The (Mis)adventures of Yo-yo Boy

One of the things the Petty Bureaucrats Who Think They Know All don't get about teaching-- among many, many, many, MANY things!-- is the emotional care and guidance teachers expend upon their students. This part of the student-teacher relationship has very little to do (in an obvious way) about test scores and yet it cannot be ignored.

One of my students is Yo-yo Boy. Yo-yo Boy's dad and mom are not in the picture, but YYB does have a cousin and her husband. YYB has some issues: he will lie absolutely to your face, he will steal anything not nailed down, he has a trillion excuses and a healthy self-pitying martyr complex for any failures on his part, he is absolutely mesmerized by the presence of female persons without having the minutest idea of how to appropriately interact with them. Worse, he is a victim of the rankest social promotion on the part of a neighboring school district that I have ever seen-- to the extent that he was (non)functionally illiterate when we first got him in our high school. Yo-yo Boy has bounced around from home to home, school to school, suspension to suspension.

It is my happy duty to teach this young fella. It is also my happy duty to impart the following wisdom, in the order in which it occurred:
1) Ms. Cornelius does NOT want to know the color of your underwear, and neither does anyone else.
2) Grabbing the derriere of a young lady you do not know does NOT enamor her of you and will indeed get you suspended.
3) The secret to passing a class is to... get this!-- do the assignments, study for tests and quizzes, and pay attention in class.
4) The preliminary secret to #3 is to bring a pencil, your assignments, and a book to class every day. Without fail.
5) Dudes do not carry purses in our neck of the woods, so having one in your possession will cause you to get jugged for stealing.
6) Do not mouth off to the people providing you with shelter or fight with their own children, or you will get thrown out of the house, even if they love you.
7) You are not a bad enough mamma- jamma to make it on the streets for even five seconds, so pay attention to #6.
8) You will get fired from your job if you do not show up on time, so yes, Ms. Cornelius counts tardies. Plus, you do not be engaging in #2 or #5 so that you then violate #8.
9) Ms. Cornelius will cross-check every single thing you tell her, so don't even bother to lie.
10) If you do not understand, ask.

Sadly, Yo-yo Boy violated #6 one too many times. I do not know if I will see him again.

Or he could turn up tomorrow.

That's just part of the teaching life in a real public school, where testing is sometimes the least measure of our worth.

Saber (uh, table)-rattling

Hey, another lesson for you young-uns: don't rattle a table too hard, or a student may whip out their phone and call the po-lice:

An eighth-grade math teacher at Atherton's Selby Lane School rattled a table to get his students' attention Tuesday afternoon, police said.

He succeeded on that score.

But the demonstration landed him on paid administrative leave.

Officers went to the campus at 2:26 p.m. to check on reports of a teacher causing a disturbance in a classroom and possibly throwing objects, said Sgt. Tim Lynch of the Atherton Police Department. When officers arrived, however, they found a calm teacher with class in session and determined nothing had been thrown.

Lynch said it appears the teacher's table-rattling act startled a female student who left the class and called police from a cell phone.

"My impression by talking to her was that she was disturbed by what the teacher was doing," Lynch said.

Most of the students in the class weren't bothered by the teacher's actions, Lynch said. Though the teacher "dramatically" made his point, "it wasn't a teacher out of control," he added.

Redwood City School District Deputy Superintendent John Baker said the teacher will remain on leave pending an investigation. He said he didn't know what specifically happened and would interview the teacher, the student and her parents in the coming days, as well as other students.

No complaints have been lodged against the teacher in the past, Baker said.

The district put the teacher on leave because of the police response and the nature of the complaint, he said.

And exactly why is it that the teacher receives the consequence? Although it IS paid leave. If that means he doesn't have to write lesson plans, I guess it wouldn't actually be a punishment....

Making us all look like schlemiels

I am sure that every teacher who reads this or other education blogs works in place that has rules. They may be called "expectations," or "behavior markers," or even dopier things like "the Panther Path" or the "Warrior Way" or the "Cardinal Code," but whatever you call 'em, there they are.

Until they're not.

