her in a sexual manner by pinching her butt, turns out she was brushed by his backpack as she bent down to examine an item on a shelf as he walked by, a neighbor called police on a black boy for mowing part of their lawn attempting to get the entirety of the lady next door’s, FYI he had a lawn mowing business, it was the same scenario with confusion regarding another young man of color’s new paper route. A phenomenon begun on college campuses with a white student who called campus police at Yale when she saw a black student napping in the common room, white student holding a history of calling authorities on students of color for the crime of asking for directions, just being there; followed by an employee at Smith college who called police on the black international student eating lunch in the dinning commons for looking out of place, but taking the cake and more towards our purposes the college professor who called campus police to remove a black student from their class for putting their feet up on the empty chair in front of them. Multiplying the sheer insanity upon arrival campus police proceeded to remove said student as if police were needed to handle the minor problem, as if it were actually their job to assist in classroom management, manage a non-violent student doing something that can’t even be classified as annoying/distracting as it makes no sound, obstructs no one’s view of the teacher’s lecture/presentation and isn’t drawing attention away from it, not to the degree of 2 campus officers sauntering into the room at the very least, not to the degree perp walking their classmate out of the room surely did. White middle age plus adults notoriously known these days for randomly shouting and insulting immigrants and persons speaking anything but English talking among themselves in any public place across America whether it’s in the line, walking down the aisles at a grocery/department store, restaurant; a particularly arrogant white woman daring to go off on a Mexican restaurant owner/manager for speaking Spanish in his own establishment where she purchased something off the menu and was content to eat it until she heard the dreaded foreign language, alternating between telling him to speak English and get out of her country, fellow patrons having none of it similar to the Korean nail salon owner given a tip by bystanders to a white woman’s tirade about her English. Or bring some aspect of violence into it, be it spanking children, teens and adolescents to ensure their submission to authority, not to cement their understanding of solid morality or have a foundation in good manners, and when mediocre ‘authority’ figures don’t get the subservience they believe their position or age entitles them to resorting to fisticuffs, choking, physical violence to force compliance, defer to school resource officers/ police who will apply that violence unto desired compliance. Problems expanding out into larger society well past such abuse’s effect on students released back into the American populous baring the scars of the same hurting citizens out of their own unresolved hurt; it’s the devastating endgame achieved when the pet peeve brigade is permitted to assign the weight of law to their annoyances though city/county ordinances on wearing pajamas in public, thong underwear and see-through clothing, the culturally targeted donning of baggy pants which spelled death to a man who was arrested, tased, jailed dying in custody, when you can be arrested for wearing a hoodie as they just did in Memphis, a group of black males arrested at a mall there for little other than their hooded sweatshirts charged with criminal trespass for breaking mall policy. All the more ridiculous when you see the form fitting nature of the sweatshirts they were wearing, the hooded t-shirts now available on clothing racks nationwide, probably some at that very mall; compounding the reverberating effects there was the time and money spent of the city’s end processing this case, putting these young men through the system, adjudicating their case, charges readily dropped after public backlash, but the resources expended when the most officers should have done was inform them of mall policy, when they were handcuffed for asking why they needed to remove them. Latest in the endless line of needless incarcerations that pull people away from school, jobs, sometimes costing them their hard won employment altogether, when they are jailed unable to pay progressively mounting fines devised as an assumed clever way to grow city coffers, an irresistible bonus to ‘moral majority,’ ‘morality police’ leaders. Community unfairness encompassed in the tragic fates of people like Sandra Bland and Kalief Browder both committing suicide after tangling with the justice system the first detained for blowing cigarette smoke in an officers face during a traffic stop probably wondering before her death how such a stop saw her in a cell, the other doing years in notorious Riker’s Island for allegedly stealing a backpack at 16, family initially unable to afford bail, eventually released but unable to cope with the lasting damage of the experience for a backpack, surprise, surprise he never stole. It’s what officers might well have missed in terms of people in distress, real crime while acting as a botherment removal squad for an increasingly older white America stick in their bubble and fearful of anything outside it, partial evidence used to fire one officer who arrested his daughter’s boyfriend for being her boyfriend, telling him he’d make something up (to charge him with), missing a call while terrorizing the 2 for the ‘crime’ of being together; independent she’s 18, legally an adult and even as her father he has no binding say in what either of them do. Why one officer turned in his fellow officer for brutally punching a man so hard he falls the floor, reportedly out cold who had only managed to get loud and use exaggerated gesticulations with the officer during a conversation over his apparently ‘acting irate and cursing at fellow hotel guests’ (who can truly estimate the accuracy of their account in light of the memed white persons garnering nicknames like listed above) when the man previously tried to walk away from officers and only returned to the table to retrieve something of his belongings; because it’s not supposed to work that way, trained police officers are