Burns’ Bench

I have been working as a teacher, administrator, college instructor and consultant for nearly 42 years. During this time I have seen it all; the escalation of disrespect, blatant irresponsibility and absolute continued willful disobedience. I can remember sometime immediately after the Columbine High School Shootings in 1999 when I was still working as a school administrator saying that as long as bullying exists there is going to be angry kids who have to seek revenge on someone, group, or institution. I then cautioned that this type of horror might soon find its way onto college campuses and then other social venues as well.  Well tragically it did.

I ended up leaving administration in 2004 and began public speaking encouraging school to treat disrespect seriously and to hold kids accountable in a real way for irresponsibility and non-compliance.  Stop compromising and really take a look at creating consequential thinking in our students and children. As the years went by more changes occurred; metal detectors in school, greater incidence of violence, bullying increased, teenage suicide went up, cyber-bullying became the new hobby horse as we entered the communication age, and basically the wheels began to fall off in terms of discipline and consequence.

As I spoke about what needed to be done it became more and more difficult to impose consequences because of the intergenerational tendencies of angry and irate parents and the pressure that they put on teachers and administration. Some schools as we speak don’t even allow their students to serve a detention for tardiness to class.  When I presented my thoughts on all of the above at conferences and in-services the response was:

What the hell, are you kidding me, we can’t do that!

I have written books on topics like bullying, power struggles, lying, respect, responsibility, relationships, gossip, and strengthening the victims of bullying. I have co-designed The Bully Proof Classroom a graduate course which is taught at two different colleges and is part of a master’s program. I have consulted, blogged about it, and have over 70 products that address the issues.

The purpose of Burns’ Bench is to help provide solutions to problems that teachers face every day. But, do go on notice that some solutions are extremely tough and are not quick fixes. Rather an approach that over the long haul will provide permanent help, not temporary relief.

I am revisiting Anti Bulling 101 to start and will be presenting problems and suggestion. We all own these problems but right now they are on my bench and I to really want to dig in and take a look at them, so the issues that we now face in education won’t continue to escalate for years to come. Check back every morning for updates from Burns’ Bench.