We have a bunch of these behavioral prohibitions ourselves. Some are mandated by state law: no smoking on campus, no gambling, no fencing of stolen merchandise, no assault-- you get the picture. Then there's more minor rules: no use of cell phones or mp3 players, except during lunch. Wear your IDs. Follow the directions of adults on staff. No obscene language.

Now the enforcement of these prohibitions can be spotty. But here's what gets in my craw: During announcements, it was proclaimed that students were not allowed to leave campus once they were on campus-- not even to dash across the street to smoke. This policy was henceforth going to be rigorously enforced! Consequences would be meted out with justice for all!

It lasted one day.

The next morning they had moved behind some bushes, so that at least our incompetence was not paraded in front of the entire world. The day after that they were back where they had started. The next day, they were openly standing in front of the main entrance. There they were puffing on their "gaspers" and creating clouds of smoke that could patch the hole in the ozone layer. Our Dear Leader not only shrugged it off, but snapped at those who dared bring it up.

So here's the deal: Listen, toots. I don't care what the rule is, if you are not going to enforce it, then at least don't draw attention to the fact that you cannot handle all aspects of your job. Worse still, I especially hate it when YOU make a big deal about something and then promptly back off.

It makes us look like schmucks. It erodes any sense of authority. It makes it clear that the inmates are running the asylum. It also encourages kids to keep pushing until they finally find out what the boundaries are, if indeed there are any. Now your excuse is that there are bigger problems going on around school. That is true. But, there's this thing called the "broken windows" theory. I'm too annoyed to go into it fully, plus my martini is getting warm, but basically it's this: when you stop enforcing smaller rules, the community begins a death spiral toward major lawlessness.

Your momentary twinge of enforcement merely draws attention to the fact that not much is enforced around here. So you want to know what would make teachers morale improve?

How about this: Pick one rule, no matter how tiny. Something that would actually make a difference around this place.

And then enforce it. Firmly, subtly, consistently.

I dare you.

Student confidentiality versus a teacher's right to know

It's the time of year when students begin to face the reality of finishing up for the semester and positioning themselves for a strong finish. At least most of them. There are a few kids, however, that just, um, how to say it? go PLUMB CRAZY and do really stupid things.

So there have been a few instances when teachers have been stonewalled when a student of theirs has been disciplined. Frankly, refusal by administrators to inform teachers regarding student discipline is not only unprofessional and wrong, it is against the law. Federal law.

There is a federal law known as FERPA, which stands for Family Educational Records and Privacy Act. It defines and limits the kind of information that school districts can reveal, and to whom. Our administrators are pretending or are deluded into believing that FERPA enables them to hide information regarding students from teachers.

Apparently, the ability to read something all the way through is not merely lacking among our students, because the law also CLEARLY states that educational professionals can be informed of what is in students' records even without parental permission. This is called the "need-to-know" exception. Basically, FERPA is very clear that teachers who are responsible for direct instruction of a student have the right to know about the educational records of that student, and this includes discipline.

Beyond that, however, this bizarre claim of counterproductive confidentiality also blatantly violates state law where I work.

This is the matter of reason: how can we work with students if we do not know if they are prone to certain behaviors, or, unfortunately, even violent? We spend more time with students by a factor of hundreds each school year than do administrators. This is also a matter of worker safety, frankly. Finally, there can be no communication and cooperation between administration and teachers if we do not know what is going on in students' lives. This harms the productive functioning of the school.

After one recent (unknown) incident, we were called into an impromptu faculty meeting to be told that something bad was going on and to ask to keep an ear out for rumors or information that could help in the administrators' investigation. One brave soul actually asked "Look out for what?" The repeated response? "I can't tell you due to confidentiality, but let me know if you see or hear anything about this incident." Once again-- what incident?

That was helpful. And an idiotic -and insulting!- waste of my time. The very clear implication is that we are not to be trusted with information that would make us more productive. What do they think we are going to do-- go around and gossip? And here's the stupid thing: this ridiculous and illegal denial just stirs the rumor mill even harder. Dolts.

I mean seriously, this is high school. If we reported every rumor we heard kids spreading, we would be doing nothing but reporting all day long. How long has it been since these people were in a classroom? Never mind, I know the answer.


The school district will get away with this kind of denigration of teachers' rights as long as we LET them get away with it.

