Gary Stager on adults behaving badly: why are students and adults becoming antagonists?

In American Psychology and Schools, Seymour Saragon writes of the shock expressed by the community after the horrible tragedy at Columbine High no outrage was expressed when police officers were stationed in a suburban school. That should have been viewed as the canary in the coalmine. Another troubling trend is now sweeping our schools.

One cannot read a newspaper or visit a school without getting the sense that our focus has shifted from learning to compliance and from mutual respect to fear. There is a sense that given the opportunity, kids will screw-up. Therefore, we must make our rules clear and punishment severe. Much has been written about the intolerance and departure from common sense displayed in the name of zero-tolerance policies, but I suspect that the problems we face may be even worse. A foul wind blows across many schools where students and adults have become antagonists, rather than co-equal partners in the learning community.

The Ties That (Don't) Bind

A graduating Maryland senior was recently denied the right to participate in the graduation ceremonies because he wore a bolo tie underneath his robe, instead of a "proper" tie. This was despite the fact the student chose the bolo tie as a tribute to his Native American heritage. Even if the kid wore a ridiculous tie, like classmates allowed to participate, who cares? Don't principals have better things to worry about?

Losing Your Civil Liberties Administrators at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, Calif., could possibly win the award for dumbest school censorship of 2005? The drama department was staging the play, The Complete History of the United States (Abridged), by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. The play is a madcap parody that retells all of American history in under an hour. The company's logo consists of William Shakespeare wearing Groucho Marx glasses, mustache and cigar. The play to be performed by the California youngsters features George Washington ala Groucho on its script cover. Get it? It's a joke! Hah!

The industrious students put up posters advertising the play complete with (gasp) President George Washington Bush as Groucho Marx. Instead of admiring their cultural literacy and use of witty metaphor, the crime-fighting principal swept into action and removed all of the posters.

Principal Kenny Lee defended his noble deeds by saying, "There's an issue in the first [poster] regarding the smoking and endorsing one ideology over another. We had one student who was very upset." Such sensitivity to the anguish of one student could be taken more seriously if the offended student's complaints did not also include that the posters made Bush "look like an Israeli."

How will children learn the wonders of our Bill of Rights from adults so contemptuous and fearful of basic liberties? Which literature will be safe when we cower at one complaint? Have you watched Duck Soup recently?

Mommy!

A Columbus, Ga., high school student was recently suspended for being disorderly. The horrible refraction occurred when he took a cell-phone call during his lunch. An indignant teacher spotted this and demanded the call be terminated at once. When the student failed to comply, the educator attempted to wrestle the phone away. This caused the student to cuss and resist as I might have done.

It turns out the phone call was from the kid's mother stationed in Iraq. Wouldn't you be agitated if you were not allowed to speak with your mother halfway around the world in a war zone? The school district reduced the suspension to three days from the remainder of the school year after being deluged with well-deserved public pressure. However, no apology was forthcoming and the administrators are completely confident in their position, "Rules is rules."

Sheesh! Where do educators learn to punish first and ask questions later?

Cut it Out

In Stupidity and Tears, Herb Kohl writes about how when trapped in an irrational, increasingly punitive system, teachers will act in ways detrimental to children and their very own self-interest. When the system treats teachers in such a condescending fashion, students will suffer and schools will become increasingly dysfunctional and violent.

Surely we can reduce the temperature in our schools without turning them into prisons and educators into captors? Do we love kids or not?

Gary Stager, [e-mail], is editor-at-large and an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University. For a longer version of this column, go to www.districtadministration.com