Problem 2: Inclusion - the criminals
At the beginning of the year, I had to sign paperwork saying that I was aware of the felon-offender status of one of my students.
S/he was recently arrested for possession of a controlled substance on school grounds.
Why is this child still in school?
Why should the taxpayers of Fayette County, of Kentucky, have to foot the bill for a student who clearly wants no part of an education?
Worse still, why do the parents of the other students at my school have to send their sons and daughters to school with a student who should be in jail?
The answer is horrifying. A Fayette County judge decided that this student needed to be in school more than S/he needed to be in jail. This judge sacrificed the quality of education for the many for what S/he saw as the needs of one student.
In what looking-glass universe does this thinking make sense?
There comes a point when we must separate the wheat from the chaff. Forcing convicted felons to return to public school is an atrocity. It is a slap in the face to the students who come to school and try to learn. It is a slap in the face to the parents of hard-working students when judges put convicted felons in the same classrooms with their sons and daughters.
Students who don't want to be educated should not be in the public school system. They tax the system's resources, exhaust teachers and administrators, and cripple the education of every other student in the building - not to mention creating an unsafe environment for teachers and other students.
A free public education should be the right of every American, BUT, that right should be forfeit when students commit felonies.
That right should be forfeit when the student doesn't want it.
That right should be forfeit when a student disrupts the entire educational process out of spite.
Still, the idea of inclusion persists as some noble dream. Our refusal to exclude anyone from public education, no matter how awful or destructive, no matter how spiteful or abusive, no matter how many criminal convictions will be our undoing.
We can't save everyone, because everyone doesn't want to be saved.
Some of our students don't want to go to college or learn a trade or become productive members of our society. Some of them want to do drugs, sell drugs, and sleep the rest of the time.
These students want to exist outside the boundaries of decent human behavior, and we should let them - BUT NOT IN OUR SCHOOLS.
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Well, I don't know if you got a similar post, due to me being fairly new to blogging!
ReplyDeleteHowever, I read you blog and I have to disagree with your view. I say this, because very few student's favorite thing to do is be in school. If they did, we would not have workshops on classroom management. It is our career choice as teachers to, not only teach the curriculum, but to educate the students on how to be productive members of society. Some people never learn these skills: unfortunately.
Yes, there will be some who slip through the cracks; however, teachers need to believe in every student that walks through the classroom door. The criminal in your classroom is probably the student who needs the most: compassion, team work, and teachings about how to be a productive member of society.
As for the other students in the classroom, if no attention is brought to the situation, there will be no disruptions. Like I said previously, only a handfull of students want to be there; yet, all of the students can bring something to "the table". Even students with a criminal record. Just because they committed a crime does not mean they are not human, and they can change their philosophy: with proper mentorship. Obviously some adaptations may have to be made, but evey student can achieve. As for the parents, fair is not always equal.
Check out my blog and feel free to comment. I am always open to conversation.
Well perhaps the judge figured ruining someone's hopefully very long and prosper future over a very short pass with mistakes was not the correct course of action
ReplyDeleteAnd really, controlled substances include marijuana and lets be realistic here, if that was what he had, I highly doubt he poses a threat to you or your students, and furthermore he really shouldn't be in jail.
But then again perhaps I'm not a fair judge of the matter, having been kicked out of school over a small pocket knife in your very class.