by James Burns | Oct 27, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Parents, Teachers
As a young boy I always had a fear of authority. I don’t mean the police, I mean adults other than my parents. There was always some authority figure who was correcting me in the community or in school. Since my father was the owner of a pretty popular bar in a very small town, I was well known in the town, and I knew a lot of adults. If I was involved in some stupid behavior on one side of town my parents found out through the grapevine very quickly. My parents never questioned the guy who told them about my behavior, regardless of whether or not he was drunk. They would always question me, because I was the kid, and they believed the adult. It always seemed like I was found out one way or another.
The other thing that never failed was if I was told not to do something and I disobeyed, something bad always happened to me as a result. I don’t mean like getting yelled at by my father; I mean something really bad would happen that was a direct consequence of my rebellious attitude.
As kids we all waited for the summer not because we were going on vacation with our families, but because it was a time to play baseball, drink soda, hang out, and ride our bikes all over town. I always had a pretty decent bike; it was fun to ride. I liked to ride my friends’ bikes sometimes, but for some reason my father had a problem with that. One day (I was 11 at the time) I pulled up in front of the bar riding my friend Johnny’s bike. I put the brakes on with my right foot and the bike didn’t stop. It only stopped when I used my left foot. My father was watching this entire scene. He said, “Jimmy, I don’t want you riding that bike; it doesn’t have a coaster break.” I said, “Yeah it does, you just have to use your left foot.” He said, “Are you right handed or left handed?” I said, “Right.” He said, “Well then, you’re always going to use your right foot to brake. If you’re on a bike that has the brake on the left side, you’ll try to stop using your right foot, and then you won’t be able to switch feet and stop fast enough.” Well like all kids I heard but I didn’t listen. One warm summer night my friend Johnny pulled up on his bike, and I asked him where my other friend Izzy was. He told me Izzy was up the block. My bike was in the back and I was too lazy to get it so naturally I asked him if I could use his, and he said yes. I took the bike; rode up the block, saw Izzy and told Izzy to come on down. I turned around and started back down the block at a pretty high speed. No sooner did I start when Izzy’s sister Elizabeth stepped in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, with my right foot of course. The bike didn’t stop. I crashed into her pushing her up against a brand new car that was parked on the street. Oh, and did I mention that the bike didn’t have any rubber handgrips either? The medal handlebars were dragged across the car denting and scratching the paint finish. The owner came out of the house and asked me where I lived. I pointed down the block. He proceeded to walk with me down the street, through the bar, and upstairs where my mother was sleeping on the couch snoring. I woke my mother up, and she was shaken to find a strange man standing in the living room. We all had to go downstairs and up the block to take a look at my art work. I was so frightened I didn’t know what to say or do. I asked my mother, “Are you going to tell dad?” Of course, I knew she was going to tell my father, but I just thought I’d ask. I was thinking, isn’t anybody going to help me. I didn’t mean to do it. But, I was told not to ride that bike. I walked into the bar and in his own way one of my father’s drunken customers tried to comfort me. Dinny O’Rourke one of my father’s best customers Dinny was a four packs of cigarettes a day man, a guy who spent all day in the bar paying my father’s bills. We always knew when he was there because his asthmatic cough filled the place with a lot of noise and a lot of germs. He said, “Hey Jim, are you all right?” I said in a quivering voice, “Yeah.” He said, “Good, as long as you and the girl are all right, don’t worry about anything. Then he said with all of his drunken bravado, “You should have told me what was going on with that guy when he came through here to tell your mom what happened. I would have thrown him the hell out.” I felt like asking him if there was any room at his house where I could stay for a while.