You know, teaching is sometimes a dirty business....

I've been reviewing the Nixon administration with my regular history students, and so I shall borrow his patois to tell my tale-- without, hopefully, the sense of overarching paranoia mixed with hubris that only Tricky Dick could manage to maintain within one personality without getting psychological whiplash. The words of that great sage of never giving up are boldfaced for you, for those that want to play along as I tell my tale.

Ms. Cornelius has been dealing with a few issues, my fellow Americans, that not even my little dog Checkers could wag away. My favorite uncle passed away, as did my godmother. The advanced placement test is upon us, and time weighs heavily against AP teachers everywhere as an enemy every bit as wily and inscrutible as Chairman Mao, and yet meet it we must. But as I remind my students, *a man is not finished when he is defeated, a man is finished when he quits.* So I want you to know that I have not given up, but I have just been fighting the good fight, and I apologize for my recent silence. Here is my tale:

Ms. Cornelius did get to have the pleasure of writing my second referral of the year today, when a colleague who does not have exactly the classroom management skills one would wish for asked me to help remove a student from her presence. Now, *the greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker,* so in I stepped into the abyss. Small wonder that this nattering nabob of negativism refused to come with Ms. Cornelius despite repeated, mild requests in front of a roomful of other students. *We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another - until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.* I usually am all about this plan of action: *Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.* He refused to leave until he knew what he had done from his teacher, and she told him, but he still refused to move nor did he listen to me when I told him to come with me, calmly, seven times, because, you know, *I am not a quitter.* Finally, for the first time in my long career, I was forced to call for our police officers to lend me their assistance to remove his presence from the room, as the expression on the miscreant's face became insanity tinged. *But I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.* When the nabob saw that I actually did request the presence of the coppers, he suddenly jumped up and brushed past me to the door. So the three cops and I got to walk him to the principal's office. *I believe in the battle-whether it's the battle of a campaign or the battle of this office, which is a continuing battle.* After I left him in the care of a principal, I returned to the class, and the students did wonder at my calmness in the face of blatant insubordination heightened with a little frisson of danger. "How did you keep your cool, Ms. Cornelius? He was BAAADDD!" they wondered. "*Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects.*" I replied, and they did marvel. But that's why we're here, to provide examples of how to overcome adversity in a way that doesn't get you fired or suspended. So there was a little lesson. It's what we do.

When I wrote up that referral, I made sure to use the THREE MAGIC WORDS. These three words are: INSUBORDINATION, DISRESPECT, and (threatened) INTIMIDATION. Now, we have been strongly admonished to never use the three magic words in referrals. We have been told it is not the privilege of teachers to determine when we ourselves have been the unwilling recipients of these behaviors-- that the administrator in question will decide if you have been disrespected and threatened in such a manner, even though that administrator was not there at the time. Even if that administrator spent all of two years in the classroom. But my motto when writing referrals as in writing this blog in this: *Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.* And the truth is this little miscreant has screamed in the face of more than one staff member and student in his time. Now I believe that actions speak loudly. *My concern today is not with the length of a person's hair --nor with the depth of the sag that he busts-- but with his conduct.* And his conduct is something that I can diagnose just fine, thank you. So in went the three magic words, which do tie an administrator's hands in terms of response. And that is exactly what I intended, since this principal is known for distributing mercy where it does not flourish but rather only encourages more problems. So I went ahead and used those three words, (and being me, I even circled them for effect) come what may in terms of annoyance on his part. *If an individual wants to be a leader and isn't controversial, that means he never stood for anything.*

And so, my fellow Americans, continue to fight the good fight until the end of the school year. It's your duty.

Voting with my feet

I received back one of the very, very few referrals I write a year. This was in an after school activity in which a student I do not know was belligerent, rude, disrespectful, noncompliant, and insubordinate. Grossly insubordinate. Beyond a shadow of a doubt insubordinate. I handled this exchange by calmly repeating "You need to leave now. You might as well stop making it worse for yourself," repeatedly as said miscreant hollered and complained and vituperated all over my unmoved self. While the kids that were there to be helped gaped in disbelief and couldn't understand how I stayed so calm. Ah! A chance to teach! I explained that, when somebody says things to you you don't like, you consider the source. If that person's opinion doesn't matter to you, then who cares what they say?

