Life is hard enough. Too many people live in poverty. Too many children are not supported emotionally (or economically) by their parents or guardians. Childhood illnesses run rampant in certain communities. Young people are often exposed to situations within their homes or communities that they should not witness ever: drug use, overuse of alcohol, shootings and stabbings, physical abuse (of others and perhaps personally), verbal abuse, mental illness including deep depression, unemployment or loss of employment and the list goes on and on.
Importantly, schools have often become safe havens -- places where kids can go not only to learn but to feel secure. Indeed, some children sleep at school because it is safer than sleeping at home (or in a homeless shelter). Or, perhaps these kids have so much responsibility at home that they can only sleep for a few hours (imagine them taking care of an infant or even a parent at night).
Schools have oft-times recognized their role in the lives of students -- young and old -- and have taken steps to provide meals, after-school activities and supportive staff. Indeed, for many children, school creates a sense of normalcy. And, when there is so much trauma external to school, it is all the more important that school be a place of calm and transparency and trust.
Teaching teachers how to respond to their students -- students who live in troubled environments -- has increased but we still could make schools better places for children. And, we should enable increased parental and guardian involvement if we re-thought how to engage parents who themselves may have hated school. Indeed, the Molly Stark School in Bennington,VT is creating libraries in the community centers in locales where their students live. Bring the library to the people --- that could be the motto.
It is in this context that it is so shocking and startling and scary that a junior high school teacher in Texas gave out awards to students that were demeaning and deprecatory and nasty and totally destructive of student self worth. There was an award for the student most likely to be a terrorist. There was an award for the student most likely to meld into the white community (the student was African-American). Really.
You might be thinking I am making this up. Short of this being fake news, this news appears to be true: Texas officials apologize for terrorist award given student (USA Today).
It has been reported in other news outlets, too. It is an example of truth being vastly stranger (and worse) than fiction. It is as if the world fell off its axis and took its moral compass with it.
What is even more shocking than the awards themselves, which are beyond reprehensible, is the slowness with which and the ways in which the school is responding --- at every level. For starters, a verbal apology is not enough. Sorry. Insufficient. When bad incidents like this happen, we need to respond boldly and bravely and brazenly.
The teachers --- all of them -- need retraining and need vastly more insight into how to handle their students. They need to be "trauma trained" for sure. The teacher who issued the awards and those who sat by without speaking out all need to be reprimanded -- swiftly. Listened to, yes but responsible for their actions. As in now. Apart from existing employment terms and union requirements, there needs to be immediate re-education. Starting yesterday. And, it needs to be mandatory. One might start with lessons from the Holocaust.
The superintendent needs to speak out as does the school board as does the State Department of Education and even the US Department of Education. Where is the outrage? Where are their voices? The response can't be limited to this school in this small community. The students affected are "our kids" to use Robert Putnam's language. And we owe those kids an opportunity to grow and flourish.
I am aware of one initiative to raise money for at least one of these kids to go to college -- Brava to Rosye Cloud in the DC area for spearheading this effort. But, we need to do more. Can we use this negative example as an exemplar in schools of education? Can we test out the culture of the school where this occurred because when there is smoke, there is usually fire?
Can we, in addition to re-training all the teachers, involve the children in that school in a set of activities that are positive and reinforcing of excellence? And, can we create a new awards ceremony with positive messaging and then a funeral or fire for the previous awards -- a destruction ceremony? I am serious -- we need to signal that these awards should be both revoked and destroyed. I can visualize the destruction ceremony. And, the replacement awards can be bigger and better and wiser and more thoughtful (that won't take much).
In addition to retaining, a burning ceremony and a new awards ceremony and public outcry from on high (so to speak), we need everyone to speak up and out. We are better than this. Teachers are better than this. And, for these horrific awards, there is no excuse. Zero. None. No tolerance -- even if we could figure out their rationale.
Comments (8)