My wife is a teacher. She has been teaching for over 40 years now. When we were in Maryland, she taught at two different schools. One a rural school and one in Baltimore.
While she received extensive support from her admin while at the rural school, not so much in the Baltimore school.
Her most significant weakness, as a teacher, is not being able to command her classroom. She asked me to come and observe her at work in her classroom to give her feedback.
I was expecting to observe, I got put to work. My wife was the primary teacher, there was a secondary teacher and me in the classroom. There were 15 to 20 1st or 2nd graders.
What I observed was that the teachers would ask the children to do things. They would inform them that it was time to do something. They never gave an order. They never told the children what to do.
Not knowing any better, at one point I just said, “Sit Down.” 15 Second later, they were sitting where they were supposed to, attentive to the teachers.
There was no discipline in that classroom.
One year she was dealing with older students. She had run out of ideas for discipline. She couldn’t actually do anything.
I passed on a method I had learned from one of my employees, a former instructor at APG. “When a soldier needs to be disciplined, we’ll have them hold a quarter to the wall with their nose, their hands behind their back.”
My wife used it. Within a week, she had control of the classroom. No more tearful nights, wanting to give up teaching. Everybody in the classroom was better for her, having control over her students.
Wellll, all good things must come to an end. There were no complaints until a father got back from deployment, heard the “punishment” that was being used and blew a gasket. He went to the admin of the school and complained. The admin shrugged with it’s nothing, why are you so upset? He informed them that he learned about it in military training and there was no way his child was going to be treated like a soldier.
3 weeks later, the classroom was out of control.
When we got to New Hampshire, it was much better. When she started at her current school, it was wonderful. She had the full support of her admin, and classroom discipline was a part of the that.
Over time, that has changed. With the remote learning during the panic, it got worse.
Last year was pretty bad. This year has been worse.
It isn’t uncommon to hear her frustration of having had to clear her classroom because one student was acting out.
It isn’t uncommon to hear about “emergency” alerts being given to lock down the school because one of the animals was roaming the halls, destroying and disrupting.
It isn’t uncommon to hear about her having to comfort and help one of her friends and co-workers because an animal had ripped apart a classroom.
The school system is hemorrhaging teachers. Teachers are retiring that 2 years ago had no intention of retiring. Of course, the good ones go first.
I’ve heard stories of the Superintendent following one of these animals as they roamed the halls, trying to keep the child from disrupting other students. The good thing about that day? That student was suspended, for a day.
Federal intervention in school discipline policy became an issue of increasing importance beginning during the Obama administration. Based on the argument that differences in the rates of discipline for students of different racial groups was evidence of racism, the administration issued a “Dear Colleague” letter informing school districts that they needed to work to reduce gaps in suspensions for those of different racial backgrounds.
—
Will Flanders, Ameillia Wedward, Suspended Reality—The Impact of Suspension Policy on Student Safety (2021)We aren’t the only people to notice.
Using data from several sources, including the WI Department of Public Instruction and the UW-Milwaukee survey of students, they found that lack of suspensions (discipline) is causing the schools to become increasingly dangerous.
- Suspension Rates Declined in Milwaukee After Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) Agreement.
- Reduced Suspension for African American Students Resulted in Lower Reports of Safety
- Suspension Rates for Other Student Groups Change in a more “normal” manner.
- African American Students Suffer the Most.
This research has important implications for policy makers at both the state and federal level. It shows there are real-world, negative implications from applying political correctness to school discipline standards. Moreover, students in the group that is ostensibly meant to be helped by relaxed discipline are actually the most likely to be harmed.
—id.
… The ‘Dear Colleague’ Letter 1 stated that racial disparities—specifically for African American students—were found within school discipline numbers. The report noted suspension rates were “almost four times higher for black students than whites.” To address these disparities in suspension rates, the ‘Dear Colleague’ letter stated that district policies must do more than just ensure that students are treated equally to prevent violating federal anti-discrimination laws. …
—id.
I’m told that the phrase “1350” is horribly racist. It refers to a claim that 13% of the population accounts for 50% of the crime. A more correct statement is that 6% of blacks account for 51% of all murders in the United States.
The problem with this statistic is that it is measuring based on numbers that could be misleading. Is that number of blacks that are proven to have murdered because society focuses on their crimes more? Is it that more blacks are falsely imprisoned? Is it some other unknown factor that causes these numbers to be so skewed?
The numbers say that it isn’t racism or “systemic racism”. The numbers and studies indicate that it is a result of behavior patterns that are group-centric.
Although
large racial/ethnic disparities existed between stops and Census-based benchmarks when stop data was compared to benchmarks that
better capture roadway usage and driving behavior, these reported disparities were significantly reduced and, in some cases, eliminated.
—
Robin S Engel & Jennifer Calnon Cherkauskas, 2021 Pennsylvania State Police Traffic Stop Study January 1 – December 31, 202, https://www.psp.pa.gov/data/Documents/CDR/CDR_2021.pdfWhen behavior is considered, the stop rates are the same between the different groups.
The report I was looking for was a civil suit filed against the PSP claiming that they were racist in choosing who they stopped for speeding. The raw numbers said that the PA state police were stopping more black drivers than expected by census/population density.
Fortunately, they were doing some traffic camera testing at the same time. Turns out that the cameras, which aren’t racist, were flagging speeders at the same percentages as the PSP were stopping people.
All of this is to say, there are normally other reasons that different groups perform differently than “systemic racism”. The more likely reason that African American students were being suspended at higher rates than European American students was because of behavior difference, not racism.
The problem was that to reduce the suspension rate for African American students, they had to stop suspending everybody.
It became an action of last resort. It was ok that 29 kids were in the hallway, not learning because one “learner” was acting like an animal in a classroom. Being such a physical threat that the room had to be cleared.
But we can’t offend Aunt Suzie’s little darling. He might get mad and destroy your classroom.
Bibliography
Robin S Engel & Jennifer Calnon Cherkauskas,
2021 Pennsylvania State Police Traffic Stop Study January 1 – December 31, 202, https://www.psp.pa.gov/data/Documents/CDR/CDR_2021.pdf
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