But the kicker?

This kid received a talking to. That's it. IF there is another incident, he MAY lose his privilege to stay after school. "May."

So, you know, here's my philosophy: Life is short. I almost died a few years back, and I realize every day is a gift. Life is too short for me to be expected to put up with this kind of crap on my own darn time. During the school day, I may have to put up with this kind of disrespect and disregard from administrators, but not now. And yes, it is the administrator who demonstrated a total lack of respect for me as a colleague and a staff member. A kid's a kid, and kids need to be directed to correct behavior. Part of "loving our kids" and "being their advocates" is teaching them proper behavior. But the consequences for this incident were quite clearly spelled out, and they were not adhered to in the least.

So I quit the after school activity.

I quit for every other teacher who is trying to do this job. Some people depend on the extra money-- and they need better support than this. The kids trying to learn deserve better than this.

I did not quit in anger-- I'm not angry at anyone. But I am resolved-- it's time to say, "No more." And mean it. I was asked to reconsider. I did. Hmmm-- yep, still certain that I don't need this. So, adios.

Heh. Tell me something I DON'T know...

This caught my eye, and teachers everywhere are rolling their eyes that this is news. However, also note the statements I have boldfaced:

Adolescents and preteens are swearing more publicly than ever — especially at school, experts say.

It's conversational swearing — in the hallways and in the classroom — that is on the rise, says Timothy Jay, one of the leading scholars on cursing in the United States.

Teens are more likely to drop casual expletives, or "fillers," than the generation before them and have more trouble adjusting their conversation to fit their audience. That means adults — especially strangers who cannot sanction the teens — hear more of the same language that the teens' friends hear, says Jay, author of "Why We Curse" and "Cursing in America."

He estimates that the average adolescent uses roughly 80 to 90 swear words a day.

"Elementary school teachers report that children are using more offensive language at school than they have in the past," says Jay, who is compiling data for a study he will complete in the fall examining preteens and swearing. "They have been breaking the rules at school more frequently in the last 10 years."

Jay, a psychology professor at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Mass., has been studying swearing trends since the 1970s.

"Our language values are shifting, and it's just different, not better or worse," he says.

At R.W. Emerson Junior High School in Davis, seventh-grader Kaley McGrew, 13, hears peers using curses as fillers when they can't think of another way to express themselves.

"Some people swear, and they don't even think about what they are doing; they just say it," she says. "It's just become casual to them, but to some people who don't swear, it can be shocking."

The Emily Post Institute's Cindy Post Senning, co-author of "Teen Manners: From Malls to Meals to Messaging and Beyond," recommends talking to adolescents about the public image they want to convey through language.

"Some people use swear words with friends and nobody is offended," says the etiquette expert. "The problem is that it becomes a habit and it can offend unintended listeners."

Post Senning suggests working on helping teens control their profanity rather than disciplining them for using it. And evidence supports her idea: In a 2006 study conducted by Jay, 94 percent of people who reported being punished for cursing continued to swear.

Cursing is a behavior learned from family members, according to Jay.

"It starts as soon as they learn how to talk," Jay says. "At a young age, they're attentive to emotions. When you're swearing to be funny or when you're angry, that just draws them right to it."

Jay said that although the Internet, television and other media may be making adolescents more comfortable with swearing, it is their parents' own language habits that are the biggest influence.

The solution, says Jay, is for parents to teach the etiquette of swearing.

"Kids should know about the power of language," Michael Leahy, a counselor at Emerson Junior High, agreed. "Parents should remind them about how important words can be and when you should use them."

Okay. First of all, how is it NOT worse for kids to regularly use the "B" word, the "C" word, the other "B" word,the "A" word, the "F" word, the "N" word, the "MF" word and the slew of other words I am too tired from hearing in the hallways today? Jeez, the fact that we are afraid to say that ANYTHING is wrong is how we got in this place to begin with. Moral relativism leads to moral vacuity.

Second of all, the second comment reminds me of the time I called home to a parent to talk about his child's constant use of profanity, and the man responded profanely with a promise to beat a certain part of his daughter's anatomy. I nearly choked from the irony of it all.

