April 11, 2008...4:31 am
THE THUG CULTURE IN BALTIMORE
Yikes.
A Baltimore public school teacher was beaten by a thug student, whose friends recorded the assault on a cell phone camera then posted the video on the Internet.
What’s more, when the teacher went to school administrators to report the assault, the school refused to contact the police on her behalf.
Watch a local TV news report which features the assault.
The school principal actually told the teacher that when she said she would defend herself, that was a “trigger word,” in effect blaming the victim for inciting the attack.
This principal is a joke. She’d rather have a teacher threatened and intimidated by a thug in the classroom, forced to call for security while the other students join in the mocking and ridicule of the teacher than deal with the thug.
And now one Drive By Media outlet says this assault is the result of teachers being poorly trained in defusing potential physical conflicts.
The grainy cell-phone video of a student hitting Baltimore art teacher Jolita Berry in her classroom, replayed in the national news and on the Internet, has reinforced the wide concern among school safety experts that teachers often don’t receive enough training in how to defuse potentially dangerous confrontations with students. Berry’s case has angered local officials, who said they would hold a meeting to try to find ways to give teachers skills to deal with disruptive students.
Hey, here’s a novel thought: how about getting the violent thugs out of the classroom? The entire article seems to place blame on the teacher for confronting the unruly thug, implying that when a teacher exercises his or her authority in dealing with a student, he or she runs the risk of embarrassing the student by making him or her look weak in from of the student’s peers.
Well, boo-freaking-hoo. There’s that emphasis on self-esteem, coupled with the hip-hop, gangsta thug culture which focuses on narcissistic “respect” and violently confronting anyone perceived as “dissing” you.
This is dangerous territory.
Get the thugs out of the schools and maybe some teaching and learning can take place.
5 Comments
April 11, 2008 at 10:42 am
Hey, here’s a novel thought: how about getting the violent thugs out of the classroom?
Here’s another: arm the teachers.
April 11, 2008 at 11:50 am
Just one more argument for a separate “school for disrupters” staffed by instructors physically capable of commanding respect in the classroom and operating under a completely different set of “rules of engagement”.
April 11, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Hey, but at least the students feel good about themselves. And then they wonder why many inner cities are basically written off.
April 14, 2008 at 1:38 am
As someone who is looking forward to teaching in public schools, the thought of being assaulted by a student scares me to death. No one should ever be afraid to go to work, and the classroom is no different. Just because the majority of the students are under eighteen does not mean their violent actions should be taken any less seriously. In fact, their young age only makes a lenient punishment worse; they need to suffer consequence that force them to realize that violence will not be tolerated in this country.
I completely agree that students who are threats in the classroom should be sent to alternative schools. If other students see that this behavior is tolerated and does not call for expulsion, then the message being sent is that it is okay to act this way. Instead, students should be expelled if they show any acts of violence that are considered threats to teachers, administrators, or other students. If not expelled, they should at least be suspended for a period of time during which they must go to the alternative school. Ideally, these schools would be boarding schools with structures comparable to that of prisons. Let us give these students a taste of true punishment, so that they learn their lessons.
However, I do wonder about the funding for the schools. I have heard all the statistics about more money being spent on prisons than on schools. I would hate to see the funding for alternative schools be taken from public schools so that they suffer. Would it not be great if the parents had to pay to send their children there? Most would agree that most behavior issues are a result of a bad home life. If a student is willing to assault a teacher, he or she obviously has no respect for authority, which most definitely stems from bad parenting.
At any rate, these students cannot under any circumstance be allowed to remain in the classroom after proving that they are violent threats. If there are no consequences for bad behavior, then students will never understand that it is not tolerated.
April 23, 2008 at 11:18 am
I’m kind of split on this one. The idealist in me says this kid (thug) MIGHT have potential, and we should give him a nurturing environment and try to change him. Who knows, he might actually become a beneficial member of society if we as a society can reform him…somehow.
The realist in me says that someone of this age is NOT going to change. Basically: once a thug, always a thug. And, thus, maybe the best place for him to be is in one of our fine prisons.
Maybe there’s some middle ground. Obviously we have to quarantine him somehow because the teachers simply cannot execute their duties with this going on. So basically put him in an alternative school (or worse yet a prison) and try to rehabilitate him there. I dunno, it’s worth a shot.
Leave a Reply