taught de-escalation for a reason, they are meant to use it for a reason. And if force were necessary it wouldn’t look like you dropping someone you’ve got 20-50 pounds on; whistleblower an example of what we also need cops to be, willing to report their co-workers in blue for dangerous wrong doing the earns them all disrespect and endangers their lives too. Going back to ordinary citizens, at issue is the physical fights older persons get into with alarmingly increasing regularity over minor arguments, neighbor disputes, road rage a category standing alone; though commenters on such stories will be happy to know the younger of the 2 persons in the latest case that saw a man clinging to the hood of a car for his very life as it sped down a highway got the steeper punishment and removal of his drivers license, older man charged on disorderly conduct showing fairness in the dispensing of justice, the person guilty of more serious law breaking received the greater punishment, something kvetching adults today don’t seem to think, notice exists. Snow plow rage a thing with the extreme winter whether coming from homeowners in Washington state, homeowners mad their driveways are blocked by the endless mounds of white, one equipped with a holstered gun, jumping on the plow, no charges since the person was permitted to carry; frequent readers will remember the former teacher who did that to a school bus over a Gatorade bottle allegedly thrown his car from out the bus window. How fast incidents turn to violence whether it’s the man seen in video punching a woman’s windshield or the number of cars chased by people wilding hammers, axes; when you can be killed over a beef about a parking space, that gets a gun pulled on you, beef settled in a school parking lot to put the icing on the cake of bad judgement. Where people think themselves again entitled to behave this way because they are an adult, their age, their ‘should be status as an elder;’ all while lambasting violent students half their age for their lack of self-control, their entitlement. People who have, talked about habitually by blog and author, killed their neighbors due to landscaping disputes, mowing the lawn at night got a woman shot and ran over for such an ‘offense;’ Kentucky senator Rand Paul was attacked by his neighbor making added news when he elected to go to Canada for treatment on the resulting hernia from his 6 broken ribs and a bruised lung. When a man pulls out a gun at a Taco Bell for lack of or incorrect taco sauce, when a balding, middle aged man tries to yank a McDonald’s worker over the counter and beat her up because he had to ask for a straw, when a Trump supporter believes the president’s rhetoric about the media gives him cart blanche to assault a reporter at a Trump event, crowd chanting at security to let the punching man go; just the latest in a string of adult bad behavior that means they should never be talking about how terribly kids act in any decade whether it was the lady who has to be told by an officer yes throwing a drink in someone’s face is a form of assault should they choose to press charges, video showing the woman ranting about a guy disobeying bicycle laws, though he and his bike were at that stage perfectly still and filming her insanity on the sidewalk. Talk about something the police should definitively react to the woman in Florida who threatened a black deputy with the KKK, a 53 year old would be elder; how fast it goes from yelling and accosting immigrants, foreign language speakers all and everywhere, persons in some way identified as other to assaulting them, the man who goes from yelling at to kicking and hitting a black student on Santa Monica college’s campus over a parking space an 80 year old instigator, not an inspiration. A 71 year old woman charged with assault after another parking space augment ended in Physical contact when she lunges for the pregnant servicewoman’s phone to stop her from filming. Flashing routine readers back to the woman on her local bus’s tirade about immigrants ultimately arrested for smacking the man’s phone out of his hand and choking him, a man who unsurprisingly to rational human beings was born in Brooklyn. The problem is the perpetual cycle of violence message people like these documented teachers, talked about resource officers, miscellaneous school staff, members of the, hardly an example general public, are sending coming generations, that when they get older, achieve a defined age or title they too can act like that, they too are allowed to get violent with others who challenge them on the field of ideas, established facts, challenge the notion their advanced age doesn’t give them the right to beat up ‘punk kids,’ take their property, call the police on them for cursing in a public area; cordoning off the MAGA weirdoes in their own section, there’s the adult who physically attack a 12 year old and his group of friends who allegedly frightened his wife throwing things at her car. Instead of calling the police for the alleged law breaking cellphone video captures the assault leaving the boy’s arm injured and the man facing charges; here is what the police are for, if you believe a crime has been committed, you believe you can credibly identify the person who did it that’s when you call and make a report, odds are the wife had a cellphone on her at the time. You don’t take matters into your own hands using your considerable strength against a child; there is juvenile detention, restitution to pay for the ‘damage’ to your car, scared straight programs, community service that instills the respect for others and property far better than assault. Harkening readers back again to the 81 year old man upset with a teen who damaged his landscaping dumped a bowl of urine on the teen afar having filed a police report on what transpired; again adults who have to be reminded what the rules are, what they can and they can’t do, more importantly, why. Kid comes back, won’t leave you alone call them again for trespassing but no don’t use your own body waste as ‘self-defense, that gets you, not them, justifiably arrested;’ the reality people who don’t know the law what is permissible are older adults, the older they are the worse it gets. Want to solve society’s secondary ‘respect problem’ maybe like with masculinity it starts by redefining what that means or how it’s demonstrated; redefining