Thank you for the answer. I suppose we both have a different interpretation of the intent in the article. You say toe-may-toe and I say toe-mah-toe. Right?
Anyway, I read something differently than how you felt in the last statement of the above quote. I felt that they only tried to work with him after the huge initial debacle and it escalated when it got out of control on his end. Perhaps to come across more reasonable or to do the whole CYA thing. Speculation is all we got at the moment, just like whether or not there was a bad history with this student or it was (as someone else mentioned) due to the anonymity of a large campus. Who knows if we’ll ever know completely. 'Cause like me, I won’t ever think to follow up on it later.
And to Sierra Indigo… I agree completely on how many students would be apt to see the situation if the teacher had relented in their presence. However, what I don’t understand is why it wouldn’t have been easily rectifiable by taking the young man elsewhere to finish his call, after her first warning. Just IMHO, of course.
What? So high school trumps family ties? Eating a trayful of preprocessed minimum-standard slop (remember, this was during lunch) is more important to a child’s health and well-being (two things schools are supposed to look after) than talking to his parent who’s in a war zone on Mother’s Day? You sure have an overinflated sense of your own importance.
The best course of action would have been to get a special dispensation allowing him to talk on the phone from the school in advance, but these petty tyrants probably wouldn’t have given him one anyway. For all we know, it might have been an emergency–what if his mom had been injured? What if she was being held prisoner and her captors allowed her one phone call? Far fetched, yes, but not completely dismissable out of hand. There are many tales of the people on the 9/11 planes who called their relatives in their last minutes. How would it make you feel if you pulled the phone out of the kid’s hand while he was talking to someone on one of those flights? In my mind, it doesn’t matter that they’re trying to work it out with him now; chances are good that she may never call during school hours again. The US Army shouldn’t have to rearrange their schedule to suit the needs of high school administrators.
I still want to know why students are barred from talking on cell phones during breaks.
Not equivalent circumstances. If your 3 year old was expected to behave as an adult, then maybe we could discuss this, but otherwise. (Pulls out his tinder, for your strawman) Burning Man is coming early this year.
Ooops. Forgot to add something. For those who feel that the boy should have completely behaved different, regardless of the extenuating circumstances, what do you say if he simply never thought to clear this with TPTB first? If it never is a blip on your radar screen, whadaya do if someone else can’t even point it out to?
Give treis a cigar. They should deviate from the “the policy” in this case and make a totally creative decision that fits the circumstances. Yes, I am seriously suggesting abandoning “the Policy” in the interest of fairness; it is called judgment, a quality that has apparently been bred out of the administration of this school. What is the worst that could happen? Anarchy? Mass rebellion? Please. Try drawing outside the lines sometime, treis; it is very liberating.
Beagledave: I think any adult would have acted the way he did. He’s young, and yes, 17 year olds freak out more often than 30 year olds.
Treis: I wouldn’t punch a cop, because a cop is in the same position to abuse authority as the teacher. I’d probably do my best to fuck that cop over afterwards though. So either the cop would lack justification completely, and be acting on an assumption that I can be bullied easily, or else there’d be some circumstances even MORE extreme than talking to my Mom on my cellphone at school.
Um, just to recall, I believe I mentioned in my follow-up to the OP that I didn’t think the student should be COMPLETELY exempt from some sort of consequences based on the tirade/rant/cuss-fest/tantrum he went on in the office. My position was that the 10-day suspension was too extreme given the circumstances.
After reading all the different posts, I’m aware of the reasons both for and against the student & the administration, most of which are valid - but my OP was primarily about how the situation was handled and that the teacher & administration went overboard in how they reacted. As a matter of fact, if you reread my OP I mention that I felt the rule against cell phones was a perfectly reasonable rule.
And, for that matter, even the student doesn’t necessarily think he should be completely exempt:
"Francois admitted he was partially at fault for his behavior but said he should have been allowed to talk to his mother.
‘I was mad at the time, but I feel now maybe I should’ve went about it differently,’ he said. ‘Maybe I should’ve just waited outside to pick up the phone. But I don’t I feel I should’ve changed any of my actions. I feel I was right by not hanging up the phone.’ "
I’m still not clear on one thing. Was the offer by the school to work with Kevin made before or after the first phone call in the story? If it was before, than maybe Kevin overreacted. If the offer was made after the first phone call, then the school seems to have moved into CYA mode.
