“People who love themselves
don’t hurt other people.”
~ Dan Pearce, Author
Middle school kids can be cruel, thoughtless, dishonest, belligerent, and downright mean. Of course, they can also be incredibly kind, thoughtful, honest, cooperative, and downright funny! As an educator, it’s easy to enjoy a group of students who are basically nice and considerate to their classmates. When such is not the case, however, teaching can be both challenging and disheartening.
In early June 1981, as the academic year was coming to an end, I let my seventh grade students at St. Christopher School in San José know that I was not only disappointed, but outraged by the way some of them treated their classmates. They were vicious and relentless in their bullying and exclusion of several of their more vulnerable classmates. No one had complained about this. Those who were bullied were probably accustomed to being treated that way by their classmates. I never received a complaint from a parent, but I was disgusted, and I let my students know this on the last day of school. Judging by the muttering I overheard as the students exited the classroom, it seemed that my message had not been not well-received.
Something magical happened during the summer of 1981. When those same students returned as eighth graders in September, they were different. Noticeably different. Their attitude, individually and collectively, was decidedly improved. They worked together collaboratively in the classroom and on the school yard. The cliques that had been so recognizable the previous year had dissolved. There seemed to be an amazing sense of collegiality among the kids. I hoped that this improvement would last throughout the academic year. It did. I don’t know that I have had a better experience of teaching than that 1981-82 academic year.
Fast forward forty years… to 2022. While middle school kids today can still be kind, thoughtful, honest, and cooperative, some also continue to be cruel, thoughtless, dishonest, and downright mean. But things have changed. Teachers today must be more careful about calling their students to accountability for their actions. Should they summon-up the courage to do so, teachers have to be prepared for backlash — from students who feel entitled to do and say whatever they damned well feel like doing and saying; from indignant parents who blindly believe that their children are models of excellence and incapable of being anything less than ideal citizens; and even administrators, who feel pressured by parents to discipline the teacher for what they perceive to be unprofessional behavior. Yes, calling students to accountability for their actions in an honest, straight-forward manner is considered by some parents today to be unprofessional behavior. Go figure.
I’m fairly confident that kids who are chastised by their teacher for inappropriate behavior today understand the validity of the teacher’s condemnation. Despite this, however, many of these same kids know that mommy or daddy will step-in to defend them, even though they know themselves that they were guilty of wrongdoing. The parents, then, verbally attack the teacher, and when the teacher stands firmly by what was said to the students, parents turn to the principal and/or higher authority figures demanding that action be taken against the teacher. Sadly, those in authority often submit to the parental pressure and treat the teacher as the problem.
As is true in so many other areas of society today, we are moving in the wrong direction when it comes to calling children to accountability for their actions. Too many parents and school administrators lack the courage and integrity to support the professional teacher they hired to educate the whole child — which includes teaching the values we need our children to develop to be contributing members of society in the future. And we wonder why so many teachers are saying “Enough!” and exploring different career paths.
I am grateful for those educators who have the courage and integrity to tell it like it is and challenge their students to improve their attitude and behavior. The job of teachers today is to see in their students what the students don’t see in themselves — until they do.