I crawled upstairs and went to bed. I got up early the next morning and slithered out of the house before my father woke up. I went up the street and met up with Izzy and asked him how his sister was. He said she was fine. I sat there with him and talked with him about how I knew I had to go home and deal with my dad. He said he would go with me. I walked into the bar, my father was in the back kitchen, and I made a made dash for the upstairs door. Izzy followed me, and as he was getting ready to close the door a voice cried out, “HEY ISRAEL, IS JIMMY WITH YOU?” Jimmy, that’s what he always called me when things weren’t going too well. I poked my head out and said, “Hi dad.” He said “Come here.” I slowly walked to the back and stood before the judgment seat of God. Well not really, but that’s what it felt like. He asked me the definitive question. “Did I tell you not to ride that bike?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “So why did you ride it?” I couldn’t come up with an answer. You know, he didn’t even care about the car that I wrecked. He didn’t even mention it. He was really upset with me because I didn’t listen to him. I disobeyed. It destroyed his trust in me. He told me to go upstairs; I was put into solitary confinement. Izzy said to me, “I guess I better go home.”
This was the first time I was grounded. There wasn’t much to do up there, but I made due. I watched TV and spent a lot of time being ignored by my parents. They didn’t disappoint me either. They were the experts at the silent treatment and withholding a parent’s love when things went wrong. I used to think as I got older that they wrote the book on conditional love. After about two days of this I got a call from my grandmother, my father’s mom. I was so happy to hear from her. She asked me if I would come over to her house and help her clean up the backyard. I figured, well it’s my dad’s mother He would want me to help her. I didn’t mention to her I was grounded, I didn’t ask for permission from my dad to go; I just left the house. Another mistake.
I rode my bike over to my grandmother’s house. She was about 90 years old, and partly blind. She moved around pretty well though. She had fallen down a long flight of stairs about a year earlier, just dusted herself off, and basically walked away without a scratch. She was a tough bird – definitely from strong stock. As I was cleaning her yard that day, I stepped on one of the broken pickets from her fence that was on the grass. I stepped right on a nail that was sticking out of the picket. The nail was rusty. It only punctured my foot. I checked my foot and found no blood; I figured that was a good thing. I rode my bike home and immediately started to have some trouble walking. I quickly got to the point where I couldn’t walk at all. I didn’t tell my parents, because I was petrified of getting in trouble for leaving the house. I woke up the next morning and still didn’t tell my parents. I sat around all day because of how much my foot hurt. I went to bed early and was in a lot of pain, and I mean a lot. I was moaning. My mother came into my room very late at night and found me laying there crying and really scared. She asked me what was wrong. I told her I stepped on a nail at Gram’s the day before and that my foot really hurt. She pulled the covers off of me and there were red stripes going up my leg. I didn’t know it, but I had blood poisoning.
You have to understand that everyone in town was one of my father’s drinking buddies including Dr. Downs, the town doctor. Very early the next morning my father went over to get him. The only worry was whether or not he was going to be sober. Well he was hung-over, good enough; my father drove him over to the house. He came up the back door with his black bag and with his son, a car mechanic. To me he looked like Jack the Ripper. He took one look at my foot and said, “First.” What did that mean? Then, he washed his hands in the kitchen sink using dish detergent. He told my mother to have me lay flat out on the kitchen table; all I could think of was for what. My mother was at the top of the table and my sister was at my side. My sister said to me, “Remember Bonanza the other night, when Little Joe was shot with an arrow and Hoss had to pull it out.” I said, “Yeah what about it.” She said, “Well before Hoss pulled the arrow out he gave Joe a big stick to bite on.” She handed me a dish cloth and said, “Use this.” I dropped it on the floor.
