Should a teacher have a right and responsibility to tell a student to
Stop doing that.and should the student be expected to comply?
If a teacher, or any other adult at school tells a child to stop doing that and the child's response means no, something must be done.
The permission of prohibited behavior is categorically unacceptable; in particular as a matter of practice. It sends exactly the wrong message. It undermines authority.
What is the point of rules if no one has to obey them?
It is not up to a classroom teacher to address the issues that lead a student to conclude that they are in charge. It is particularly not alright for a teacher's attention to be drawn from students who need it for more productive ends.
The establishment and enforcement of discipline polices is an executive (the school board) and administrative responsibility. The inability or unwillingness to create and enforce standards of conduct that protect the interests of all stakeholders, is an executive and administrative failure.
For which they could be held accountable by the media, but will not.
Student discipline is newsworthy by any standard; either the truth makes the leadership of the APS look capable or it makes them look incompetent and corrupt.Either they're on top of the ball and deserve recognition, or they are behind the ball and must be held honestly accountable.
Either way, its news.
photo Mark Bralley
4 comments:
By your own argument you tacitly discredit yourself. You challenge authority by being defiant, criticizing the district and harassing people who have been rightfully appointed to their jobs. How does that make you different than students who do not comply? Your students didn't respect your authority, so they reacted in the same manner that you model, except they were not as misguided as you are.
Nice logic, genius.
The preceding comment was written I believe, by H. Wayne Knight. Wayne was the Principal at Hoover Middle School when I was teaching there.
I deny "harassing" anybody. If Knight or anyone else felt or feels harassed, it was and is by a principled effort to hold them honestly accountable as role models of higher standards of conduct.
As to whether readers should believe anything Knight has to say about me, I would point to the ruling of a former NM State Supreme Court Chief Justice and his conclusion that Wayne Knight's testimony "... lacked credibility in the face of contradictory testimony from any other witness."
Rightfully appointed to their jobs? It's a good ol' boy oligarchy.
If there was honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct, Knight would never have gotten away with deliberately misleading the Hoover Student Council regarding district policies on Halloween costumes. He would not have gotten away with trying to deliberate effort to mislead the Hoover Middle School, School Restructuring Council regarding the smoking of marijuana in a student restroom near his office. If there was honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct, Knight would not still have a job.
Most importantly, please note than Knight did not answer the question; should students have to obey teachers?
In true APS administrative style, Knight is ducking the question, just as he ducked it as a principal.
As a principal, Knight could not, or would not enforce the rules. He gave students tacit permission to engage in prohibited behaviors. Chief among those, he allowed students to "sag".
Note; this isn't about sagging, it is about blatant disregard for authority and whether schools and classrooms can function with children in charge. Knight trained students to ignore authority.
Whether my authority was respected and whether Knight's authority was respected is irrelevant. As matter of principle, as a matter of practice, should students in public schools be expected to obey the adults who have been put in charge of them?
Is it fair to hold teachers accountable for the performance and behavior of students if students are not expected to obey them in a timely manner?
When a teacher comes upon a disturbance and tells students to clear out, should they be expected to actually leave rather immediately?
Or should they be trained to just stand there and hang out for as long as they feel like it?
It's like telling your babysitter;
You're in charge but, the kids aren't expected to actually obey you when to tell them to do or don't do something. And, we will hold you strictly accountable anything that goes wrong.
A student defies a teacher, an employee defies an administrator. It's the same thing. You say nothing to refute the argument.
Flawed logic and a typical disavowal of how you are wrong.
I said nothing to refute the argument that a student defying a teacher, and a teacher defying an administrator because that argument did not come up in the post or in comments.
I will refute the argument now; students defying teachers (and getting away with it) is not the same thing as teachers defying administrators (and likely being fired over it).
I would add that "challenging authority by being defiant (with regard to unconstitutional limits on the rights to free speech and to petition one's government), (and)criticizing the district ..." does not constitute disobedience - in particular because I don't work for any of these people, and they have no authority over me in the first place.
I remain comfortable with my logic; and refute Wayne Knight's illogic.
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