I am not a parent who blindly believes my children behave “well” all the time.  They can’t.  They’re kids. They test limits, get silly, and do stupid things.  It’s part of growing up.  They’re adults-in-training, learning to behave.  Nor do I believe teachers have it easy.  I see that, especially now, they’re torn apart by struggles between what they feel they should be teaching, what/how their school administrations feel they should be teaching, and the expectations of parents, society, taxpayers, etc.  Teachers are under pressure to do their jobs well, just as our children are under pressure to get good grades and conform to the tenets of school.  Sometimes kids behave badly.  But sometimes teachers do, too.

Case in point:  I recently heard from several 5^th graders  that the teachers and principal in their school are becoming more “strict.”  In Kidspeak, that means that stuff they were getting away with for most of the year is stuff they’re now getting in trouble for.  Examples:  talking while lined up in the hallways, whispering in class, and generally goofing off.  This is less-than-desirable behavior, for sure, but not unusual for ten and eleven year olds.  It’s behavior that warrants gentle correction.  However, the “punishment” for these minor infractions has been to threaten to take away their end-of-year graduation trip:  a cruise around Manhattan (which I think is overkill, but that’s another column).

Punishing a whole class for the infractions of a few, the same few who have been acting up since kindergarten, makes NO sense to me.    The kids I hear mentioned are the ones who have been repeatedly warned before.  Many have had their parents called in to the principal’s office on at least one occasion.  Those are the kids that need to be dealt with. [Read more...]