Kids love to act up.
Can you blame them, though? The education that they have to suffer through is so stifling, so useless, so disconnected and uncoordinated, that they have nothing better to do than harass the teacher. At least his frustrations are entertaining.
Teachers, of course, if they have any shred of dignity, do not want to put up with this crap. Administrators usually trip out the same litany:
"Treat the students with respect."
"They are good kids, really they are, just do not yell at them or make them angry or unhappy, and ask them politely to do whatever it is you want them to do."
"Call the parents. Did you call the parents??" When they are home, more often than not, they say, "I'll talk to him or her," which means a gentle nudge or chide, and the kids will go right back to acting up, or the parents admit, "I don't know what to
!" For crying out loud, these parents brought their kids into the world kicking and screaming, and apparently they have neither skill nor intention of getting them to stop the kicking and screaming, even in the classroom.
Have a parent conference. -- This one is really rich. Half the time, the parent does not even show up, and does not bother to call ahead to cancel. If the parent does show up, the kid still acts up. Mom and Dad (sometimes, just Mom, usually no Dad) sit by and let the kid act up, even in the middle of the conference! Other times, parent and student team up against teacher, then run to administrator, and administrator tells teacher to back off, because cowardly administrator will not stand up to parent or child, or cowardly administrator will get angry call -- or pink slip -- from angry district office. Do you see where this going?!
"Have the parent sit in class with the kid." Ha! Sometimes, even then the kid will still act up, if the parent decides to show up for that. Other times, yes, yes, the kid will start to behave, but as soon as Mom and Dad or gone, the kids goes right back to his disruptive and disrespectful ways. Having the parent sit in class with the kid during instruction is about as useful as putting pockets in underwear -- great if your dealing drugs, but not for much else.
"Let's have a conference with their counselor, administrator, and parent altogether, and confront the kid." This is what I call "the height of folly." A kangaroo court in reverse, in which a miscreant is treated as if he has rights that any adult is bound, nay compelled to respect. Such is the legacy of equality-insanity that passed for liberal thinking. The student does not play along, or rather he does play, he plays every adult who really thinks that reasonable discussion and pleading will entreat a kid to behave. If Mom and Dad won't put their foot down at home, why should the student care what some stranger named "teacher" or "principal" should say.
On the other hand, an adult named "probation officer" or "police officer" tends to command more respect. What a tragedy -- state force with a gun is the only thing that can corral any order in a school, and even then their hands are tied unless a student commits a crime. Once, I witnessed a sheriff sitting down with the parent, the dean, and the student, engaging in a similar round of discussion and entreaty! Would the real leadership, would the real parent please stand up?!
Young people are not adults, I do not care if they are seniors in high school. If they are not paying their own rent, if they are not buy their own groceries, caring for themselves, in effect holding down their own jobs but living off of Mom and Dad, then they are not adults, nor should they be treated fully as such.
No, they do not get the final say in a discussion. No, they do not get to barter and demand respect simply because they are students in a school. Obedience in a household has to be top-down; kid do not lecture Mom and Dan on how to do their job; kid does not get say one when to stay, when to go, what to do, and whether he will heed his parents or not. Such discipline is not fun in the short run, but it does a lot of good for a boy or girl growing up into independent adulthood.
Once, I had it out with another student, this time in a community day school in Lynwood. After having failed to show up for three months, he decided to come back to school. Granted, he was not as rude or unruly as some students which I have been forced to contend with, but his insolence was borderline-maddening.
Except that that day I had had enough.
When I asked him three, four, five times to do something, he wanted to wheel, warble, deal, and discuss. By the way, this kid wasted nearly an hour talking, distracting other students. I dragged him into the secretary's office (the lady was also the de facto dean who issued suspensions at a moment's notice).
"Do you talk to your father like that?
Do you talk to your mother like that?
I do not tell you over and over to do the same thing!"
Then he asked, "Can I say something. . ?"
No!!!!!!!!!!!
"No," I fired back. Parenting, leading young people, is not a democratic exercise. It is a perversion of love and caring to let children dictate their circumstances, "have their say" unless they are willing to do all the work and pay every price that comes with adulthood, which many students are unschooled and unwilling to pay, even when they graduate from high school.
I have to say, it was a gratifying moment for me. Finally, I was not ashamed to assert my authority, not just as a teacher, but as a human being who knew right from wrong, and righteousness from error, and would not allow one more student to wheel and deal his way out of reality.
Like Frederick Douglass after beating his own slave master, I was no longer a slave to the liberal lunacy that the kid is OK, but just needs a little more "tender loving care and to be heard." I may have still been a cog of the state in form, but I was not giving into the madness of letting this kid make excuses for himself one more time.
Needless to day, I put him (yes, this high school student) in time out, during which time he kept begging me to let him play on the computer or talk with his friends.
No! No! No! Oh blessed two-letter word, No!
These young people do not hear "No!" at home, and they do not hear it often enough. Even adults need to hear "No!", but don't.
(Yes, another aside! -- To this day, the people of the United States of America have needed their governments to say "No!" to entitlements, handouts, and government largesse. But like complaisant parents afraid to offend their weak sensibilities of their spoiled children, the state keeps giving, giving, and now has nothing left to give. I was not about to let continue this perverse, shameful cycle at my expense!)
Suffice to say, I got so fed up with the kids meandering-whining, I told the secretary. She summarily called him in suspended him, then sen him on his way. Would that more deans were as tough as the secretaries in some schools!
And there is another shameful irony. The secretary, the "lower level" employees, the classified staff, do a far better job of keeping kids in line. Probably because they do not have the conflict responsibilities of trying to teach and train young people. They have more pressing, real-world concerns like keeping the campus clean or making sure the principal's memos getting, typed, printed, and delivered right away.
So, for discipline to take place, the teacher has to break the rules, go above and beyond the lofty, liberal lunacies of treating kids like their adults who have a right to charter their own course in a classroom and a school at their own behest.
Or, I can just become a police officer. At least I would get paid more!
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