Third, it just cracks me up to think of the phrase, "the etiquette of swearing." It just sounds like a complete oxymoron, even though I understand what the point of that comment was. However, as a parent, I really want to emphasize when NOT to curse, rather than to discuss when it is permissible. I think there's quite a bit of difference between the two things.

From the "I am NOT Making This Up" Department...

We've had several visitors at our school over the past few weeks while colleges have been on break between semesters. I was standing on the sidelines at an athletic event after school one day, cheering on the team, when suddenly a young man stepped up next to me. Then he hugged me and said he wanted to thank me.

He looked vaguely familiar, but it took me a few seconds to recognize the face. It was young Barbarino, who had been one of my students in one of my honors classes the first year I was at the high school after leaving the middle school. I had also had him as a student at the middle school. Neither of these experiences had been particularly pleasant, as he had been a young man more prone to complaints than getting his work done.

From the second he set foot in my class, it was a contest of wills. He wasn't going to do the reading. He wasn't going to do the essays-- or at least, he wasn't going to do them except on the back of a cocktail napkin, written in ketchup. He complained that I didn't explain everything in the book so that he wouldn't have to read it, since reading was a waste of his time. He made weird noises. He wanted to put his head down all the time. He maintained a 57% average all the way through the semester, and then finally scraped enough together that he got a 60 percent -- a D minus. And yet, he wouldn't transfer to another class, either. For some reason, he didn't want to be rescued, but he didn't want to pull his own weight, either.

I got some insight into his problem when his mom came up for conferences. All she talked about was his older sister, who was pre-med and had gotten straight As and been drum major while volunteering at an adult day-care center, and on and on. During the entire conference, I repeatedly tried to redirect the subject back on to her son, but to no avail. So what he wanted was to act up and get my attention, since he was a ghost to his mother. She threw up her hands at trying to get him in line, and basically let me know that school problems were the problem of the school.

But now, here he was, taller, bearded-- and um, thanking me? He told me he was in graduate school now, and he appreciated me never letting him get away with avoiding his work. He laughed uproariously at the memory of me hoisting a desk over my head in the crowded classroom to put him out in the hallway when he came to the class unprepared, which happened more than once. He thanked me for making him come to my class after school to teach him how to write historical essays. He apologized for being "such an unbearable little shit." I assured him he wasn't unbearable-- and we laughed again. He said he wanted to prove to me that he had finally grown up and was no longer a "screw-up." He said what I was trying to teach him had sunk in-- just three years later than I would have liked. He left me with a pat on the back and asked if he could come see me the next time he was on break.

I said, "Gladly."

It was an amazing experience.

Cell phone follies redux: How to get out of finals?

So maybe this cell phone thing is a bigger problem than any of us realized. From the backwoods of Arkansas::

AUGUSTA, AR — Police arrived at Augusta High School just as the rumors of violence after a student’s suicide became shrill, leading parents to rush the campus to take their children home.

But police and school officials say the text-message-fueled panic over others committing suicide and weapons at the small town’s high school turned out to be only a way for students to avoid taking semester-ending exams.

“Somebody took advantage of a tragedy that happened in Augusta, a tragedy of a young man taking his life,” Superintendent Richard Blevins said. “Somebody exploited that and I guess that made me madder than anything else. Somebody was so insensitive to use that for their own gain.”

Bomb threats and disruptions have happened before at the 200-student high school in Augusta, a city in northeastern Arkansas on the banks of the White River. But police say the proliferation of cell phones among students allowed some to take advantage of the 16-year-old student’s death through small-town gossip in the electronic age.

“There’s rumor mills in this town like you just cannot believe, because everyone knows everybody. Ninety percent of people is kinfolks with somebody else,” Augusta police Capt. Jim Moore said. “You get a ripple that spreads like a wave.”

Moore retired as police chief in Augusta in 1996 after 20 years patrolling its two square miles, returning only after the current chief got called up to serve in Iraq. He remembered some threats in the past, and how the phone company once tracked down a boy calling in a bomb threat so quickly that responding officers still found him with the receiver in his hand.

Crime is slow in Augusta, though, as the department on average responds to one reportable call a day.

