First I am impressed that the principal even cared enough to ask the boy what was going on.
I would like to see more teachers and administration take this route. I know I am probably the most vehement about parents raising their children but I also feel schools can be the safety net some kids need to get the help their parents either can't or won't give.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
A procrastination in of itself
That's certainly a better approach that is often used, though I admit that I'm a big fan of both children's rights and children's democracy, so almost anything that allows kids to be treated as people instead of mindless drones is good by me.
O god... according to Lampy I've been picked as tribute...
And no Lampy, I don't want to fight in the shade (tell me that's a deliberate pun mods...)
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
scratching at .8, just hopin'
Here's an interesting idea: peer juries.
A procrastination in of itself
Well as I'm sure surprises nobody I heartily approve of that idea, when it's some evil 'them' handing down punishments people often don't listen, when it's your fellow students sitting there going "what the hell were you thinking?" kids may actually listen.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
This is a thread for people who care about child/teen psychology, pedagogy, and education policy. Note problems you are concerned about or solutions you think need to go viral.
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To start off, here's an interesting example of an effective new approach to discipline in Eastern Washington.
A student blows up at a teacher, drops the F-bomb. The usual approach at Lincoln – and, safe to say, at most high schools in this country – is automatic suspension. Instead, Sporleder sits the kid down and says quietly:
“Wow. Are you OK? This doesn’t sound like you. What’s going on?” He gets even more specific: “You really looked stressed. On a scale of 1-10, where are you with your anger?”
The kid was ready. Ready, man! For an anger blast to his face….”How could you do that?” “What’s wrong with you?”…and for the big boot out of school. But he was NOT ready for kindness. The armor-plated
defenses melt like ice under a blowtorch and the words pour out: “My dad’s an alcoholic. He’s promised me things my whole life and never keeps those promises.” The waterfall of words that go deep into his home life, which is no piece of breeze, end with this sentence: “I shouldn’t have blown up at the teacher.”
Whoa.
And then he goes back to the teacher and apologizes. Without prompting from Sporleder.
[...]
It’s the Spring of 2010, and Jim Sporleder’s mind more or less silently exploded.
This is the guy with 25 years experience as a principal. In Walla Walla, he’s got a rep for really connecting with kids. He preaches “discipline with dignity”.
John Medina – a developmental molecular biologist who’s an improbable cross between an old-time rip-snortin’ preacher and Jon Stewart – just drilled a hole in Sporleder’s brain and dropped this in:
Severe and chronic trauma (such as living with an alcoholic parent, or watching in terror as your mom gets beat up) causes toxic stress in kids. Toxic stress damages kid’s brains. When trauma launches kids into flight, fight or fright mode, they cannot learn. It is physiologically impossible.
[...]
Children with toxic stress live their lives in fight, flight or fright (freeze) mode. They respond to the world as a place of constant danger. They can fall behind in school, fail to develop healthy relationships with peers, or develop problems with authority because they are unable to trust adults. With failure, despair, and frustration pecking away at their psyche, they find solace in food, alcohol, tobacco, methamphetamines, inappropriate sex, high-risk sports, and/or work. They don’t regard these coping methods as problems. They see them as solutions to escape from depression, anxiety, anger, fear and shame.
When Barila learned all this at a meeting that the Family Policy Council organized, it chilled and angered her. Determined to do something about it, she co-founded the Children’s Resilience Initiative to educate the Walla Walla community about AC Es and to build resilience to combat AC Es.
Barila brought Natalie Turner, an expert in creating trauma-free schools, to town to help Sporleder and his teachers.
It's definitely worth a read.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.