A long day and a discussion about redemption...

It's been a really fuckin' long day...kids were out of control, today...teachers were already talking about kicking some kids out into more restrictive school settings...and I'm really exhausted by the whole thing...

Today was my most confrontational with students...I have one student, in particular, whose been testing all sorts of limits and I decided, today, that I was tired of the games and students playing like they didn't hear or they just don't understand how to do things like be quiet during a computerized district assessment or to follow instructions after the hundredth of time of mouthing off about nothing in particular except to prove that they don't have to do anything a teacher says...

So today, I was my most direct...

What do you need to do when I say be quiet? Be quiet...

What do you need to do when I give you an instruction? Do it...

And when kids couldn't follow those instructions, I made clear that they were not going to find their way back into my room until I am confident that they can accept that though I do everything in my power not to lord authority over kids...that if they can't accept my authority, then they won't get back into my class until they are clear about who's the boss, when push comes to shove...

And that if they can't make it in a room where they are given as much room as I give them -- which is a lot -- then they can go try to make it in other rooms, if teachers will let them in, which, in many of their cases, may not be possible...

I have three students, right now (I have a fourth in the wings, but who is laying low right now) who are all either going to get clear very soon that I am the boss and if they have a problem with that they are going to have a tough time in my class (I don't lord this over students, at all, but these three boys are all way out of control with their behavior and with their disrespect...of me and of other students)...

Actually, my more serious concern is that they figure out that they have pissed off every other teacher...two of them teachers are talking about shipping them off, somewhere, while I speak on behalf of their lame, no-responsibility-taking asses and as they perpetually take it and me and the rest of their teachers for granted...as it should be, to some degree...they are kids, after all...but they each need to wise up, quick, because I'm losing my patience with them...there is always a well from which I can perpetually draw from on patience...but that doesn't mean that we aren't going to have some confrontation, in the meantime...

As I told one kid, today...he better wise up quick...because I'm his best friend in the school, right now, and teachers often go against my advice to stick with kids...and he keeps taking my advocacy for him for granted, he's going to find himself in an after-school program, a self-contained situation, or a more restrictive school very quickly...and there's not much I'm going to be able to do for him...

I have nothing to do with those kinds of recommendations...I don't believe in them, as a general but very committed rule in my professional practice...shipping kids off means you failed...and I don't like to fail...so I keep them with me as much as possible, often as much because I know that I will stick by kids and by high expectations for them long after others will give up on them...

Why some kids are so goddamned stupid I will never know, sometimes...

But what this kid hasn't figured out, yet, is that there is only way forward...and if he can't take that way, then his world is going to be full of trouble, from me and from others, until he gets his shit together...

Today was me at my toughest and most direct...either you get straight that you're behavior's going to turn around in my room...or you may find yourself trying to make it with teachers or employers who are going to show you about a 1000th of the patience that I'm going to show for you...

But knowing what I know about the world outside of school...how often we fail to support and challenge such kids and parallel adults from changing their thinking and their behavior and what a major fuckin' pain in the ass this is for the world, at large...I just can't give up on kids very easily, knowing that I can have an important impact on them, now, that could do a lot to promote safer and more productive communities and people living in them later on...

I've been listening, a lot, to the discussions about punishment and redemption on NPR and other news channels and reading about it in other news media, lately...

And the whole time I keep thinking...

"Is anyone going to take responsibility for Martin Andersen's death?"

And when we get clearer about how all the talk about forcing behavior on people had everything to do with Martin's death...
What punishment would be appropriate for our society? How long should we hold out on redemption until we can take responsibility for our role in that 14-year-old kid's death?

My talk and my willingness to confront disrepectful behavior was all that was tough, today...and I'm completely clear that it is the only thing that has much of a chance of getting through with the kids I deal with...kids like Martin...except for the love and connection and genuine concern that undergirds that tough talk...

But it's pretty damned clear to me that the reason why the folks like Martin's boot-camp guards can't take responsibility for his death is because they are scared of the consequences...jail can keep us safe...but I'm pretty clear that jail as a form of retribution does very little to help anyone...and if you doubt that, I suggest you spend more time in the inner city where an awful lot of folks have been to jail, but very rarely do any of them report jail pricking their conscience which is what has to change if their behavior is going to change...

Most people just debate this issue too much in the abstract, with very little real reference point for how people related to jail and prison sentences and what actually changes behavior, I think...and God knows that if the inner city is not evidence that jail does not change behavior (it can be a source for pricking the conscience, but, more often than not, it just makes people defensive about taking responsibility...though jail is often necessary to protect people) then I do begin to wonder if and when people might ever reconsider whether this is the best path to social reform...

I have a feeling I'll be waiting a long time for an apology for Martin...

Because we are a society that is far better at preaching responsibility than taking it...

And that is the hard truth about us that is so hard for so many of us to face about ourselves...

So I guess it shouldn't surprise me that my students struggle with it...because so does the whole goddamned world, for goodness sakes...

So I guess I have a lot of work to do to help make that responsibility easier for everyone to take...

I'm working on it...

Love,
Ben