Yesterday, my 8 year-old grandson said, seemingly out of nowhere, “Rules are made to be broken, laws are made to be followed.” I’m not sure all rules are made to be broken or that all laws must be followed, but there are surely rules (and laws) that shouldn’t exist.
So on point! A personal story for you - I went to a progressive private high school in the early 1980s. We called our teachers by their first names. At one point there were a couple of very minor incidents of vandalism. Basically, a few boys snuck into the girls’ bathroom and did things like writing love notes on the mirror in lipstick. It was practical joke stuff.
The administration decided that the cause of this behavior was that we just didn't respect our school enough. They switched to last names. It was SO awkward! It was the equivalent of all the staff announcing they had changed their names. Many teachers didn't like it. One teacher performed an original song about the importance of calling someone by their preferred name. We students pointed out that this stunt of changing how we address teachers had nothing to do with respect, and was just causing us to address teachers as “Johnath- I mean, Mr. Paul?” I suggested that if we brought back the practice of the students cleaning the school, that we might take better care of it. All the other kids glared at me, but the Head of the high school decided to do it. Of course, it worked!
If you care about students, you don't try to harm them. You look for solutions to problems. If bills like KASSA pass, there will be funding to train people in methods like Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (by Ross Greene at livesinthebalance.org). Perhaps we are still seeing punitive discipline because people don't know any better?
So on point! A personal story for you - I went to a progressive private high school in the early 1980s. We called our teachers by their first names. At one point there were a couple of very minor incidents of vandalism. Basically, a few boys snuck into the girls’ bathroom and did things like writing love notes on the mirror in lipstick. It was practical joke stuff.
The administration decided that the cause of this behavior was that we just didn't respect our school enough. They switched to last names. It was SO awkward! It was the equivalent of all the staff announcing they had changed their names. Many teachers didn't like it. One teacher performed an original song about the importance of calling someone by their preferred name. We students pointed out that this stunt of changing how we address teachers had nothing to do with respect, and was just causing us to address teachers as “Johnath- I mean, Mr. Paul?” I suggested that if we brought back the practice of the students cleaning the school, that we might take better care of it. All the other kids glared at me, but the Head of the high school decided to do it. Of course, it worked!
If you care about students, you don't try to harm them. You look for solutions to problems. If bills like KASSA pass, there will be funding to train people in methods like Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (by Ross Greene at livesinthebalance.org). Perhaps we are still seeing punitive discipline because people don't know any better?