REWARDING BAD BEHAVIOR

Schools Make It Hard for Kids to Learn

Social Justice?

California is trying to pass a bill that would ban suspensions for kids who defy teachers or disrupt a class.  Senate Bill 274 is aimed at keeping kids from missing class, which often leads to dropping out.  It also prohibits consequences for truancy. The sponsor, Nancy Skinner, says, “Kids belong in school.”  She is also concerned because the majority of the offenders are Black. 

There are two major problems with this bill.  The first is that the behavior that will no longer be punished disrupts the education of every other child in the classroom, as well as making it impossible for a teacher to control the class.  The second is that the bill calls for “restorative justice,” which involves mediation instead of punishment.  While there is some evidence that this form of mediation can work with adults, children’s brains aren’t fully formed yet.  Kids take the easy way out, so if apologizing is all that’s needed, with a promise not to repeat the behavior, they’ll mouth the words that are necessary.

The History Doesn’t Support This

When I was in junior high, my mother came to my school and pulled me out abruptly one morning.  I didn’t know the reason at first, but it turned out that Martin Luther King had been killed.  The response of some Black students was to attach Whites.  In fact, in the hours after I left, a number of students were thrown from the second floor classrooms.  (The school was only two-stories high, or it could have been worse).  In Berkeley, there were no consequences for these actions.  How would you have felt being the student or parent of the student that was thrown out of window?  While it may be wrong to have bad kids miss school, it’s very likely that a terrified kid will start to try to miss school too, or if forced to go, turn in a poorer performance because of their fear.

In 9^th grade, a group of Black Panthers were terrorizing teachers and pulling kids out for ‘instruction.’  This empowered a few students to harass White kids.  One day, when we were taken on a tour of the school auditorium, the teacher took us up to the rafters to look at how the lights were set up.  A girl tried to push me off the catwalk; if successful, I most likely would have died. Girls finally got permission to use a gas station bathroom across from the school after a friend of mine was beaten so badly in the Girls that she ended up in a coma.  Threats, shake-downs and violence were common around the school.  Note:  This wasn’t every Black child, or even most.  And there were a few nasty White boys.  But Berkeley schools refused to do anything until my father went to the police and swore out a complaint. Still, the school didn’t feel safer and I didn’t learn much.  Fortunately, we moved to a safer community for my next school year.  None of these problems are new.  But the solutions make no sense.

Parents Aren’t Helping

When I was a student, the worst thing you could hear from a teacher or principal was that they were going to call your parents about your behavior.  Back then, nothing that happened in school was as bad as what your folks would do, even in the Catholic schools where nuns had impunity to swat your behind.

Now, when a report is made of bad behavior, the parents take it out on school employees. “My snowflake wouldn’t have done that.”  There are no consequences at school or at home.  This problem is part of why the bill seems necessary.  How do you ensure that bad behavior isn’t tolerated and that ALL children have a safe and secure place to learn?

Better Approaches

I agree with Skinner that taking kids out of school isn’t the best approach.  They too need to learn.  In El Cerrito, we had an alternative school with rigid discipline.  Repeat offenders didn’t get suspended from regular schools; they were transferred to Gompers where real consequences followed bad behavior.  It’s probable that when you group a bunch of miscreants together, you don’t end up with as much learning as in regular school, but at least the good kids could just focus on their education.

As that approach is unlikely, instead, ensure that each school has at least one room where troublemakers can spend some time doing a school project that advances their learning while not rewarding their behavior. Office staff in the school could supervise them.  A perfect time is when a more appealing activity is the alternative.  Teens who like sports will spend their PE period or after school workouts/games doing a school project.  They can be kept from field trips or other desirable events.  There should also be apologies to the people they’ve victimized and clear consequences when kids repeat their bad behavior.

To make this work, you have to involve the parents.  They have the real power to give acceptable punishments, such as loss of phones or tablets, limiting TV viewing, grounding, etc. Arizona has given parents true school choice, and, if adopted elsewhere, could lead to consequences for children who don’t stop acting out. Parents might find that their child was expelled by their first-choice school, forcing them to find another place to go. When parents have choice, they will always start with a favored school.  A child who repeats bad behaviors and who has to apply to another school will realize that their behavior has limited their options.   They also may benefit from some form of counseling.  Teachers don’t always know the living situation the child is experiencing.

We cannot tolerate this kind of childhood terrorism in classrooms.  A big issue in school that the news talks about is bullying, but harassing teachers or physically harming students isn’t acceptable either. We need to ensue that every child feels safe in class and has an opportunity to learn.  If it means that some bad kids eventually are forced out, even after having been given another chance, then so be it.  The majority (the well-behaved kids) deserve to be protected.