Zero Tolerance, Reconsidered

CAT Tracks Editor's Note:

Well, you can count me squarely in the middle on this 'debate', as in:

"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right..."

The clowns on the editorial board of the New York Times obviously have not tried to control/teach a class of 25 students when one or two are damned and determined daily to prevent the execution of your carefully CCSS-aligned lesson plan...

...the success of which will be measured by the spring state assessments, which will determine your future employment.

As for the jokers in Texas and Florida (Bush Country), well, they haven't led the nation in executions for, well, ever by accident.

As teachers (and former teachers) well know, it doesn't take violence to bring education to a grinding halt.

Reminds me of some of my former principals who would rage about teachers sending students to the office (and interrupting their all-important day of coffee and kvetching) because said students were "chewing gum or wouldn't bring a pencil to class.

Excuse the hell out of me, but it wasn't the chewing gum or the lack of pencil on one particular day that prompted said banishment from the classroom and the alleged denial of the misbehaving student's precious "educational opportunity. No, it was the innumerable occasions that led up the the "death sentence" of banishment. It was the final "straw that broke the camel's back" occasion that led to the trip to the office.

My classic memory of sending a sweet, innocent, eager-to-learn child to the office...

For the umpteenth day in a row, a certain student sat in the front room of my classroom, arms folded, chewing and popping gum, distracting me and the students around her. I tried to ignore such disdain and disruption, but my patience snapped when she blew a three-inch-in-diameter bubble and it popped and stuck to her lips and nose to the laughter and enjoyment of her classmates.

Even then, I exercised the patience of Job, counting to ten, quietly and politely asked the offending student to "Please put your gum into the wastebasket." Whereupon, my arms-folded, gum-chewing, gum-snapping, the bubble-blowing student looked me squarely in the eye and said in a defiant tone: "I wasn't chewing gum."

And, THAT, is when it happened...

I was forced to use physical restraint!

On me!!!

Without consciously knowing it, I had placed my hands on my desk and was rising from my seat, ready to literally climb across the desk and strangle the gum from her smart-assed mouth.

It was immediately clear to me that one of us had to go.

Since I could not leave the classroom unattended, I chose "expulsion" (from the classroom for the remainder of that period) for the student (who had violated the no-chewing-gum school rule.)

Hey, I was punished too!

I had to give up some of my "free time" (aka my preparation period) to write up the anecdotal discipline report and "visit" with the Dean of Students to defend my actions. (In the school justice system, the student always gets the first word. My banished student, when asked by the Dean why she was in the office, not surprisingly said: "Newell must have been having a bad day. He sent me out for chewing gum." (Male teachers have "bad days". Female teachers have PMS.)

For all of the student's disruption, the loss of the other students' instructional time, and my preparation time, the misbehaving student's punishment: In the words of the Dean, "I gave her a stern talking to."

Oh, well, if I remember correctly, the student never blew bubbles in my classroom again...

...and, for sure, I managed not to get fired, surviving to retire with my promised pension in June 2008, to live happily ever after...

...at least until "Daddy Quinn" takes my pension and my T-Bird away!

And in conclusion...

Hey, I'm all for positive behavioral intervention and support programs and the like, but there is a bottom line for me.

I learned my classroom discipline philosophy from Mr. (not Dr.) Spock:

"It's logical. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

Yes, students who misbehave have a right to an education. However, they make a choice to reject their opportunity (for the multitude of reasons that "the system" can try to figure out.) Plus, the school district is still responsible for seeing that students removed from the classroom receive instruction in some form or fashion. Classroom teachers don't get "a pass" either. They still have to send assignments home to the students (who may well have cursed them out while leaving the classroom.)

As for "the many"...

...the students who don't misbehave, who come to school to learn?

Well, they have rights too!