Then on Dec. 17, officers responding to a call found a 16-year-old student dead after he had hanged himself. Moore said counselors came down to talk to students at the high school — and that’s when the rumors started.

“They just said there was going to be a shoot ’em up,” Moore said. “They was supposed to have been a pact and all this kind of stuff — that there were going to be eight or 10 hang themselves over the holidays.”

The next day, the Woodruff County sheriff’s office got a call saying students were talking about bringing guns to school. Parents called the school district worried about the supposed plot.

Augusta police and a sheriff’s deputy were at the school Dec. 18 as students entered. Blevins said school district officials used a handheld metal detector to scan everyone entering the building and looked through bags for weapons as well.

“The only thing we found were cell phones,” Blevins said, an item banned at the school, but grudgingly accepted by teachers and staffers. But after the wand searches, the superintendent said students began text messaging each other, spreading the rumor to family members.

By 10 a.m., only 25 students remained at the 335-pupil elementary school after panicked parents descended on the campus. The Searcy Police Department called, asking if police at Augusta needed help after a report of a shooting at the school reached the larger town nearby. Ambulances were even diverted to the area.

Blevins said the school probably lost two days from the panic, initially spread by students who said they got threatening text messages.

“Of course, this never happened. It’s just more damn rumors,” Moore said. “Every kid down there has a cell phone and they just jibber-jabber, jibber-jabber.”

Augusta High School is now closed for winter break, the only noise coming from whistles and pounding of basketball practices. But on Jan. 7, the school’s first day of the new year, Blevins said staff will institute a zero-tolerance policy on cellular phones. He also plans a full investigation into who caused the panic, promising to push for expulsions.

“It’s like hollering fire in a crowded theater,” Blevins said. “We can’t have people doing that.”

But Moore believes there likely won’t be any criminal charges filled in the case.

“It’s all just a rumor,” he said.

I've seen cell phones used to attract masses of students to trouble. I've seen kids spend 300 bucks on a cell phone who tell me they can't afford to buy school supplies. It's amazing what some people will do without to be in on the latest fashion-- and technology is definitely a fashion accessory first besides being a tool. I've also been fighting the battle against the cell phone with PTD, since I believe she has no need for one and I'm pretty sure she would tempted to text-message her friends at school. My suspicion is she wants one to show off and to waste hundreds of minutes yacking instead of pursuing more worthy activities. No matter what, it would be a distraction.

So, sure, I'm just an old fossil who has turned off her text-messaging feature, but is there any way to find the originator of the text messages in the story? Think of the panic that was created by this insensitive behavior. Who was the kid who thought: "Hey, someone's kid just killed himself. How can I turn this to my advantage?"

Unconscionable.

New Zealand schools: free to hit you and me?

Think we've got it bad here? Try New Zealand, where, under the law, apparently school behavior guides cannot spell out consequences for misbehavior.

Here's the story of Dylan Keen and Slade Butler, who were attacked by fellow students and later dissatisfied with the consequences.

A bit of explanation: a "King hit" is Aussie slang for a hit without provocation.

A school is defending its handling of violent pupils after a teenager's jaw was smashed - the second time this year that one of its students has been bashed by another pupil.

Fifteen-year-old Dylan Keen's jaw was shattered when he was "king hit" by a fellow Waiuku College student. But it appears the attacker may not be expelled and could also escape criminal charges.

While the injured teen was well enough to sit exams last week, the past fortnight has seen him nursing a broken jaw, cracked in two places.

Dylan spent three days in hospital and had a titanium plate inserted in his head, said his father, Gavin Keen.

He said he expected the attacker to be expelled and if this did not happen he would consider placing his son at another school.

Dylan was walking home in a group of four when they were taunted by other boys.

After Dylan retaliated with a verbal response the attacker came up behind him and "king hit" him.

Early this year another Waiuku student was the victim of violence by a fellow student.

When Slade Butler discovered his attackers were back at school within days he led a 200-strong walkout from the school grounds.

Waiuku board chairman Geoff Mercer said he could not discuss specifics of the latest case, but confirmed a student had been suspended pending a board hearing. He doubted Waiuku College had any more of a violence and discipline problem than any other school, but "we acknowledge there is a lot we can do to improve the safety of kids".