what these supposed acts of defiant disrespect by young whippersnappers actually mean. People don’t call you ma’am or sir because it’s outdated not to offend you, taking the nod or grateful smile as someone runs off toward their destination as thankyou enough for directions given instead of demanding it be said or blowing your stack. Reorienting what ‘elder’ and old age are meant to grant you in American society versus what you think it does mirroring the iconic Bart Simpson poster that says among other things ‘I do not have power of attorney over first graders/I will not proscribe medication/ I will not conduct my own fire drills,’ being old does not permit you to boss around anyone younger than you especially anyone over 18; even if they are under18 you don’t have the right to tell them what to do in a public place unless they are harming you or you are the owner or an employee of the business, got news for you old people, constitutional rights start at birth not age of majority and we do have a small thing called freedom of speech in this country. Equally you don’t get to harass people for their lifestyle if they still have their hair, there’s no gray in it or they haven’t achieved driving age yet because we dislike their pants, their clothes, their choice of hobbies i.e. skateboarding. You may neither like nor appreciate that everyone has a phone and everyone is recording everyone else but you are not allowed to try and take their phone from them or destroy their phone in an effort to destroy said recordings because of that fact; by the way, want to decrease your chances of being recorded, don’t do insane, over the top shit in public, don’t rant and rave like a lunatic and people won’t find you interesting enough to record. Better option, live up to the elder status you want and get recorded doing something good, go viral for acts of kindness and decency there are too few of in the world; don’t be the guy wanted for a subway assault, the transient known for contaminating store items with bleach, don’t be in a place of power i.e. mayor and pull a gun on police, a prominent figure i.e. sports coach and make headlines for running someone over with your car or like football owner Robert Kraft charged with prostitution. In the interest of restoring respect maybe we start with police who don’t brutalize black and brown people, persons of color during routine traffic stops, kill people running from police over child support on what started as a broken break light fine, tase a guy 11 times for being the passenger in a vehicle and questioning why he needs to show an ID he didn’t have on him, drag him out of the car still tangled in his seatbelt because you thought he was hiding evidence (evidence of what unclear) when he appears to be holding a grocery or convenience store bag on his lap, all done with his wife and kids in the car. Maybe police don’t harass people going about their daily lives having done nothing wrong a-la Freddie Gray and his legal pocket knife dumped into a police van minus a seatbelt, minus the inhaler he begged for dying days later in a hospital from a severe brain injury caused by his head ricocheting off the van walls, looking for traffic and ordinance fines to impose in the name of filling city coffers putting the bug in city/county leaders’ ears they need to find a different revenue source. Maybe intelligent police officers start issuing verbal reprimands to white individuals calling police on their black neighbors, fellow citizens while putting forth the concept of implementing some legal punishment or fine for misusing the police and 9-1-1 system. Maybe if you want more of your precious city money to spend on needed things you get your violent police and violent teachers either under control or booted out so you aren’t paying out millions upon millions in wrongful death and injury civil suits, paying medical bills for the consequences of an amputated leg your teachers/teacher’s aide, lackadaisical approached to seeking medical attention for an injured student contributed to, broken jaws and damaged tenth your teachers/administrative staff created—oh. As opposed to tasing a diabetic man suffering a life threatening low blood sugar event you pulled over mistaking for drunk and waited until after using your taser to summon an ambulance to the scene; perhaps support medical alerts, mandatory ones if need be, for persons with conditions that might affect them when being pulled over like the option in one Midwest state used by a man who has Asperger’s and when approached the wrong way becomes very nervous and unable to follow commands, answer questions. Police learn to assess a situation instead of brutalizing the student ‘breaking into’ his own car because he locked the keys in it and doesn’t have AAA, it doesn’t support OnStar, he can’t afford either. Maybe it starts with teachers walking into the classroom with a completely different mindset that they aren’t going to appear and the students lick their boots, kiss their ass, yes blog this time around is going a little cruder to drive home the point, hanging on every word as if they were god or their favorite celebrity idol, respect from today’s kids is not given solely because of a title, any title; yes you are the teacher, but to them that means you only have the answers to the test not all knowledge on your subject, generalized grade level education, you are not the oracle at Delphi, you do not hold all the answers to life, do not know them well enough, cannot get to know them well enough during the course of the year to realistically impart life changing knowledge, so stop thinking everything that comes out of your mouth is such a big deal. Instead of seeking to lord power over their students because they think that’s the best part of teaching that they like, entering their classrooms with the idea respect is earned even at their young age and you get it by words and actions, both steeped in being fair, balanced and reasonable with everyone; and I have to go in there every day showcasing I am worthy of the title teacher meaning more than the certificate piece of paper, years I completed in school, number of hours/years logged in the classroom. Demonstrating daily how I earned the title teacher, by being good, excellent at my job, endeavoring to learn as much from my students as I plan to give by teaching them; wow now there’s food for thought.
###