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
OH PLEASE! What David Turano did was nothing new! Don’t you remember the movie “Grease”???? Remember the scene where the dance was on live TV and three boys came out and Mooned the camera during the song “Blue Moon”???? Then the Principal was so angry in the next scene! She said over the school PA system “we have pictures of you so-called mooners, and we will send them too the FBI to analyze and we can figure out who you are!!!” The boys who did it were in shop class and were asking “can she do that?”
I feel that they should have just escorted David Turano off the stage and out the door of the whole graduation, diploma and all for that little childish display!!!
Find me something new under the sun, and I'll consider oppoisng that. But all the other foibles of human behavior, all the stuff that we've seen before, all the stuff that shows up in Hollywood movies --- Hey, man! I'm on board with all of it. Let's party!!
You want to completely kill a young idiot’s future to make the people who thought his prank was funny feel bad?
Yeah, you *are* grumpy! lol!
That is not it...it is the way the school responded to it! Call the police? My HS Principal (not that any of us would have dared done that) would have escorted our ass off the stage and out the door and that would have been the end of Graduation ceremony!!! What ever happened to “removing the offender”???? Get him out of there! He wanted to be the class clown! Don’t let him get credit for what he did!!!! By letting him stay at graduation he gets credit, but when they call police that only shows the schools have no power!!! Had the HS principal just walked his ass to the door and said “You are otta here buddy” that would have done more to resolve the situation.
Laughing here because a couple of years ago I had the parents of a 9th grader who would get upset if I did not call and tell every little thing that child might have done wrong that day. If it's major, yeah, I'm going to call, but I'm not going to call every parent every time I have to tell a child to be quiet and/or pay attention in class, particularly if it's only once and the child complies!
Being a first year teacher is difficult however...probably why so many people stop teaching before they have 5 years in...
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.
Isn't being pro-active great? I'm sure the principal appreciated that you were caring parents!
Of course I have to admit that by having our HS principal remove us from our own graduation would have put us to shame! I do not know if this boy know the meaning of this word! We respected our principal. I can see this boy did not or he would not have done this.
Fixed it
I am 100% behind homeschooling these types of students.
That is true of NY and the same thing in my county in VA.
We had a young man in my class last year that threatened to bring a gun to school. They pulled him out of my room right at the beginning of the first block. This was around week 9. Homeschooled the rest of the year at taxpayer expense.
worked in my case too. I came home complaining about my Social Studies teacher. My parents went in and had conference with all my teachers and the guidance counselor.
When I got home my father was sitting at the dinner table waiting for me.
The conversation started out with "Come here Boy" and went downhill from there. It ended with "I lost half a days pay to find out your a jerk, I didn't have to take off half a day to find that out. I could have told them that over the phone. better not have to go to school again for another discussion like that."
Didn't yell, didn't raise his voice, didn't spank me etc..., but there was no doubt that any or all of those was a possibility.
Side note 30 years later that same Social Studies teacher, became a trusted colleague and good friend when I was employed by the same district.
The teacher was pretty disgusted about that. I don't know if he's still teaching or not; when we talked he had recently retired from the military and had not been teaching long.
Would he have had some one else escort the rest of your body off or came back later and got it himself?
You can't please everyone, that's for sure.
Isn't being pro-active great? I'm sure the principal appreciated that you were caring parents!
Eventually, he got it. Part of his lecture to my son was that the kid should feel grateful to have parents who loved and cared about him so much.
I'm really glad we did it. A few months later my son got into really *big* trouble (off school grounds). Because the principal knew my kid and knew us, he was able to keep things in perspective and back us up until everything blew over. I really love this school.
I had my son read your post. Made him chuckle! :-)
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