Staff had taken measures this year to address punishment and its timeliness, he said, and the climate of the school had "substantially improved".

Dylan's attacker has been suspended from school, but he is not missing out on classes due to the examination timetable and its associated study weeks.

Mr Mercer said that, under education law, schools could no longer spell out consequences for actions. "We are not allowed to say if you do X, you're going to get Y. The courts say we have to keep an open mind."

The emphasis was on keeping students in school.

"We've got to work hard so both the offender and victim remain at school and that they both feel safe."

Sergeant Kevin Kneebone of Waiuku police said the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act was forcing police to tread carefully in how they dealt with the current alleged offender.

"Police are taking action in relation to that case, but we have to follow procedures under the act. It needs to be referred to Youth Aid ... and should be referred to a family group conference."

Police Youth Aid staff would consult CYF's Youth Justice co-ordinator, Mr Kneebone said.

The family group conference would determine whether further steps were warranted. While it was always preferable to keep youths away from the court system, this assault case was serious enough for police to take more action.

Could any Kiwis give us the background info? I will gladly include any further information in an update.

V for Visine, A for Assault

And then there's this, from Wyoming.

Police in Cheyenne say a junior high school teacher was hospitalized Monday after a student put Visine eyedrops into her drink as a prank.

Police identified the victim as 58-year-old Jo L. Miyamoto, a teacher at Johnson Junior High.

She went to the emergency room for treatment, spent the night in the hospital and was released late Tuesday.

A school receptionist said Miyamoto was back in the classroom on Thursday.

Police say that some popular movies have shown that spiking a person's drink with Visine is just a prank that can give the person diarrhea.

However, police say ingesting Visine in fact can have very serious health effects, including possibly sending the person into a coma.

Police say they intend to have the Cheyenne District Attorney's Office review the matter when their report is complete.

Okay, one? what movies are these people talking about? I know I don't get out much, but jeez....

Two-- never leave your drink unattended in your classroom. A colleague of mine recently had a kid spit in his coffeecup while he had his back turned. Luckily, the other students in the class violated the "no snitchin'" credo and immediately warned him before he got anywhere near to drinking out of it. But still-- Oh. My. God.

The Moral Eel

I took one of my kids to the aquarium when she was tiny, and she really liked all of the animals. We saw Nemo, and Bruce, and Flipper. We were disappointed that there were no Ariels, though, and that took some explaining. Later we talked about which creature had the prettiest colors, and the biggest teeth and so on. When I asked her what was one creature she had never seen before, she instantly piped up: "The Moral Eel! It was really scary!"

I really liked that answer.

I've got a student right now who reminds me of this story. He came to me on Monday and said, "Hey, Ms. C., I need my work for the next two days."

"Oh?" I replied.

"Yeah--I've been suspended. It's not fair, either! I was helping Mr. Kite unload some stuff for the benefit auction, and there was some candy, and I took a candy bar after he left the room. It was just one piece! Everyone else did it! I don't think I should be suspended for two days for a piece of candy!"

I have to confess that I wasn't very sympathetic. Does the amount taken not make it stealing? If so, what is the magic cut-off amount that makes stealing okay? Does the fact that the candy was for a fundraiser change our evaluation of the situation, or that, at the root of it all, he was stealing from his own classmates and abusing the trust of his teacher? He affirmed that a) he knew he wasn't given permission to take some candy, and b) he knew that stealing is wrong. To me, if you violate the expectations of society, you take your chances with the punishment. I also recalled that this was not the first time the young man had been less than honest.

The moral eel is slippery. It looms up on the unsuspecting and its greatest asset is its stealthiness. It twists and finds the path of least resistance. I know some would say this young man is just a reflection of the society in which we live, where people talk about values but seem never to live them. Values are, after all, so terribly inconvenient when we're trying to satiate our desire for stuff and status. Or maybe we just want something, right now, like this young man, and feel entitled to it.

