I’m always annoyed in these situations by the assumption that we must take sides, as opposed to considering the behavior of each participant on its own terms.
I personally don’t care how the girl acted or whether she’s a “juvenile delinquent.” A law enforcement officer who doesn’t have the skill set to deal with a smart-mouthed/disrespectful/trouble-maker (pick your word) teenager without losing his cool and resorting to physical violence should find a different line of work. JMO.
@Hunt you make a great point. No situation is black and white. We only see what was actually videotaped. What about all the class time wasted by this student’s refusal to obey the teacher? Several rational attempts seem to have been made to talk and reason with the student to comply before escalating to the resource officer.
The education system in America is weighed down by a combination of funding issues, political correctness, physical safety issues, and red tape regulations that hinder a teacher’s ability to teach the students who actually do want to learn.
We are not going to solve the country’s educational system problems with any one simple solution. I am glad to have the freedom to choose alternatives to the public education system, but am saddened that so many kids are trapped in it with no practical/financial means to escape.
Do we keep on pretending we can educate every kid, or do we let those who aren’t interested in learning slip through the cracks? How do we keep good teachers coming into the system if we don’t give them the authority to remove disruptive kids from their classrooms?
This incident could be the opportunity to shine a light on some of the big picture troubles in our government education system. Will anything change, or will we just dump on this one officer and go on about our business and pretend we are doing enough for the kids trapped in the system?
Unfortunately, the system was broken before this officer stepped into that classroom, and the system will remain broken long after he has been forgotten by social media. But those kids, who is going to care about them having any hope of a brighter future?
This girl is a recent orphan, a recent foster child and in a new school, as I understand it. We don’t know that she’s long been a problem student, that she isn’t interested in learning, or that she WANTS to slip through the cracks. She’s a KID, a troubled, orphaned, displaced kid. Gosh, wouldn’t anyone be troubled at such a sudden change in her life?
I’ve BEEN around foster kids, homeless kids and kinds from troubled homes. The ones who are successful at moving beyond their circumstances are the ones who have support and caring from the people around them, not the ones who are arrested and beaten when they’re really crying out for help. If you’ve heard of Antwone Fisher-he is a great example of someone who made it out of a rotten life due to the caring of others.
Saying all this girl needed to do is just…behave, or that people would just give up on her because she doesn’t care about learning, and that the system is broken in her case-that’s so short-sighted. There’s no indication she should be abandoned. Quite the opposite.
The student has been living in foster care but early reports have been amended to state that she is not an orphan.
Re:#51 - @JustOneDad: How many inner-city teenagers of your acquaintance can afford to retain personal attorneys?
“Several rational attempts seem to have been made to talk and reason with the student to comply before escalating to the resource officer.”
Wait, did you see the same video footage that I did? Other than her generally obnoxious teenage rebelliousness, in no way did SHE escalate the situation. Apparently the deputy’s boss felt the same way; otherwise he wouldn’t have fired muscle-head Deputy Barney Fife.
I am not trying to say that this one student “broke” the educational system in America. It has been broken for a long time. In general, there are students in government schools who want to be there and want to learn, and there are also students who are just going through the motions of attending school because they are required by law to be there.
Yes, sometimes good teachers can engage those “lost kids” with interesting or alternative teaching methods and draw them into the circle of students who actually want to learn. But sometimes those lost kids disrupt the entire classroom and prevent anyone from learning anything.
So what do we do? Give up on the marginal kids, the ones with a tough home life, the ones who might come to school just to get the free lunch? I don’t have any answers, and I don’ t think kicking out all the disruptive kids is the answer. I am just acknowledging that the government is trying to do more than it can handle. Pretending that it can service so many different levels of kids…from the learning disabled to the gifted and talented, to the ones who don’t want to be there, and the ones who might shine if given the right bit of encouragement…it’s a lot to ask of teachers and administrators.
There are some schools and some entire districts getting good results from what they do. The entire system isn’t “broken”. There are people all over the country working to help all kids, especially kids that are often failed by a number of people before they set foot in the classroom. The people at D’s school are working to expand the type of program is has to other schools by partnering with them and by offering summer workshops to outside teachers and administrators. And they are always looking to improve. THAT is what we do. We take what works and expand it, not try new shiny programs every time something new comes along. We offer different programs that work within the same district so that kids who learn in different ways can LEARN, and not just fill their seats until they escape.
It’s not a big, monolithic government here, it has to happen at the individual school and district level. Parents across the board can’t just go after what’s good for their kid alone. They need to support successful programs that help other kids with other needs.
My son’s one of those “trapped” in the public education system… sure there are issues, disruptions, wasted time. They deal with it and move on. He sees the kids who don’t have a clue, who don’t come to class, who stay in school by cheating. He’s always going to see that, even when he’s out and working. I’ll say this though, if that incident had happened at his high school, that officer would have had to arrest the WHOLE class because they would all have been up in arms, including the teacher.
Yeah screenname, we’re “trapped” too. In our school, the police would not have been called. Similar situations have actually happened there, worse, even. But in our school, the staff has apparently had training in what to do and how to do it and the situations have been defused. Students DO get consequences-they’re not allowed to do whatever they want-but with understanding and staff working WITH the students, not treating them like loser criminals. Families are consulted and treated with respect as well, sometimes when they don’t act as though they care. And the students mostly respond.
“Government schools” is really an in-artful and misleading term. Public schools are independently administered LOCALLY, typically by people who actually vote for members of School Boards. Public schools are not operated to benefit the government; they exist to educate children to prepare them for individual success and to maintain and enhance their respective communities and the national as a whole.
“Government schools” is really an in-artful and misleading term. Public schools are independently administered LOCALLY, typically by people who actually vote for members of School Boards. Public schools are not operated to benefit the government; they exist to educate children to prepare them to individual success and to maintain and enhance their respective communities and the national as a whole.
Texting in class - no matter how obnoxious the teen - is not a police matter. It’s a school discipline matter. I hope we can agree on that. Therefore, calling the security officer was a mistake. That mistake was compounded by the officer frankly acting like a police state toward a dissenter. (Made me think of images of Chile, for some reason.) The images are astounding.
Back when I worked in a certain school, such situations were very common - both the teenager’s behavior and texting. The policy was: first offense, the phone is removed, shut off, kept at the principal’s for the day until a parent comes to pick it up. Second offense, same thing but the phone is kept three days. This was a really big deal for the students. If the student protests, not only is the phone kept three days but the student is suspended from 1 day inhouse to three days written on the official record (in case for example, of insults and physical action.) Some teenagers are so attached to their phone that they growled and every year there were incidents of kids trying to assault the teacher (and stopping in time but…)
For disruptive students, the basic action was to “hold the handle” for 5, 10, or 15 mn. (They’re in the corridor but holding the door’s handle - this was because disruptive students, otherwise, ran to the stairs and spit on the steps and/or the ramp, kicked doors, wrote on the corridor’s walls…) If they refused to, a student delegate (elected at the beginning of the year) walked them to the principal’s office. If they refused to go with the student delegate, the student delegate went to the principal’s office alone and someone came to the classroom, but as far as I know it never happened because the immediate penalty was something like kicked out of school.
NEVER did anyone call the police.
I understand that having police at some schools is a necessity, but then they should be trained very rigorously so that they understand they’re NOT dealing with juvenile delinquents, they’re NOT dealing with adults, and any action should be taken to prevent the teen from harming self or others but never should they be harmed unless the officer is in clear, immediate danger (such as a firearm being drawn and pointed at someone with the intention of using it.)