My mother said to the doctor “What are you going to do.” He said, “I’m going to cut his foot open.” That didn’t seem to upset her at all. He pulled out a spray can and started to spray my foot. My mom said, “What’s that.” He said, “Ethyl-chloride.” My mind flashed back to all the times I had watched the Mets on TV. I remembered how when one of the players was hit with the ball the team trainer would come out and spray the player’s hand or arm with ethyl-chloride. It didn’t take the pain away it just held down the swelling and allowed the guy to stay in the game. I thought Ethyl-chloride that’s not going to help, he’s going to cut open my foot, and this is the best he’s got. He pulled the scalpel out of his bag and held it like he was getting ready to cut into a piece of steak and started to dig that thing into the ball of my foot. I started to scream like hell. My mom picked the dish cloth up off the floor and shoved it into my mouth to hold down the noise until Dr. Mengela was done. He wrapped up my foot with a gauze bandage collected $10.00 and left. I still don’t know why he brought his son. Maybe he was worried my father’s car was going to break down on the way to our house. I forgot to mention that bike problem that I had was put on the back burner for a while, the bottom line was my father took all the money I earned working for my grandmother to help pay for the damage I had done to the car. Not a bad lesson and something that needs to happen more today if there’s any hope for our children to respond correctly to authority.
John Mellencamp’s lyrics in his song “The Authority Song” could never be truer. The chorus of the song goes like this, “I fight authority and authority always wins.” I fought authority, I didn’t listen to my dad, and it almost cost me my leg and maybe even my life, and in the final analysis authority won. Sometimes we think we have a choice when in reality we don’t. Sometimes, even adults think they have a choice about how they respond to authority in their in lives. Often we think these choices are small and they don’t matter, but they really do.
There is a true story about a man who went to his closet one day and had to make what he perceived was a small a decision, do I wear a regular necktie or a clip on tie. He made the choice to wear the regular necktie. He left the house and began to drive to work, and immediately got a call on his CB radio. You see the guy was a police officer. There was a robbery in a store in his area. He drove to the store to investigate and found the perpetrator still in the store. The police officer ended up in a fight with the guy, and was strangled with his own necktie. What do you think the dress code was for police officers? A clip on tie was standard. This man chose to violate authority when he decided to wear a regular necktie to work that morning. The end result: in 15 minutes it cost him his life. He made a seemingly small choice which had astronomical consequences
Authority is designed to help and protect us. Somebody has to be in charge. In a family it’s the parents, in society it’s the police and the government, and on the job it’s our boss. We can fight authority if we want but, as the lyrics to Mellencamp’s song go, “I Fight Authority and Authority Always Wins.” There is no doubt that when we fight authority it is only a matter of time before someone loses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsEwK69LXjQ
by James Burns | Oct 25, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Parents, Teachers
One of the things that I’ve noticed today in society is that everyone has a problem with the truth. I don’t mean we walk around lying all the time, but we are always afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or becoming entangled in some sort of confrontation with the person we are speaking with or better yet the person we’re living with. Sometimes we are concerned about someone’s reaction to us so we bend the truth or poke around trying to figure out what that person wants to hear. It really starts to become a problem in personal relationships when couples are afraid to make their desires known for fear of a break-up or a divorce. People can have a problem with the truth on the job, when a supervisor might worry about an employee’s reaction to a poor performance evaluation; in education a teacher might be worried about a student’s or parent’s reaction, and then could easily award grades that are not in line with the student’s performance.
When I was in high school my guidance counselor called me down to his office and pulled out my grades. He said, “What do you want to do when you’re through with high school?” I told him that I didn’t know, and then in the next breath, thinking that I had to tell him something other than the truth- that I wanted to be a bartender, I told him that I wanted to be a lawyer. “A lawyer,” he said, pointing to my grades, “These are not lawyer’s grades. If I were you I would start to think about doing something else.” I walked out of his office, and wasn’t the least bit offended. I didn’t even think about going home and telling my father that my guidance counselor said I wasn’t smart enough to be a lawyer. I never said one word to my father. You know what? The guy had actually told me the truth, and the truth really did set me free. I started to look honestly at my abilities, and I was able to acknowledge the fact that I hadn’t worked hard academically for my first three years of high school. I started to really think about my future realistically. My guidance counselor made me take a hard look in the mirror, and come to terms with what my abilities and my attitude really were. He told me the truth, and I appreciated that.