School bus driver assaulted

Once I had a principal who thought it would be a great idea if I and some other teachers got our bus driver's credentials to save the school district some money on field trips. I refused to even consider the idea, since driving a multi-ton vehicle down freeways while kids shout and goof around behind is not really my cup o' tea. This report reminds me why that was a good decision:

(TULSA, Okla.) April 27 - A Tulsa school bus driver is recovering at home after being attacked by a student.

Paramedics say the driver suffered a concussion this morning outside East Central High School.

On the way to the school, the bus driver says some students were acting rowdy and he asked them to move to the front of the bus.

When they arrived, one student started arguing with the driver about what happened.

He asked the student to leave the bus, that's when she turned around and hit him in the head with a perfume bottle.

School officials say the bus has a camera on board but they're not yet sure if it was recording.

Officials say the driver from this morning should be applauded for his conduct and his professionalism during the incident.

Officers are still investigating the case, so no word on any charges.

Officials from the school say they will handle the issue according to the Tulsa Public Schools' code of student conduct.

District officials call this a "rare case."

Bus drivers are trained to avoid conflicts with students or parents, including strict rules on not fighting back.

And by the way, I'd like to thank district officials for publicizing the fact that Tulsa school bus drivers are sitting targets who must take being struck on the skull with glass objects. Great decision.

The Naked Ape

My colleague Mike over at Education in Texas, whom I pray is safe from the latest storm, mentioned a humorous essay about dress codes at educationnews.org. The author's basic point was that no one seems to be enforcing dress codes in the schools he visits.

Let me illuminate the realities of dress codes, using my high school as an example. We have one female assistant principal. The male assistant principals do not wish to deal with this issue. When students have been sent to the principal if they were either unwilling or unable to don a fig leaf to cover their nakedness, we have typically been given one of two responses: "I've seen worse," (this is an actual quote) or "I don't have time to deal with this," which may be a cover for embarrassment or fear.

I am one of three females in my department, and for various reasons, the other two don't count when it comes to this issue. I do believe that in our PC and litigious time, our mostly young male teachers are potentially asking for a heap of trouble if they confront a young female (can't use the word "lady" for someone dressed like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman) regarding cleavage and thigh exposure. I have a few basic principles to which I adhere, and one of these is a plea to only have the rules you are willing to enforce, and another is a belief in the broken windows theory. Further, if I were a Supreme Court nominee, I would babble on about the importance of precedent. Stubborn, stupid me actually therefore spends lamented minutes a week in conversation with Junior Jezebels re: basic modesty. For this I took out thousands in student loans and worked the midnight shift at the front desk of my dorm for four long years?

About once every other day, one of my male colleagues comes scurrying to me pointing out some shocking little piece of eye-candy to ask my intervention. A few days ago it was the young assistant principal who encountered an outfit so provocative he couldn't ignore it, and asked me to corral a young hottie dressed in strategically placed string. So at least he stood behind me with his arms crossed, looking like a bull mastiff with a toothache, while I did the actual dirty work:

MC: "Hon, can you c'mere for a second?"
Delilah: "Whut?"
MC: "You are unfortunately in violation of the dress code, and I need to know if you've got something else to change into."
Delilah: "GHuh? Whut's wrong with my clothes? I've got two shirts on!"
MC: "Actually, you've got two quarter shirts on, one see-through and one crocheted, and basic math says that that still equals, at best, one-half a shirt. See, when you self-consciously tug the hem of the top layer down, you expose too much cleavage. When the hem immediately snaps back up like a rubber band, we see the bottom of your unmentionables both north and south of your navel and about a foot and a half of midriff. So you need to get a real shirt on, please, so you don't put someone's eye out."
Delilah: "Man, this is WHACK! A'ight, a'ight! Geez!" AP nods his massive head toward the end of the hallway. Exeunt.

Why is this important? I think that a school is for students, not strumpets. We're not asking them to wear uniforms or habits. They can come to school in PJs and slippers. And when we ignore a rule, especially one we've made a big deal out of, we look like jackasses, or, if you prefer, the federal government.

OSS and AYP

Lisa Snell at educationweak posted an interesting review of a study stating that Florida schools "suspended more low-scoring students than high-scoring students during testing periods--even when the students committed similar school crimes."

Well, sure, I'd rather deal with a smart thug than a dumb thug any day!

Testscores Uber Alles!