I had an eye-opening experience at car loop duty yesterday,
and it caused a fire to start to slowly smolder inside me. It’s a fire that’s always been there, but
that has started to ignite more than every this year. As the day and evening wore down, I found
myself fixated on this one stupid incident, and I just couldn’t hold back my
words any longer.
As I am enjoying my
morning coffee while aimlessly waving my arm like a traffic conductor to move
the parents through the car line on this beautiful morning, my ears perked up
at the sound of a very naughty word that begins with an “F.” It was clear as day, and it came from
directly behind me. Imagine my surprise
to see a group of four 8th grade girls standing less than three feet
from my spot, yet carrying on a conversation that I would be shocked to hear
out of an adult’s mouth, yet a child’s.
I immediately walked over and asked the young ladies to please watch
their language as we do not speak that way on our campus. I went back to my car line monitoring, but
kept my ears perked up. Just a few short
moments later, the same girl yelled out the same profane word once more. This time, I walked over and told the girls
they had to move to the courtyard where they were supposed to be anyways. Miss Potty Mouth proceeded to look at me and
say, “You can’t tell me where to move. I
don’t have to go anywhere if I don’t want to.
I speak that way at home, so there isn’t anything wrong with it.” Then
she looked away. After I explained
exactly how I was going to prove that I had a right to ask her to move
locations, I said, “Start walking.” Her
friend whispered to her, “Just move down a bit, she’s not going to do
anything.” Oh, these poor, naïve
children. I then began to follow
directly behind them. In fact, I followed
them all the way to the courtyard, and I remained right by their side until the
bell rang, and then I escorted them to class.
This companionship was met with some epic nasty looks, but the profanity
stopped.
This incident stayed with me all day. What a wonderful start to a Monday, right? The more I thought about it, the more irate I
became. It wasn’t the profanity that
bothered me. I teach middle school. It comes with the territory. It was the blatant, intentional, downright
disrespect that I received from these girls that really put me up on this
soapbox. I was dumbfounded that they
would speak to an adult the way they did, and that they absolutely seemed to
think that rules did not apply to them, or need to be followed. Now, I live in sixth grade world everyday,
and I am just not used to kids speaking to me that way. It doesn’t happen. Even my worst students have some shred of
respect for me.
GUYS, WE HAVE TO TAKE
THE POWER BACK…What are we teaching our children?
When I say we, I am not only talking about teachers, I am
talking about parents as well. Let’s be
real, guys. It’s not a coincidence that
these girls were disrespectful. They
speak to their parents that way, and they probably listen to their parents
speak to others that way. They learned
it somewhere. It’s acceptable
somewhere.
Now, as educators, we can’t control what goes on at home,
but we CAN control what happens on our school campuses. We need to demand that our students know the
difference between what is allowed in their personal lives, and what is allowed
here at school. Trust me, my NUMBER ONE
rule as a teacher is to get to know my students, and I will rarely resort to
bringing in administration or writing referrals. I always try to get to the root of their
behavior, and figure out WHY they are acting out.
The truth is…sometimes that doesn’t work. What do you do with the student that
REPEATEDLY will not follow directions or show you respect? What do you do with the student that will
literally verbalize to you that they “don’t care” about getting in trouble, or
that “it doesn’t matter because nothing will happen anyways?”
I have had students ASK me for a detention because they
think it’s fun. There are students in
our schools that can honestly say that they don’t WANT in school suspension,
and they’d rather have out of school suspension so they can stay home. They refuse to serve it….and we let them.
There is something
very wrong with this picture. What
message are we sending our youth?
SOMETHING HAS GOT TO
CHANGE.
It blows my mind to think that a child would have the guts
to speak to teachers the way that I hear students speak to teachers every
day. They do it because they are allowed
to. As teachers, administrators,
district and state leaders, we need to TAKE THE POWER BACK. I know it’s not just my school. I also know that our school and district
administrator’s hands are often tied. This
is happening in districts and states all over the country. We want our children to become successful,
productive members of society. We want
them to grow and thrive, and move on from us to be able to provide for their
own families someday. But how can we do
that when we are teaching them that the basic foundation of life, respect, is
something that isn’t valued?
We are not giving them the tools they need to become
college, career, and life ready by letting suspended athletes practice and play
with their teams. We are not giving them
the tools they need by issuing inconsistent consequences among staff
members. We are not giving them the
tools they need by giving them four chances to be tardy in each class before a
consequence is issued. We are not giving
them the tools they need by giving them the impression that speaking to an
adult in a disrespectful manner is acceptable.
The truth is, by letting this kind of behavior be
acceptable…we are setting them up for failure.
I can tell you right now, that if you were to look at your
boss and say, “I don’t have to do what you tell me to,” you can kiss your job
goodbye. If a college football player
were to continually get arrested or get into fights, his butt would be sitting on
the sidelines, if not suspended from the team.
We need to take the power back in our schools. We need to show our students that we care
about them, and that we want to give them our respect. But to do that, we need to demand respect
back. We need to remind them that they
are here to learn, and that is the most important thing. It’s their job. One day, they will have the power. One day, they will be the ones running our
country, but until then, they are children.
They still need to be nurtured, guided, and pushed to make the right
choices. They aren’t ready to be in
charge just yet.
Our students look to us for guidance. They look to us for love, advice,
knowledge…and discipline. They want
structure, and they want rules to follow.
It’s our job to help them struggle through their failures, and celebrate
their accomplishments.
It’s so vital that we teach the standards, and teach our
content, but perhaps it’s even more vital that we teach our students how to
become someone that not only we can be proud of, but someone that THEY can be
proud of. In my opinion, math, reading, history,
and science are not the most important things that we teach our children. Values and character education need to come
first. If we can’t get them to respect others,
and to have grit and pride and responsibility…we will never be able to get to
the other stuff. It just won’t
happen.
Somewhere along the line, someone slipped up in teaching
respect to those young ladies from the car loop yesterday. It could have been a teacher, or a parent, or
an administrator, or maybe all three.
That’s not important. What IS
important is that it’s not too late for them.
Our students DO NOT run our schools. We do.
Until we get the ball back on our side of the court, we can’t expect to
win the game.