Well, in 1977, my father sold the bar, and I became a teacher that same year. I really enjoyed teaching. I was a special educator so I didn’t always have the cream of the crop when it came to my students. In fact, my students were usually the worst behavior problems in the school and could really get to me on some days. But overall I developed relationships with the kids, and things seemed to always go pretty well. As I progressed in my career I noticed that things were changing. I was expected to put up with more and more behavior problems, and everyone was giving me some excuse for a kid’s deviance. The catch phrase that seemed to be in vogue about 20 years ago was, I really like this kid, but I don’t like his behavior. Was this the truth? I don’t think so. Is it really possible to like someone and not like their behavior? The truth is we don’t like the person because of his behavior, and people need to be made aware of this in a considerate way. A person is his behavior, and the two can’t be separated. I can give you the names of people who are well known in society for absolute deviance, and you tell me if you like them, but not their behavior. Let’s try Charles Manson, Scott Peterson, Jeffrey Dahmer, or even Adolph Hitler. Can anyone not like their behavior but still like them as people? No, we don’t like them period. The perception we have of a person is based on his behavior. The truth is if the behavior is not likeable we probably will dislike the person. People need to know that if their behavior doesn’t change, then others won’t want to develop meaningful relationships with them, and ultimately won’t like them.
A few years ago a student came into my office (I was working as an interim principal) and began to discuss with me what he wanted to do after he finished high school He wanted to be a doctor That is a terrific goal for a young person. Well, I asked him what he scored on his SATs. He told me he scored about a 400 on each section. I was thinking in my mind that a perfect score is 800 on each section, and a pretty good score would be about a 650 to 700. I knew something right then and there; he wasn’t going to be my doctor. I proceeded to pull his grades out and found that his math and science grades were C’s and D’s. I of course wanted to respond with the same question that my guidance counselor asked me. Do these look like a doctor’s grades? But, based upon the culture and society’s norms I couldn’t ask that question. I immediately directed this student to the entry requirements that colleges have for their pre-med program, and ultimately medical school. He discovered the truth on his own, and came back to me and thanked me for helping him realize that his study skills needed improvement, and that he needed to take and re-take the college boards. The truth made him aware of his own weaknesses and how much harder he was going to have to work in order to achieve his goals.
Society seems to want to withhold the truth and make everyone believe that they are smarter than what they are and that their behavior is based upon circumstance, their environment, or lack of therapy or medication. Facing the truth about my abilities and my work ethic put me on track and helped me choose a good vocation and helped me to understand how I needed to improve my work ethic. Subsequently, instead of floating through life unsuccessfully from one job to another, I worked hard in college, graduate school, and then as an employee. So the next time your kids come home and say that their teacher told them that they have to work harder, or their work is unacceptable, or that their behavior is unacceptable, or they better consider going to a county college rather than Dartmouth, thank that teacher for doing something that is a rarity today- speaking the truth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGvQtumNAY
by James Burns | Oct 22, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Parents, Teachers
THE RELATIONSHIP CONNECTION
Two teachers were talking in the hall sharing information about some of their more challenging students. “I don’t know,” said one teacher “I have tried everything with Tom and nothing works.” Behavior modification, extra gym time, phone calls home, parent conferences, restrictions and rewards, it almost seems useless.” The other teacher responded, “Tom, he is one of my better student’s. I have very little difficulty with him at all.”
This sounds like a familiar scenario. But, why is it that some teachers have all kinds of problems with one student while others who have the same student have little or no trouble at all. In order to completely understand this problem it is helpful if we understand the how our brain is wired. If we were to take a cross section of the brain we would discover that the top part of the brain is where we do most of our higher order thinking and where we process information. Understand that I am trying to draw a very basic picture for you. The middle part of the brain called the limbic system is where our emotions are located. Our mind and will would be located there. The bottom part of the brain, the stem is where we go for survival. When we are under emotional stress our first response is to survive. The two basic methods for survival are to either attack or to escape. In getting a visual image of what I’m talking about the one thing you will notice is that all incoming information has to go through the emotions in order to be processed.
