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Welcome to Teachers At Risk
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Children's Mental Health Ontario
International Edubloggers Directory
The Learning Disabilities Association of Canada
Mar
10
In my last post, I asked why would students act in such a way. A group of male students mostly under 18 have been accused of sexually assaulting a 16 year old female student and video taping the assault using their cell phones. Today, I found some answers. One answer came from Stu Auty.
Stu and I go back a long way- nineteen years actually. He hired me to teach young offenders in a new program that was created at that time to meet the needs of teenage kids that were incarcerated. I taught kids in closed custody (jail) and in open-custody (a type of group home). In the open custody facility, I was the only teacher and worked along side child care workers . In the closed custody facility, I was one of four teachers. The jail was not my favourite place to teach- not because of the kids but because of the bars , the guards etc. That got on my nerves. I preferred the open custody facility. Stu was a vice-principal at a nearby high school, my supervisor and greatest supporter for the three years I taughtat the open custody facility.
Now, Stu is the president of Canadian Safe Schools Network and when asked by Anthony Reinhart of the Globe and Mail about the mentality behind the alleged attack had this to say
“It’s almost like the Roman coliseum. You’ve got the victims in the middle of a big circle, and people are enjoying the experience of watching them being hurt. It’s not a very nice picture.”
While most kids are “reasonable people,” Mr. Auty said, there has been a proven increase in young people’s propensity for violence, which he attributes, in part, to exposure to inappropriate media images at ever-younger ages.
“That’s going to lead to the kinds of experiences or behaviours that cross the line in a major way,” he said, “and I think we’ve just seen that.”
Those who would participate in a gang assault clearly don’t appreciate the impact of their actions, because “if they did, they wouldn’t do it,” Mr. Auty said. As a result, “what often needs to happen is that those impacts are graphically explained.”
If schools can come up with presentations that make the consequences clear, “then good will have been done,” Mr. Auty said. “But it will take a tragedy for those kinds of things to happen.”
Almost like the Roman coliseum. Oh my goodness. Look how far we haven’t come. Stu believes that schools need to make the consequences clear. I know that there is some instruction regarding healthy relationships, dating violence and drug abuse in the grade nine phys. ed course. The problem is that after grade nine the kids don’t have to take phys. ed. so they don’t have to revisit the topic unless they voluntarily attend conferences offered by the board. More need needs to be done along the lines of what has been done for bullying. Lot of time and effort has been spent addressing the problem of bullying. Perhaps now because of all the publicity around the alleged event, more will be done about educating kids about healthy relationships, date violence and drug abuse. I will be advocating for this and will get involved.
Ok, I’m going to be getting involved. But, it shouldn’t be just about me, a teacher. It’s that entire village thing again. Jennifer Laffier put it very nicely in the same article
“teachers feel as if they’re standing alone on a hill” as everyone expects them to resolve social issues that extend beyond their purview.”It can’ ,” Ms. Laffier said.
“It has to turn into more of a community effort in what we do about it.”
OK, so what does the village need to do?
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3 Responses to “Look how far we haven’t come”
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Stumble It!
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Consequences are one thing, but I think the big issue here is consistency and firmness in applying the consequences. At my school in Texas, consequences are made very clear through student handbooks, and frequent verbal reminders. But when teenagers learn that nothing is going to happen to them because of a soft principal, then they’re going to push things beyond the limit until they do find that stopping point. Often that stopping point is reached when law enforcement gets involved. By then, things are really serious, the damage has been done, and it’s often irreversible.
However, I understand the principals’ reluctance to be firm and consistent. There are always looming fears of parents who will blame the school system, the principal, or even the teacher for trauma caused by disciplinary measures. Then there is that data thing. When kids get fed up with school and want to drop out, the statistics for the school, the school district, and the state take a hit. Who cares if little Johnny is juvenile delinquent who’s on drugs, doesn’t do his class work, doesn’t follow the school rules, disrupts class, and influences others to do the same; as long as he is in school and does not increase the dropout rate, everthing is ok. Not to mention that the school will loose some federal and state funding for having one less student enrolled.
Mr Fuller, well put!
We have a program for educating youth about healthy relationships which runs from grade 7 to grade 10/11 and consists of 12 workshops during class time, but facititated by non-teaching adults who also train a youth team to co-facilitate. You can read more about this highly successful primary violence prevention program at our web-site, swova.org.
Please let me know if you would like more info. We are in process of “widening the circle” by creating and delivering workshops for parents and workshops for teachers __ the entire village approach is becoming a reality!
SWOVA board member