Actually I disagree with this. I think once the kids knew that he was talking with his deployed mom, they’d mostly (95%, say) be sympathetic and call it an entirely reasonable exception. Something serious is up.
Yes, he could have handled it better. But it’s the administration that screwed up here; I’m sympathetic to the kid. I’d freak out too, and I’m as mild-mannered and law-abiding as they come.
Kids lie to me all the time. Some of the lies are insultingly obvious. Some kids have a lying reflex that happens when they don’t have another idea within one second.
Personally, I think if the kid had said something like that, I would have said, “Really?” and looked at the kid’s face. If he had a serious enough expression, and especially if the other kids spoke up for him, I might have answered the phone to see who it was. If I were satisfied, I probably would have sent him somewhere with a pass and his phone.
Rules never take into account all the possible situations. You can also score major points by being reasonable.
Sucks for him then, doesn’t it? Rules are rules. Ignorance of the “law” is no excuse. Everyone (at my school) was required to sign a paper saying “I’ve read the handbook, I understand the rules.” I don’t think it says in the student handbook: “No Cellphone Use at School (unless you’re talking to your mom in Iraq).” And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say “If you don’t THINK it’s against the rules and it turns out to be, well we’ll just let that slide.”
Presumably, he knew talking on the cellphone during school was prohibited. Presumably, there was no blanket administration ruling saying, “Well, it’s ok if it’s REAL important, kids!”
If I “had” to do something that I KNEW was a rule violation at school, it’s plain common sense that you talk to the administrators FIRST to see if you can work something out, or pray you don’t get caught (and then you take the consequences like an adult if you do…not like a tantrum-throwing toddler).
Another moron in lockstep with “the Policy”. Life is just too challenging if you actually have to depend on your own judgment, instead of always hewing to the “the Policy” in unbending slavishness, without regard to the circumstances.
Sorry, I have to disagree with your first point now - high school kids are often just like younger kids, with the same “if HE can, why can’t I?” mentality when faced with someone blatantly flaunting the rules, especially if they’re rules that are strictly enforced. Some kids are reasonable, sure. When they’re informed about why he was breaking the rules, they’ll accept it and go on their merry way. But many more will not, and will respond with the sense that their personal ‘emergency’ is just as valid as his, leading to a wider spread of rulebreaking.
Again, the teacher handled this in the wrong way, by being el grabby, but I can certainly see why they would have, particularly if the student had responded in a hostile/cagey manner (which I’m not saying he did, mind, just offering that as a possible reasoning in teacher-brain).
Then I suppose it “sucks” for many of us who are merely human. I’m not defending his behavior, but I was observing that if you simply do not think of something in advance, then it is difficult to cover that specific option. I’m sure that for those who’ve tried to commit the perfect crime and spent any reasonable amount of time on it at all, they hoped to cover every possible scenario that could turn up. However, since said people often get caught, I’m assuming that they must have overlooked something. So again, if you hadn’t realized you missed it, how can you do anything with what should have been a (obvious?) consideration although it wasn’t?
Now I understand that means you deal with the consequences if you do (a la’ my example of the above mentioned criminal), but I would think that is why we have, in more extreme and serious cases, judges and juries. To decide intent and hand down rational expectations given the circumstances.
Certainly, one would think that the staff chosen by the school to actually deal with the kids should be better adapted to ascertain such thing, adjust accordingly and regardless of the technical infraction of the rules, see, as someone else said, a bigger more important picture. Again, IMHO only.
I also don’t feel that compassion should be in short supply. Especially for those who think it’s only when necessary. Then it conveniently falls under way ‘different than usual’ for those folks to then apply it. But that’s just me.
I assume since you think it’s okey dokey for a parent to do that action, that you would consider it an “expected and tolerated method” for the community.
The policy stands and should stand because the administrators are running a school with 900+ students. Exceptions can be made if the student brings the problem to the administrators beforehand. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve done it. I’ve recommended to my principal that he do it.