So, if I were to say to you “When are you going to get this information right?” “I am so sick and tired of explaining this to you what are you dense or something?” Your natural tendency is to survive and you emotionally will either escape or attack. As a matter of information children and adults who escape usually have clinical problems and are your students who are constantly late, sleep at the desk, chronically absent and ultimately have substance problems. These students need to be watched carefully. In education the squeaky wheel gets the grease. We may not even be aware of these students until an event occurs that is catastrophic in nature such as suicide or even worse a violent incidence that could impact lives for generations to come. Students who have the attack mentality are more argumentative, disrespectful, and non-compliant. They are always in school and are looking for a victim that they can take their anger out on. It usually turns out to be the person in charge. This student spends a lot of time in the Vice-Principal’s office has problems in the community and with the police.
The key to working with both of these students is understanding what qualities they need to develop in their life that will make them successful adults. The student who escapes needs to develop responsibility, the student who attacks needs to develop respect. In order to achieve the desired behavior from either of these students they must be taught to comply with the rules of the system that they are in.
The one thing that is in common with both of these students is that when a relationship is established with them they will obey at a more frequent rate and will display a respectful and responsible attitude when the person they are working with understands them as individuals. The order of the day is to realize that there are bricks in the wall of the limbic system that were put there by other adults who responded to them in a reactive and angry way.
Our goal is to remove the bricks and develop a trusting relationship. Behavior modification is an excellent extrinsic structure but teaches students to behave in an adult’s presence not in their absence. Our aim is to develop an intrinsic mechanism that changes the child’s attitude and helps him develop a value system with standards that he will be able to sustain as an adult.
Listen to Pink Floyd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dabH45Af2bo
by James Burns | Oct 12, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Parents, Teachers
Victims of bullying today spend a great deal of time alone. Oh, when they are in school they are around hundreds of other students but in the recesses of their own soul they live a life void of any real emotional contact with others. Fear of hurt keeps them from connecting with others. This isolation leads to depression, fear, and at times suicidal thoughts. Now is the time to help these students connect. Plan activities that help them become part of the school again and contributing members of something that is bigger than their fears. How does it feel to be alone? Like a complete unknown. Let these students know that you know them and value them. Spend a few minutes each day with them. A pat on the back, a wink, or a high five goes a long way in making a difference in the life in one bullied kid. They may never remember what you taught them, but they will always remember that you cared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk3mAX5xdxo&feature=related
by James Burns | Oct 11, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Parents, Teachers
What is happening here? Listen to the words. It’s 1967. Anything different today? The inter generational tendency at work again. War, and protest. Bullying for sure. Not spoken of like today. Everyone was bullied back then. The end result for turning our back on it is what we have today. A society that is insensitive, hates difference, exploits weakness, and sees empathy as a character flaw. We all have to be willing to stand up to the monster of political correctness and leave no excuse for the epidemic of bullying. The name of the song, how appropriate; “For What It’s Worth.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY&feature=related
by James Burns | Oct 10, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Parents, Teachers
Illustration Five
Obedience Has Become a Dirty word
I first started talking about obedience about fifteen years ago. It was one of the three things that I believed needed to be developed in all children. The other two very important characteristics that I thought needed to be developed in children were respect and responsibility. When I used to speak to parents, I would see a light bulb go off in their heads as they discovered this missing piece for disciplining their kids.
When I spoke with teachers about what their biggest difficulty in the classroom was, they always said it was discipline. If they were not able to maintain discipline in their classrooms, then they couldn’t teach. I explained that they needed to demand obedience from their students. Would you believe that the teachers in the audience looked at me like I had two heads? One teacher said to me, “You train dogs to be obedient, not children.” Things got so tough for me when I spoke to teachers that I had to change my choice of words and use the word compliance rather than obedience. For some reason, no one seemed to mind the word compliance, even though it’s synonymous with obedience. Everyone in the audience nodded their heads in agreement when I referred to the three things that had to be developed in all children: respect, responsibility, and compliance.
