Persistence prevails once again.

The last time, I posted Conversation 9 but didn’t send out the link. This conversation was posted and the link sent. I’m working my way back to consistent publication… eventually.

Onward to today’s topic, tolerance… or is it discipline… hmmm.

Conversation 10:

Where do we draw the line with the protection of others? Specifically, I am peaking on the teaching of tolerance as opposed to the enforcement of zero tolerance. Zero tolerance has been imposed as a permanent policy in the public schools. It was intended as a protective action, but I think (in other words… in my opinion) those that the policy was intended to protect are learning to not be self reliant, resolve their own issues and yes, be tolerant of others. I don’t advocate allowing others to bully someone else, but I think the situations where both were detained and forced to interact (given a team effort job that they had to accomplish in order to complete detention) taught more understanding and therefore tolerance for others.

I grew up seeing kids bullied (and being bullied myself), black against white, sportsters against geeks, rich against poor, status quo against different… The nuns handled all situations the same. The offending parties (pick any conflicting group above) are dinged in the head with chalk. “You and you come here NOW. I’ve had it with you interrupting my class (not doing your homework, fighting, or any other offence). I don’t care who started it. You will be…”(Catholic School options) writing sentences, whacking erasers, cleaning the cafeteria, picking up trash, washing windows, hoeing the garden, resealing the concrete, making pledge calls (collecting money for the school), mucking out old biology experiment jars, and whatever else the inventive nun minds could come up with. For the hard core offenders there was always a visit to the local jail and children community hours done in prison garb.

As most of you know, I work in a school I am disturbed, though, by this policy called Zero Tolerance (and the “No Child Left Behind”, and a number of other things so I guess I am in general simply disturbed by school policies). I understand that its intent was to protect, but I fear it is having a somewhat different effect in the long run.

When our beloved nuns used indiscriminate discipline (if you’re involved, you’re guilty, so you get punished), it tended to create an Us vs. Them environment, encouraged the involved parties to work things out on their own, and through that process one tended to become more tolerant of others and their actions.

But our government is very concerned with the safety of our students in the public school system (rightfully so in this technologically advanced, yet basically violent age). Teachers are not allowed to administer discipline as they have in the past to keep order and to discourage bullying. So the government stepped in and resolved the issue, so to speak with the conviction that the weaker must be protected at all costs.

That means that if one student is being sly about teasing another and the teased student retaliates physically and gets caught, the teased student pays and the one who is making life miserable for him does not. So, the teased boy ends up having a choice of suffering in silence or protecting himself and getting punished. I’ve also seen this one. There is a particular child that engenders jealousy among a few children who are friends. They make up a story about the offending individual threatening violence towards one of their own and all attest to having witnessed it. There is no recourse for the “offending individual” and the others get away scott free (who was Scott anyway?).

So what was learned by the parties in these examples? The actual guilty parties learned that if they plan ahead carefully, they can torture, get revenge upon, and generally have fun at the expense of others. The victims learned that if someone really wants to they can hurt them and get away with it. And they won’t be able to prove different. I don’t see tolerance being taught nor do I see the weak being protected. I see the sly, bored, and undisciplined having a new playground to play in. I see the unfortunate becoming fearful and resentful. At least when both parties were punished the guilty party got what they deserved and some positive behavior modification was taking place.

Of course, some of the weak are actually vindicated by the policy, the bullies caught and punished. And what did they learn? The weak learn that others will solve their problems for them and the bullies learn to resent, their resentment eventually turning to hate. For when we “save “ others, we take away their personal power, they quit learning how to help themselves, they become weaker, and eventually, they too become resentful. To me (again, in my opinion), the “Zero Tolerance Policy” creates more tolerance problems than it protects individuals.

It always seems when the government lays down blanket policies that the results are worse or at least no better than the original results. It seems when we foster protecting the weak instead of strengthening the weak we end up with them becoming weaker. Whether it’s in school, in the welfare system or in war.

How do we resolve this? Well personally, I think we should hire nuns in the school instead of policemen as an outside security force (and I’m not Catholic – or particularly religious). They are above government law so to speak and I believe their disciplinary actions would be tolerated (detention? Or no, we don’t do that anymore, you’ll be cleaning out the dumpsters today… here’s your mop… and it better be in good condition when you return it or you’ll be making a new mop at your next detention).

Hmmm. Making the students safer and easing the expense of janitorial (oh wait… not politically correct… that would be sanitary engineering) services. It could happen.

I love you all,

Donna

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Tags: forced protection, nun discipline, Zero tolerance

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