As we race to the top, we fail often to look at the bottom…. What is it like in our schools, lets say in Chrisitina’s School District?
In a recent ranking of Delaware’s schools, Christiana High was ranked on the bottom, followed by Glasgow High, second from the bottom and their flagship school, Newark High, was in the bottom two thirds, at position 21 out of 30….
Why?
In this district, students are in control of the schools. Not teachers, not administrators, not the police officers ( who have now been cut out because of funding), not parents, not voters, ….. no … the people in control of our High Schools in Christiana’s school’s district, are….. the students…
Which students? The ones who intimidate…. For lack of a better word… the thugs.
The thugs control the classrooms… 16 and 17 year olds, completely dominating the classroom environment, making it impossible to teach anything, even to those willing to learn…
You can talk about bullying all you want. But until control is established in Christina’s schools system, bullying will rule simply because it’s there. Students and teachers have to protect themselves; they have no choice but to bow to the stronger force…
And… hopefully this piece will demonstrate, .. those in charge of the schools are the biggest perpetrators of the myth that “nothing is out of the ordinary’…
Excuses like” we’re doing the best we can”, ‘look at what we have to work with”, and “we don’t have the resources we need”…
Now all know… that if I walked into a classroom and the bell rang, and the class did nothing, forcing me to say everyone get in their seat, and all but one does, and I say get in your seat, and he says ok when I’m ready, and at that point I have a choice. Either I can force the issue, or teach the class around him… Teaching the class around him will be difficult simply because no one would pay attention to me, they’d all be looking at him… So I say, I’m sending you down to the principals office. He says, I don’t know where it is, and the class laughs… I say, do you know where that door is? He says no… i can’t see it.. I say you need to go, now… He says, you’re just a teacher, you can’t make me do anything… (under todays rules he is totally correct)… I say go… he says “no, fatty, I’m staying…” Again laughter.. I say then I call security up to remove you… He says go ahead… So I call security and am told that the are no longer on the premise because of budget cutbacks… This of course is over the loudspeaker so the class can hear, and laugh… Now what are you going to do… I try one last time… Leave now… No, he says make me… In fact I ought to come up there and F**k you up!… Everybody here want me to beat that fat piece of sh*t up? Lots of murmurers of approval… What do you say to that fat punk?
He’s won…
Sounds a lot like New York City of the eighties between Koch and Guiliani… Again the same excuses, the same foreboding fatality that things were just that way and couldn’t be changed…
What happened in New York needs to happen in Christiana’s High Schools.
Imagine if an imaginary HB 100 was passed by both houses and signed by the governor. Under Delaware Code, any student disrupting the education of one or more of his fellow students, can be incarcerated up to 2 years, beginning at age 13.
Lets replay that last run…
Then I’m calling security to remove you…. No, don’t do that.. I’ll sit down and be quiet.
Unless I was the first test case and it would go like this.. Ok, go ahead… Two armed guards enter the classroom two minutes later, and bark at the perpetrator to lie down on the floor, put his hands behind him. He refuses and gets a fist implanted into his jaw, popping him off balance and the other guard, propels him to the floor, and sitting on him, locks him up with zip strips… grabbing him by the feet they drag him out of the room face down all the way to a waiting patrol car and off he goes to jail…
At his trial, when his mom speaks up, she is cited for contempt…
Power..
What would the military do in such a situation? The first thing is…. they would acknowledge they were not in control.. Second, is they would plan a campaign to retake control of that area. Third once retaken, they would establish an order so life could function as safely as possible, and normalcy could continue. They would not lie and say, we have full control when they obviously didn’t.
If you don’t know this is happening on a daily basis, then you are obviously being lied to..
Power needs to come back towards the side of good if we, the citizens of Delaware are to win back our schools. Students want to learn. Students want to be grown up. Under the current incentive school officials don’t report most acts… they actually under report class disruptions, so they’ll look better on paper…
That paper doesn’t do a damn thing for those kids who would like to learn…
5 comments
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April 12, 2011 at 11:03 am
Duffy
Is that what would happen? Maybe. More likely you’ll end up creating another generation of criminals. I’m going to guess that you’re old enough to remember reform schools. That is, not prisons like whatever the hell that one on 141 is but something for difficult kids. Separate the kids who want to learn from those who are putting in time. They used to call this tracking and now public schools aren’t allowed to do that any more.
Ever see The Wire? They have a whole story arc about kids like the ones you describe. Their method of dealing with these kids is the polar opposite of what you suggest. They act up, they don’t get kicked out. That’s what they want. They get put into something akin to a “time out”. After they learn that they’re not going to get their way things get better.
Frankly, I don’t know what the answer is. People have spent their entire lives around this one and they don’t even know.
I think it’s absurd to teach 21st century kids using a 18th century model and 18th century technology.
I think it’s absurd to think that one size fits all works for education. Yet here we are.
April 12, 2011 at 12:36 pm
kavips
There will always be criminals…
Question is: do they belong in our schools…?
Answer is: best phrased in the form of a question? What kind of students do we raise if criminals are the ones in control of the classroom?
The best answer so far put forth comes from J.K. Rowling. Put the troublemakers all together in one house, and all the good ones in another, all the artsy one in a third, and the leftovers in a fourth…
Then have them compete for points and the House cup….
April 17, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Duffy
I agree they should be segregated but children being beaten by strangers under the aegis of the law is a really really bad idea. Putting problematic kids together? Sure. I’m all in favor of tracking the smart ones, dumb ones, ones going to vocational school, ones going to be the next Hawking or Michael Jordan. We refuse to face facts. Some kids are problems and rather than accepting it and telling the parents that yes, THEIR KID is the problem and dealing with it, they just promote him along and push the problem forward.
April 18, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Hube
Actually, Duff, schools still track in DE. It’s not a PC thing to do, but it exists.
April 19, 2011 at 6:28 am
pandoradl
High school is mostly about tracking and it takes the form of which classes your child is in. If your child is on the Honors/AP course track the only classes they’ll share with everyone else are gym, driver’s ed, and electives (art, music, etc.).
There are also schools within schools. My daughter attends the talented and gifted school, and is academically separated. Next year she’ll be in the IB high school program – which is another example of a school within a school.