Obstruction To Justice

Obstruction To Justice, originally uploaded by Runs With Scissors.

    The other day I was on my way to the fourth floor when I came upon a group of people gathered in the hallway, blocking my passage. They were three school security officers, including the supervisor, one of the my school's Deans, and a girl, probably a ninth grader. I didn't recognize her. I could tell from their posture that they had surrounded the girl, and she was extremely tense. Otherwise I didn't know what was going on. The girl said, "I don't know who the fuck he is! Who is he? Who are you! Who the fuck are you?"
        The supervisor, in a uniform bluer than the others, said, "You need to calm down or you are going out of here in cuffs. You understand?"
        "Get the fuck outta here, I'm not going anywhere!" She tried ot push past them, but was pushed back into the hallway, where she struggled briefly with the officers before being dropped to the ground and handcuffed. At that point I moved into the High School's hallway to hold back the crowds of students who had poured out of their classrooms and wanted to see what was happening.
    The girl was brought into a small room where the other kids couldn't see her. When the crowd dispersed I noticed that I had a dusty footprint from her sneaker on my pant leg. I swatted it clean and went back to my classroom. I had been looking for the principal, but she was in the little room with  the officers, the Dean, and the girl.
        The next day there was a long note, almost an entire page in ten point type, placed in everyone's box. I have to say that, although I hadn't seen anything like this arrest in this school, I've seen scores of kids younger and more violent than this girl arrested and handcuffed. If it wasn't for the note tha the principal wrote, I probably wouldn't have thought about her again.
        "I felt helpless; I couldn't do anything to save our student from being manhandled. . . When we were in the (little room) the student was emotional and continued to curse at the officer, (the Dean) and myself. What disturbed me most was when one of the agents cursed back at the student. Of course, I said something to the agent and later during the day I had a meeting with the Staff Sergeant. . . When I called the mother, she asked, "Why are you trying to help mu daughter even though she continues to disrespect you and the officers?"   
    The school where I know work has a particularly humanistic philosophy. The teachers are asked to make a personal connection with each student.  But at the same time, the school is suffering from massive absenteeism, lateness, extreme intellectual torpor in the classes. The Principal's note made me wonder how we should treat our students when they act in an absolutely inappropriate. A lot of misbehavior is tolerated in this school, by many teachers. I do my best to correct student's language and behavior, but I know that many teachers do not. For me, when I hear a student curse or speak aggressively or crudely, I can't help but say something. My skin crawls. Apparently not everyone has this reaction. But when does the personal connection get taken advantage of? When does the humanistic approach become permissive to the point of abrogation of responsibility?
        "When we were waiting for the police to arrive, I wiped the student's tears from her eyes, while she was handcuffed. I tied her shoelaces when they searched her for weapons. (They found a steak knife and a sock filled with lock cylinders. However when they searched her bag, the student told me that she had weapons in her book bag. Her explanation for carrying weapons was that she was being harasses by a 19 year old . . . her mom was aware and allowed her to have these weapons.) Although the student behaved in a disrespectful manner and tried to fight with the officers, cursed at me and (the Dean), I realized that this was just a child."
        What is a child? I know this sounds like a stupid question, but I think it's something that we assume we know the answer to, but don't. What does it mean to say that this High School student who brings a knife and a homemade blackjack to school and then curses out the school's Dean and security guards (none of whom were the 19 year old harassing her) is a "child?"  Does it mean that she is blameless for whatever decisions she makes? In that case, the school must make all the decisions for her, since her ability if suspect at best. Does it mean that she must be allowed to safely explore all behavioral possibilities?  Maybe we should return the lock-cylinder filled sock to her, and the knife. Let her explore.
        It has always been my opinion that personal safety should be the fundamental concern of the school. Before you have meeting about Understanding By Design, before you talk about rubric for bulletin boards- you must have a school that is safe. By safe I mean that students do not feel that they are threatened by each other or anyone. Safe means that when students do things, like fight, act aggressive, bring weapons to school, etc, they are punished effectively. It takes kids a long time to pick on details, like dates, names, and even longer to pick up concepts, but kids are great at figuring out structures, rules, limits, hierarchies. We owe it to them, whether we think they are "just children" or "students" or "kids" or "young adults" or "learners" to give them the environment they need to learn.

Comments

[Hamida Khuhro]

Talk about skin crawling- what a terrifying experience in a school. Why do these children have all this anger and aggression and it doesn't seem a one off thing either. How does a teacher deal with it?

[K.]

I feel this struggle daily in my own school. Maybe not as graphically as this example, but I wonder all of the time if my/ou liberal do-gooder understanding of macro factors effecting student behavior causes us to enable misbehavior which will not be tolerated by the wider world.

[H.W.C.]

Hamida, Thank you for the comment. I don't know if many teachers DO in fact deal with it, unfortunately. K, I agree, but if by my/ou you mean my or your, I agree in part. In this post was trying to demonstrate how a liberal do-gooder (not me) is tolerating behavior that is obviously not tolerated by the "wider" world, whether we're talking about parents or cops. I think that the idea of schools not being part of the "wider" world is part of the problem.