Posted on 03/03/2003 9:52:14 AM PST by freepatriot32
Today, public schools across North America are often faced with rebellious, unruly students. This phenomenon reflects a mismanagement of the school's code of discipline. There is no standard interpretation of discipline within our public education system. Many schools see discipline as something harsh, punitive and old-fashioned. They want school to be a friendly place that is fun and exciting for the students, without rules to stifle individuality. Paradoxically, school can be fun and exciting for students only when they are learning something worthwhile, and when they feel confident because they know their place and are familiar with the rules of acceptable behaviour.
Students that don't conform to acceptable rules of conduct or fall behind in learning drift off track and lose their sense of belonging. If these problems aren't resolved before they become chronic, such students become totally disgruntled with school and will wind up as rebels without a cause. They become the troublemakers, the bullies, the delinquent drug and alcohol abusers, and the sexually promiscuous misfits, dropping out of school without ever having learned anything of value. Most of these failures could be prevented through commonsense discipline and a little more homework and extra help at school.
Many schools today fail to exercise their responsibility of teaching academic subjects and enforcing reasonable standards of moral values or social rules of conduct. Students who fall behind in learning are simply relegated to a remediation class. Frequently, signs of bad behaviour or learning problems aren't picked up or reacted to until the student has seriously fallen behind or his behaviour has become troublesome. The solution in such cases for most schools today is always the same: classify the student as a special-needs case and send him to the school psychologist for assessment and a prescription of Ritalin.
Many students resent having to comply with the contradictory, politically-correct attitudes that prevail in schools today and rebel because it insults their intelligence, and they see little sense in much of what is taught in class. A downward spiral follows, and school for such students becomes an adversarial institution to be challenged at every opportunity. When discipline gets totally out of hand and bedlam reigns supreme, schools resort to the pointless, negative remedies of suspension, expulsion, and in extreme cases, where a criminal act has been committed, reform school. And when everything else fails, they move from the "sublime to the ridiculous" by invoking a reign of terror through "ZERO TOLERANCE," where nothing is allowed and all is forbidden--punishing all for the transgressions of the few.
As it is, schools today have more rules to enforce political correctness than they have for moral ethics and acceptable social conduct--which goes mostly unenforced. Consequently, students can get away with churlish disrespectful behaviour even though they are restricted with an overload of petty rules that are meaningless and totally contrary to natural human feelings and behaviour.
Initiating a "zero-tolerance" policy is a preposterous decision prompted by vengeful bitterness that blinds all rational thinking. It is a sure sign of incompetent leadership. Schools wind up trying to enforce a policy of zero-tolerance against intolerance, bullying, violence, racial slurs, teasing, homophobia, etc., but not against disrespectful or immoral conduct.
It's an established fact that the more laws one makes the more will have to be enforce and, even more importantly, the more will be broken. And to create laws that are unenforceable is the zenith of absurdity. More laws or rules creates more law breakers, which, in turn, leads to more laws and so we have a self-perpetuating phenomenon that leads to an oppressed society of law breaking citizens, soon to be designated as a society of criminals.
There is no better way to promote disdain, loathing and disrespect for school authority among the students than by enforcing stupid, petty rules. There is no better way to promote rebellion and to polarizing our schools into adversarial camps of "them and us" than by trying to enforce unenforceable rules. The zero-tolerance policy only serves to alienate our youth from authority- from teachers, principals, even parents and, in the end, society in general.
The moral tribulations in our schools today stem from faulty teaching and lack of leadership. To tell high school students (especially those who have never learned to read, write and do math properly) that they will have to become learners for life is like handing them a prison sentence. The key to all the behavioural problems that infest our schools today and beset our students stem from not teaching students the basics to begin with: discipline, the 3Rs, and the reward of hard work.
Today's students are not lacking in ability or will; our schools only have to point the way. Good schools are run by leaders not dictators. Students need more responsibilities, not more unenforceable rules that are antagonistic, demeaning , and without real purpose. Strict discipline, obeying the rules, good manners and deportment, as well as respect for elders may or may not start in the home, but it must be introduced and enforced starting in the first year of school.
Well now i think this is necessary how else is a child suppose to sit still long enough to hear the dare police officer come into school to tell them how bad drugs are and how they should just say no
Expect "zero-tolerance" to grow in popularity among school districts.
It was like this when I was in school 15 years ago. I suspect that it was like this 50 years ago, as well. In case no one noticed, teenagers don't like to be told what to do. What's changed is the permissiveness of society and methods of teaching. Speaking solely for myself, I didn't want to get in trouble in school because no matter the punishment, it would be three times as bad when I got home.
My Mother-in-Law taught 7th grade from the 60's until last year. She said that the thing that scared her the most was the whole push for 'self esteem'. Said that the system was producing kids that were complete idiots and felt really good about it. Furthermore, she said that she was worried about what kind of predators we were going to turn out - kids (especially girls) were far more violent than in past decades and felt perfectly fine about it.
Note, alot of inner city schools, and schools in predominatley minority districts, refuse to use zero-tolerance,(preferring case by case determinations) and school unions are very mixed between the leadership and the rank and file on the issue.
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