I can’t understand why obedience has become such a dirty word. When I was growing up, parents and teachers demanded obedience. We were told what to do, and we had darn well better do what we were told, or it was curtains. Today, obedience from children is something we rarely demand, and it is definitely the last thing we get. Yet, parents and teachers complain constantly that their children are disrespectful, but they say their children “just don’t listen.” To me, it’s interesting that teachers and parents rarely describe the behavior using the word disobedient. In fact, I think it’s ridiculous that we are reduced to having to use euphemisms instead of the real thing.
Most parents rarely tell their children what to do. Instead, they usually ask them. They might ask a five year old, “What do you want to wear to school?” or “What do you want for dinner tonight?” Occasionally parents tell their children what to do, and when their kids don’t do it, they ask their kids, “What do you want to do?” Does it really matter what a four-year-old kid wants to do? Society sees adults telling children what to do as some form of disrespect. The way it should work is that children earn the right to make some choices after they have been obedient. But if obedience isn’t developed first in a child, the result is that those children will ultimately become disrespectful and hard to handle.
In our society, parents and teachers seem to want to level the ground where everyone gets treated the same way, adults and children. No pecking order, no one in charge, everyone has rights. Rights to do what? Rights to say what you want and do what you want without any consequence? Society decided that it was politically incorrect to seek obedience from kids. Society has preached raising tolerance for behaviors that forty years ago would have been punished. The result? We have lower expectations in behavior for children and a greater tolerance for undesirable behavior, and that has translated into poorer performance in terms of behavior and performance in general.
Illustration Six
Everyone Has Plenty of Reasons for Their Behavior – BUT THERE ARE NO EXCUSES
I have always enjoyed watching Court TV because I love listening to the defense arguments. I enjoy listening to how the attorney for the defense can come up with all kinds of excuses to explain why the person on trial committed the crime. The defendant could even have confessed to the crime, and the defense attorney will still find some circumstance that caused the person to commit the crime, in essence to excuse the crime. Once, there was a fifteen-year-old kid named Christian Pittman on trial for killing his grandparents two years earlier. This young man shot his grandparents in their sleep at close range with a shotgun, put the leash on the dog, walked out of the trailer that they lived in, doused the trailer with gasoline, lit the trailer on fire, and got in a pick-up truck and drove away. The trial went on for weeks, and I watched most of it. The defense attorney was running out of ammunition so he decided to play a card that is becoming a very common excuse for deviant behavior. The defense attorney contended that the reason this boy committed this heinous crime was because he had an adverse reaction to Zoloft, an anti-depressant drug that he was taking at the time. I sat on the edge of my seat as I waited for the verdict. I was thinking that if a person can be found innocent for murder because of a medication issue, anyone can get away with anything.
I am amazed how family, environment, genetics, and medication can be used as an excuse for behavior these days. Once these factors are considered the cause of deviant behavior, the person who committed the crime or behaved inappropriately will not be held responsible. It follows then that they should be excused for these behaviors, in other words, not be held accountable. Ultimately, people should be held accountable for their actions, and consequences must be imposed. Consequences are the only thing that will stop negative or deviant behaviors such as talking back, not completing homework, bullying, lying, speeding, sexual harassment on the job, stealing, rape, murder, etc.
Today, we have reached the point where as soon as parents have trouble managing their child’s behavior or the school makes them aware their child is acting inappropriately in school, parents are ready to conclude that these behaviors are caused by ADHD or a teacher with unrealistic expectations or another child. Parents rarely think of holding themselves responsible, of asking themselves, Where am I going wrong here and what do I need to change? Or, I need to hold my child responsible, so what consequences will I impose? It’s so much easier to blame the school, a teacher, an administrator, a guidance counselor, another student, or a medical condition. In schools, teachers blame students’ poor behavior or poor academic performance on a child’s difficult circumstances at home or that the child’s parents will not put the child on medication. In society, if a person commits a crime that is punishable, the defense attorney will try to convince a jury that the person is mentally ill or comes from a pitiful family background and should not be held responsible.