But when a student breaks a rule, mouths off to a teacher (and Adam Yax, I’m making that call because I’ve been in a classroom 3+ years as a teacher, and I’m familiar with how students respond, including students who have low grades and like to curse at teachers and administration), refuses to follow instructions, creates a scene in the office, and then blames everyone else around him for the trouble…NO, you don’t cut that kid any slack, and if you think this is a normal response for a teenager, then you haven’t been spending much time with any. Most teenagers at that age can respond civily, discuss the problem, follow instrucions, and make an appeal without resorting to defiance and/or disorderly conduct. I would have cut that sutdent all the slack in the world, if he’d meet me even halfway. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. He threw a tantrum that would have gotten an adult arrested in the real world.
Uh…no. And I didn’t say that. I said his mother had choices about how to communicate with him. If her schedule and deployment is such that communication by cell phone can only be done at times that are disruptive to her son - like calling at three in the morning or during a school day - then she needs to find a better way to go about it. If she’s got cellphone communication, she most likely has access to email. Failing that, there’s always letters. We got by for generations without cell phone communications for those in war zones.
When I’m in the classroom, I don’t take phone calls. If there is a situation, like that student’s, where I expect an unusual phone call and I have reason to answer it, I clear it with my administrator and tell my students what’s going on. It’s not that hard.
Yes, it is. No school, no teacher, no administrator would have an issue with a student talking to their mother in such circumstances - war or no war. In fact, they’d do anything they could to help the kid out. But then, that’s not what happened here, is it?
There was one mistake made by the teacher/administrator side here, that was the teacher grabbing the phone out of the student’s hand - and we only have the student’s word for that. All of this could have been avoided if the student had:
[ul]
[li]gone to the administration and cleared the phone call beforehand[/li][li]gone to the office when he got his mother’s phone call and told them what was going on[/li][li]gone to a teacher when he got his mother’s phone call and told him/her what was going on[/li][li]responded to the teacher’s instructions in a less snarky manner[/li][li]handed the phone over to the teacher with a request to check that it was his mom[/li][li]explained to the assistant principal what was going on and remained calm[/li][li]followed the assistant principals’ instructions and refrained from cursing at the teacher[/li][li]calmed the hell down and answer the phone when his mother called back[/li][/ul]
You cannot draw a parallel between the student’s behavior and that of an adult. The school has legal authority over the student in a way that does not exist in the adult world. The school is not his employer. The school is his parent/guardian in loco. The student does not have a legally valid choice to become defiant and disorderly towards a teacher or administrator on school grounds during the school day. The administrators have an obligation to keep the school running smoothly, so that the other 900 students can go about their school day. That means when one student creates goes 'round the bend and refuses to come back, the administration has to drop the hammer on them.
Sucks? Sure. Except for that part where if the student had behaved at all reasonably, he wouldn’t be in this situation. Now he finds out that there are consequences for his behavior. Better he learn now to control his temper and find constructive ways to deal with unhappy situations than face much harsher consequences as an adult.
And bluecanary, you are welcome to visit me in my classroom and see what an asshole I am. My students know that they are safe from bullying and taunting, that they are held to high standards, and that they have the opportunity to learn. They know that I respect them enough to hold them to the consequences they choose and will treat them as young adults unless they prove themselves incapable of behaving in that manner. There are no surprises in my classroom.
And when you come, bring a some clues regarding classroom management, school management, and teen psychology.
If you’d like your [boss, school, parents] to bend the rules for you, the impetus is on YOU to work with them beforehand so that they are aware of your special circumstances.
Most people are reasonable when you are reasonable in kind.
Yes, totally agreed. That is, if you think of it “beforehand.” If not, I suppose that all these measures that we take (ie: those judges and juries) are really for not and that in reality, we truly are screwed if we don’t know every one of the rules in every single situation for our whole lives, wherever we may be or do. Is that correct, in your estimation?
That really is sad. And sadder still, in my opinion, that this attitude is advocated by an apparently larger population than I realized.
Now I’m off to work and I’ll return later for more stimulating debate and hopefully, insight. Thanks to all who’ve answered my questions.
I’m not defending his behavior, but I was observing that if you simply do not think of something in advance, then it is difficult to cover that specific option. I’m sure that for those who’ve tried to commit the perfect crime and spent any reasonable amount of time on it at all, they hoped to cover every possible scenario that could turn up. However, since said people often get caught, I’m assuming that they must have overlooked something. So again, if you hadn’t realized you missed it, how can you do anything with what should have been a (obvious?) consideration although it wasn’t?