A student blows up at a teacher, drops the F-bomb. The usual approach at Lincoln – and, safe to say, at most high schools in this country – is automatic suspension. Instead, Sporleder sits the kid down and says quietly: “Wow. Are you OK? This doesn’t sound like you. What’s going on?”
He gets even more specific: “You really looked stressed. On a scale of 1-10, where are you with your anger?” The kid was ready. Ready, man! For an anger blast to his face….”How could you do that?” “What’s wrong with you?”…and for the big boot out of school. But he was NOT ready for kindness.
The armor-plated defenses melt like ice under a blowtorch and the words pour out: “My dad’s an alcoholic. He’s promised me things my whole life and never keeps those promises.” The waterfall of words that go deep into his home life, which is no piece of breeze, end with this sentence: “I shouldn’t have blown up at the teacher.” Whoa.
Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85% (via mchotdog)
what a radical idea yo
(via fat-feminist)
* This is a good article. While this case applies to an “alternative” school, the ideas can be applied to any school. I’ve experienced first hand the absolute sexist, racist, and economic status based nature of school discipline. A student seen as a trouble maker gets 3 days suspension for saying “fuck” while a student who is good at a skill that makes the school look good gets a day in school for threatening violence on a teacher. Nobody asks what’s wrong. Well that’s not true, my school has an AMAZING School Based Youth Services group that deals with issues you wouldn’t imagine. But sometimes teachers need to be the first step in listening to their kids. It’s okay, you can be a student’s friend to an extent. Just listen!
And in the example in the article summary. When I recently did an 11 week subbing job, on the first day I told my classes that there were certain words I didn’t want to hear in my class. Those words are sexist, racist, homophobic, and ablist in nature. If a kid wants to say fuck, shit, damn, hell, crap, asshole, go for it! If I feel it’s getting appropriate and they’re saying it just to say it and not prove their point I would stop them and say, “Okay, did you really have to throw in so many f-bombs?” and more often than not THEY APOLOGIZED! The last thing I’m worried about is punishing a kid for using language they hear all day, whether it’s in school, at home, on tv, in a video game, etc. They just need to learn when certain things are appropriate and when they are not.
In that 11 week subbing job I only wrote up a referral for one student and that was because the Vice Principal escorted him to class and requested it. So I wrote the referral, and not a damn thing happened. So why did I bother?
(via rawharmonies)