As a school administrator, I have observed deviant behavior and have done my best to hold students accountable. I didn’t just look at the students’ isolated behavior at the time, but considered what would happen if the behavior continued, and how it would affect the students’ chances for success as an adult. I was working as a principal of a school for clinically disturbed students in 1993, and most of the students were depressed, psychotic, and on medication. When I took over the school there was no system of accountability, so I instituted an In-School Suspension program that was used as a means of keeping students in the school for offenses that they would otherwise be suspended for. One morning, a student came into school late and proceeded to kick out a window, punch a teacher, tear down hallway decorations and bulletin boards, and was screaming so loud he could be heard in the next county. He was brought into my office, and I said to him, “Nick [name change] I don’t know what I am going to do with you, but for now take a seat in In-School Suspension.”
About five minutes later his school therapist walked into my office. She was furious. She said, “You have Nick in In-School Suspension?”
I said, “Yes, have you taken a look what he did to my building?”
“Did you know that Nick didn’t have any breakfast this morning?”
“I haven’t had any coffee yet, but I’m still talking to you.” I then asked her to leave the office. Did it really matter that Nick didn’t have breakfast? Of course not! What really mattered was that if Nick was not disciplined for his inappropriate behaviors, he would definitely repeat the behavior again.
I thought about what I was going to do with this student. I knew that I would suspend him, but I also knew that I had to begin to work on developing a relationship with Nick so that he wouldn’t react this way again. About 10:30 a.m., I walked down to In-School Suspension and brought Nick a bagel and orange juice. I told Nick that he should have breakfast before he comes to school, but if he didn’t, he should come into my office and I would get him something to eat. Nick was also suspended for ten days, police charges were filed, and he had to write a letter of apology. Had there been a reason for his unreasonable behavior? He had a reason, but having a reason wasn’t an excuse for what he did. If I had bought in to excusing his behavior because he was hungry, Nick would have gotten away with what he did. But I didn’t, I imposed a consequence. Nick’s behavior changed that year. He tried to raise the bar with his angry and violent behavior; I decided to raise the bar with my consequences. It not only worked for him but the school took a real turn for the better with the student body realizing that this type of behavior would not be accepted.
There are plenty of reasons for people’s behaviors, but those reasons are not excuses. What I showed Nick was that there were rules and regulations that had to be followed, but I also showed him some compassion and understanding. I imposed the consequence, but still made sure he had something to eat. I believe that this is the missing piece in dealing with deviant behavior. We are too compassionate and understanding, and we lose sight that everyone must follow the rules of a family, a school, a job, and society. If we continue to allow everything under the sun to be excused and decide that consequences are for the birds, then we can expect our problems with inappropriate behavior in school and deviant behavior in society to continue to get worse.
Illustration Seven
Can You Handle The Truth?
One of the things that I’ve noticed is that everyone has a problem with the truth. I don’t mean we walk around lying all the time, but we are always afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or becoming entangled in some sort of confrontation with the person we are speaking with or even the person we’re living with. Sometimes we are concerned about someone’s reaction, so we bend the truth or poke around trying to figure out what that person wants to hear. It really starts to become a problem in personal relationships when couples are afraid to make their desires known for fear of a break-up or a divorce. People can have a problem with the truth on the job, when a supervisor might worry about an employee’s reaction to a poor performance evaluation. In education, a teacher might be worried about a student’s or parent’s reaction, then could easily award grades that are not in line with the student’s performance.
