by Lady Liberty
05/24/2003

This past Friday evening, I was one of a group of several people gathered at a local bar for a few drinks at the end of a long work week. As we all talked about the various trials and tribulations we'd each endured on the job and our plans for the weekend, one man laughingly described a conversation he'd had with a friend earlier in the day. The man, who is a teacher at a local school, teased his buddy who teaches in a neighboring district. "How many times have the police been to your building today?" he asked. "None," the friend replied. "They've been to our building three times today," the first man responded. As those of us seated around the table gaped at him, he added matter-of-factly, "That makes nine arrests in the last two months."

The town we live in is not a large one with a rough and tumble inner city school district. The man does not teach at a juvenile detention facility, nor does he work with high-risk high school students. He does, in fact, teach at the local junior high school, where the oldest students are perhaps 14 or 15 years old. One of the most recent arrests of which he spoke involved an altercation between him and a young female student. It seems the girl didn't want to go to class when the bell rang. When the teacher told her she needed to get to class, she began to hurl obscenities at him at the top of her lungs. As he tried to quiet her, she informed him - still at high volume - that he wasn't her father and she could do as she pleased. The police removed her from the building, and she is now doing as she pleases elsewhere.

The teacher, although not overly shaken by the event, told his superiors that he was going to take the rest of the day off. He used the time to file charges against the girl with the authorities. He was given the time to do so without question because it's written into his contract that teachers can take a mental health break at any time they're physically or verbally abused or threatened by a student. He and other teachers are prohibited in that same contract, however, from taking any action of any kind to actually discipline a student.

A child who will use the kind of language this teacher reported, and who will use it in the most disrespectful manner possible to an authority figure, has obviously had little or no parental guidance or discipline through the years. With parents unwilling to discipline children, and teachers prevented from disciplining children, it shouldn't be so surprising that the police pay regular visits to a junior high school. And yet it's still a bit of a shock to realize we're not discussing tough-talking 18 year-old drop-outs, but rather 13 year-old girls who should be anxious to take advantage of extra-curricular activities, and who have crushes on cute boys and are looking forward to being old enough to date.

In Illinois, it was a group of high school girls, most of whom were supposedly the "good kids", who got in a good deal of legal trouble over what they call hazing. Police, however, are calling it assault. The senior girls were engaging in an annual event where juniors are welcomed to a powder-puff football squad with some hazing from their upperclassmen. In years past, the event was a fun rite of passage. This year, however, five girls landed in the hospital after they were among a group showered with pig intestines, covered with human excrement, knocked down, and kicked repeatedly. The event was caught on video tape, so the culprits are identifiable, and the extent to which the so-called hazing was escalated is painfully obvious.

That the hazing got out of hand is bad enough. But as school officials discuss disciplining those involved with measures ranging from ten day suspensions to expulsion, one parent in attendance at a school board meeting pleaded lenience for his daughter. He said the 18 year-old's plans to attend college next fall would be jeopardized if she was expelled, and he asked that the punishment be changed to a shorter suspension and perhaps community service. Even if school board officials don't capitulate (there's no indication at the moment that they will), this father is teaching his nearly grown daughter that inappropriate actions need not have negative consequences if only you have some reason punishment will hurt too much.

The mother of one of the victims of the hazing was there when the man spoke, and she countered by asking him if he'd be so inclined toward lenience if it was his daughter that had had human feces shoved in her mouth. Perhaps he may have been. After all, in making pleas to have excused the inexcusable, he's clearly talking through quite a mouthful of something.

The school board members are taking action based on violations of the school's hazing policy and sections of the Illinois School Code. But police may take the matter further. The high school's investigation has purportedly concluded that the girls involved broke assault and battery laws. It's likely that a conviction or a guilty plea to such a charge would look even worse on a school transcript or a résumé than would a suspension or expulsion.

School officials are clearly doing what they can, but through the years they've limited themselves to the point where today they're all but helpless to discipline a student. The incessant focus on self-esteem in the classroom may have made kids think more highly of themselves. But it's also made them think only of themselves. And parents are becoming more and more willing to demand that even the most egregious behavior by their children be ignored or excused. As a result, kids are becoming less and less responsible, and more and more dangerous to themselves and others.

At one time, the last resort of the teacher was to send an unruly student to the principal's office. It was then that a parent was frequently called, and the quaking child waited for the wrath that was mom or dad to come down on his head. But in an era where parents are told they shouldn't strike a child, or even raise a voice to a child, many kids have no fear and very little respect for authority in the home. And when teachers are taught to consider a child's feelings first rather than his performance when giving grades or offering criticism, kids have no respect for teachers, either. Is it really such a surprise, then, that so many kids have no respect for each other?

Lady Liberty
March 11, 2003