Creating criminals

In this weeks Victims Advocate

My friend couldn’t imagine a school administrator saying what he just heard. This leader of teachers was telling her staff not to write referrals for bad behavior in class, that to do so could
cost them both money and/or their jobs.

Sometimes a lot of referrals indicates poor classroom management; however, it usually indicates problem students. If a kid doesn’t respond to my teacher voice or look, doesn’t care if I call
his/her home, doesn’t care about school, then there is no other option but to send him/her out of class on a referral. That way I can teach and other kids can learn. But what do I do now that
money and my job are on the line? When we fail to discipline, the problems don’t miraculously go away; they get worse and create other problems, as well. This year the school system will produce potential doctors and lawyers, teachers and business men, engineers, scientists,
and accountants, but sadly it will also generate more than its fair share of criminals and undesirable citizens.

If you want evidence, just walk through the halls between classes at most schools. There is little fear of or respect for authority. I can point them out to you: the second year freshmen with six F’s and one D on their latest report cards; the junior who doesn’t bring any materials to class and tells me he can’t write with a pen, only a pencil, when I offer him a pen; the multitude of students who have massed dozens of tardies in my class with no penalty, or who seem both outraged and confused when I announce to them that we have work to do, something we do even on Fridays.

You can also see the girl who hijacks my fourth-period class every day, yelling at me, telling me no, even when I ask the most reasonable of requests, like please take your seat and quietly do your work. For the most part, day after day, I let it go; I have to pick my battles. If I fight everything, then I am considered the problem and my classroom management skills are questioned, or if I write up too many black students, it’s whispered that I might be a racist. These are attributes that, as a teacher, you don’t want to have questioned. Some students I send out on referral question my logic, tell me nothing’s going to happen to them and that Iwill be the one who gets in trouble (expletives usually accompany their words).

Sometimes they are back in a few minutes with cat-eating grins on their faces because they were just asked not to do it again. Other times they receive a minor inconvenience. (I say minor, because for something to be a consequence, it has to be meaningful.)

What I describe isn’t exclusive to my class or school, by any means; it happens all across the county and at every grade level. First graders threatening teachers, fifth graders caught having sex, middle schoolers assaulting school board employees - all nearly daily occurrences here in Duval County. A few here and there are removed, but most are sent back to their classes with no penalty, where quite often their behavior worsens. A student attacking a teacher and scratching her cornea gets a one-day suspension in at least one county school.

When we ignore bad behavior or don’t deliver a real penalty, it invariably worsens, and why wouldn’t it? Children who are not disciplined grow up to be adults who think they can do whatever they want and are easily angered when they can’t. They join gangs, commit crimes and are not who you want sitting next to you at work.

I think about my friend who was pistol-whipped last January during a robbery, or my neighbor who was recently gang raped in broad daylight on the street, or the residents of 45th and Moncrief Streets who were terrorized for more than a year by a gang of street punks. Of 13
young men arrested for these crimes, ranging from homicide to drug possession, four are still teenagers. This past summer a half dozen young men all under the age of 18 were convicted of murder; one case involved a pizza, another, three dollars. Parents of disruptive children
have the responsibility to keep these children in line, to raise them right; however, if some parents abdicate their responsibilities (and it is painfully obvious that more than a few do), then it is left
to the school or justice system to step in and do something. And our community picks up the tab - not just paying taxes, but for lost lives and property and the deterioration of society.

Chris Guerrieri, a Special Education high school teacher, says, “There are a lot of good kids here in Duval County. The vast majority, in fact, want nothing more than to come to school and learn, but there are kids schools need to look out for, because if we don’t at school, others will have took out for them in the streets.