When I was in high school my guidance counselor called me down to his office and pulled out my grades. He said, “What do you want to do when you’re through with high school?” I told him that I didn’t know, and then in the next breath, thinking that I had to tell him something other than the truth, that I wanted to be a bartender, I told him that I wanted to be a lawyer. “A lawyer,” he said, pointing to my grades. “These are not lawyer’s grades. If I were you, I would start to think about doing something else.” I walked out of his office and wasn’t the least bit offended. I didn’t even think about going home and telling my father that my guidance counselor said I wasn’t smart enough to be a lawyer. I never said one word to my father. You know what? The guy had actually told me the truth, and the truth really did set me free. I started to look honestly at my abilities, and I was able to acknowledge that I hadn’t worked hard academically for my first three years of high school. I started to think about my future realistically. My guidance counselor made me take a hard look in the mirror and come to terms with what my abilities and my attitude really were. He told me the truth, and I appreciated that.
Well, in 1977, my father sold the bar, and I became a teacher that same year. I really enjoyed teaching. I was a special educator so I didn’t always have the cream of the crop when it came to my students. In fact, my students were usually had the worst behavior problems in the school and could really get to me on some days. But, overall, I developed relationships with the kids, and things seemed to usually go pretty well. As I progressed in my career, I noticed things were changing. I was expected to put up with more and more behavior problems, and everyone was giving me some excuse for a kid’s deviance. The catch phrase that seemed to be in vogue about twenty years ago was, “I really like this kid, but I don’t like his behavior.” Was this the truth? I don’t think so. Is it possible to like someone and not like their behavior? The truth is, we don’t like the person because of his behavior, and people need to be made aware of this in a considerate way. A person is his behavior, and the two can’t be separated. I can give you the names of people who are well known in society for absolute deviance, and you tell me if you like them, but not their behavior: Charles Manson, Scott Peterson, Jeffrey Dahmer, or Adolph Hitler. Can anyone not like their behavior but still like them as people? No, we don’t like them period. The perception we have of a person is based on his behavior. If the behavior is not likeable, we probably will dislike the person. People need to know that if their behavior doesn’t change, then others won’t want to develop meaningful relationships with them, and ultimately won’t like them.
Recently, a student came into my office (I was working as an interim principal) and discussed with me what he wanted to do after he finished high school He wanted to be a doctor, which is a terrific goal for a young person. Well, I asked him what he scored on his SATs. He told me he scored about a 400 on each section. I was thinking in my mind that a perfect score is 800 on each section, and a decent score would be about a 650 to 700. I knew something right then: he wasn’t going to be my doctor. I proceeded to pull his grades out and found that his math and science grades were C’s and D’s. I wanted to respond with the same question that my guidance counselor asked me. Do these look like a doctor’s grades? But, based upon the culture and society’s norms, I couldn’t ask that question. I immediately directed this student to the entry requirements that colleges have for their pre-med program, and ultimately medical school. He discovered the truth on his own, came back to me, and thanked me for helping him realize that his study skills needed improvement and that he needed to take and re-take the college boards. The truth made him aware of his own weaknesses and how much harder he was going to have to work in order to achieve his goals.
Society seems to want to withhold the truth and make everyone believe that they are smarter than what they are and that their behavior is based upon circumstance, their environment, or lack of therapy or medication. Facing the truth about my abilities and my work ethic put me on track, helped me choose a good vocation, and helped me to understand how I needed to improve my work ethic. Subsequently, instead of floating through life unsuccessfully from one job to another, I worked hard in college, graduate school, then as an employee. So the next time your kids come home and say that their teacher told them that they have to work harder, that their work or behavior is unacceptable, or they better consider going to a community college rather than Dartmouth, thank that teacher for doing something that is a rarity today: speaking the truth. It really doesn’t matter how we get to the truth as long as we get there. My guidance counselor was straight forward 35 years ago. I knew that by today’s standards that my journey getting to the truth would have to be done with a little more sensitivity, it still worked and the desired result was achieved.
