My Take on a Lose-Lose Situation

I’m a retired teacher. Other than my family, teaching occupied the majority of my thoughts and energy from 1970 through 2001. Looking at the school landscape today is painful for me, in several different directions. Although I am no longer a teacher, it is hurtful to read so much negative news about a profession I loved.

I have some pet peeves:

Lack of respect for the teaching profession.

Lack of discipline and the respect for authority within schools.

Teachers/administrators who only want to draw a paycheck.

Administrations who hire and then continue to employ ineffective teachers. All teachers, unfortunately, share the negative feedback.

Extreme emphasis on standardized test scores to the loss of respect for the individual learner AND the individual teacher.

Curriculum and educational policy dictated and generated by people and special interest groups who aren’t in the classroom and never were.

The loss of strong family.

“Us” and “Them” attitudes.

I could go on and on and on. The educational climate is … scary. It often overshadows the good, the hopeful, and the great things that happen in schools.

This week, cell phone videos from a SC classroom went viral. A school resource officer called to a math classroom to “deal with” a female student who refused to give up her phone (reports vary on the reason for calling him) used force to remove her from her desk and from the room. *

Let me be clear. I don’t condone the officer’s actions under the circumstances shown in the video. By that, I mean the student, apparently, did not have weapons, was not threatening to shoot herself or anyone else and put no other classmate in jeopardy.

But. BUT.

There are some things that we should keep in mind as “we” rush to judge. There will be two (or more) sides to this story, because there are always more sides than we know from a distance. There will be extenuating circumstances, with pre-existing biases and previous personal experiences thrown in, right or wrong. For example, on October 30, several hundred* students staged a walk-out in support of the resource officer, demanding his reinstatement. The officer has support. Some students, at least, believe his actions were justified. Why? We may never know, but they believe they do.

 Currently, there are school resource officers in most school systems. They are there, in part, because teachers and administrators believe they need assistance with discipline problems occurring on school grounds during the school day. With mounting violence on today’s campuses, the need for a school resource officer is real. That’s true, and that’s frightening.  

*It appears that the math teacher issued an ultimatum about the student’s cell phone; reports say she was texting in class. When the teacher couldn’t enforce the ultimatum, he or she called on the resource officer to remove the student. The student resisted. The officer forcibly evicted the student. Briefly, he did what he was there for, what he was called on to do. I’m not defending his methods. There’s a fine line between “enough” and “too much.” In view of the teacher’s request for the student to leave, what was his job? Pulling her (resisting) from the desk was necessary, Throwing her was not. That’s my opinion, of course, and I don’t expect complete agreement.

It’s a slippery slope. The resource officer is a trained policeman. But the school campus is not “the streets,” and its students are not adults. The school wants its authority respected. The public wants discipline in the schools so that learning takes place. The public wants resource officers to keep students and teachers safe. The public wants to keep it tidy.

It’s not.

The student faces resisting arrest charges and the officer has, at least, lost his job. Students in the classroom took videos of the incident and posted them online with their cellphones (by the way, I wonder if those students face any consequences? Is it okay to take video and make it public, but not okay to text? Probably not a fair and balanced question. I don’t know the school’s cell phone policy, but I wonder). The SC school gets unwanted publicity. Schools, in general, get more negative publicity. The “R” question raises its ugly head (the officer is white, the student is black). There’s another black mark for police officers (as with teachers, good officers share negative feedback), another sad look at schools and students, another opportunity to promote racial stereotyping, more business for lawyers, and more negative fodder for the news channels to feed upon.

It’s a Lose-Lose scenario. Do I have answers? No, only more questions.

What if teachers could just teach? What if students just wanted to learn? What if officers were still just visitors to schools on Career Day? What if there was respect for school authority? What if there were no doubts about that authority?

What if there had been no school shootings?

What if? What if?

But it is what it is. The climate of fear and mistrust co-exists. Mistakes will, no doubt, be made. And we –the individuals concerned, the schools, police officers, the public – have to deal with the fallout.

The worse thing we can do is sling blame and quit trying.

*Details of the incident based upon published accounts.