Posted on 07/07/2008 5:32:12 AM PDT by Amelia
HOW far should a school go in disciplining an unruly student? And what responsibility do parents bear for that youngster’s behavior?
These are issues that American educators and parents perpetually wrestle with, and they have been debated around Westchester recently because of two incidents that have received attention not just in coffee shop chitchat but also in the news media.
In early June, a trustee of Ardsley’s school board resigned after other middle school parents expressed outrage at her 14-year-old son’s behavior. They accused him of bullying children and repeatedly threatening violence, including a massacre and bombing, and blamed the school for not stepping in sooner and more firmly. School officials, the parents contended, had been too tolerant of the boy’s belligerence because of his mother’s board position.
In the other incident, David Turano, 18, a senior at Briarcliff High School, hiked up his gown and flashed his naked backside to a graduation audience in late June. Embarrassed officials called the police, who charged the boy with exposing himself.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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The Savannah articles probably best illustrate the range and types of behaviors seen in public (and probably most other) schools...
I think we have a trashy culture with almost no standards of behavior. Frankly, as mild a this guy's behavior may seem, I think he should be seriously punished. I see it as a two step process:
1) Interrupt the little darling's education with a couple years in prison, and a 5-year probabtion and listing on a sex offender registry. Encourage him to travel to schools and tell kids how he messed up his life.
2) Collect news clippings of other "Jackass Awards" and send them to schools across the country for prominent display. Let kids know that the "really funny prank" they're planning to pull on Tuesday has already been tried -- and the kid in Ohio went to jail for it. Also tried in Wyoming: jail. Also in Maine: jail. Maybe that "really funny prank" isn't so funny.
We won't reclaim a civilized society unless we take steps.
To Sir, With Love comes to mind
If you look at the stats,
you’ll see the schools that CAN kick out kids have a much lower incidence of this behavior, even though they don’t have to have that high of an expulsion rate. Just the ability to kick out the unruly brings many parents in line, because THEY will have to deal with them instead of turning them over to the “free” babysitter.
Perhaps a model for the exulted public/government school system?
Count me in favor of the Board of Education being applied to Seat of Knowledge.
Step back and look at the big picture, and you’ll see how the leftist support for various issues fits in.
Destroy the family
Destroy the culture
Destroy America
Replace it with Utopia under the control of the elite leftists.
That's true...notice that many of the parents don't want those steps taken, at least with their little darlings...
Yes, I think so...did you look at the other articles I linked?
I know that in Georgia, if a student is expelled, it's up to the parents to provide an education at their own expense. I've been told that in New York, if a student is expelled, the state or district must provide tutors to educate the student at home, which is quite expensive.
my one room country school teacher
beat me with a broom stick and baseball bat,
and she often came up from behind as i was sitting
and shook me by the shoulders.
i was surprised when i got to college and read feminist books
that women are not violent.
I examine almost everything through the lens of “Sowell” economics.
The Georgia system sounds like it is also following that paradigm in that the people responsible for the problem experience the costs of their behaviors and choices. This causes incentives for the parents to make sure that their child doesn’t misbehave to the point that the school kicks him out.
Which is exactly why gov't won't let this happen. The State wants the masses from cradle-to-grave, to harvest their votes and their labor.
LOL! When I was growing up, my parents had a wooden paddle hanging on a nail that said “Board of Education”. One swat with that was all it took.
Sorry, Mikey, but I disagree. This young adult exposed himself in front of a crowd of people, including kids. We'd toss a guy in jail for doing that to two adult women walking together down the street. "Mr. Turano" deserves no less.
Discipline in school was a problem when my son was very young. The school would call for *everything* he did wrong. The kid was six years old and we were getting calls if he poked another child during nap time or went “moo!” while the teacher was reading a book about a farmer.
Kids that young need immediate feedback. Waiting four hours to get home for correction is too long. I felt that it was the *teacher’s* job to handle at least *some* of the small stuff. Wasn’t she an authority figure as well? As it was, every day when he came home from school we had to start our evening with a bawling-out or a spanking. I really didn’t know what else she wanted us to do. (She was very young. 23 years old, first year teacher with no kids. I don’t think she knew how to handle them at all.)
Just another reason I homeschooled for 7 years.
Now he’s in junior high and doing very well. We did have a problem with him horsing around a bit too much and getting repeated lunch detentions. My husband and I marched down there and spoke with the principal. The principal was a bit puzzled because nothing our son did was “really bad” and we told him that *that* was precisely the reason we were there. We didn’t want to let it get to the point where it was really bad.
So the principal called the boy in and the three of us took ten minutes to put the Fear of G-d into him.
Horseplay stopped. Being tardy to class stopped. Forgetting classroom materials stopped. Forgetting homework stopped. Clowning around stopped. Wrestling in the halls stopped. Heck, he even became more loving and helpful at home... for awhile! lol!
Imagine that. Just showing the kid that we cared enough to take time to go to his school was enough to straighten him out. I’m sure we’ll have to do it again before he graduates.
Adults cannot blow things out of proportion and expect it to "sink in". We want them to *respect* authority, not despise it.
Two months in a "boot camp" situation would do more to help this young *man* to realize that he's not a little boy anymore than prison and a life-time black mark as a sex offender.
My position is that the individual should be made an example of, and that many others should be made an example of. And all across the country, young people should see what happens to jokesters and those young people should start shaking in their boots and resolve that they will not follow in such footsteps.
I'm not interested in helping David Turano. I'm interested in helping about 20 million other kids.
Bingo! The sad thing is, many people don't care, as long as they can do whatever it is THEY want to do.
susie
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