Last week a group of Oregon high school graduates got into deep trouble for bouncing a beach ball during graduation. Every student who touched the ball was forced to undergo four hours of community service or detention before they would receive their diploma. This story made great news on the Lars Larson program. The story was a classic example of liberal’s “weak-on-crime”, “tough-on-civilians” philosophy. In academia it easy for liberals to lay the hammer down on student’s small mistakes, but let the more unruly students off the hook.
One teacher told me the story of a student who made crude sexual jokes about his teacher during an assembly speech. The teacher wanted the student to punished, but the administration wouldn’t touch it for fear that the punishment might be seen as racist. There is an unwillingness to fight parents or weather any form of controversy among administrators. The end result is that unlawful actions get ignored and teachers and students get unprotected.
Teachers complain that disciplining students requires too much paperwork, and that sending kids to the head office only results in having them bounced back in minutes. Many teachers have given up altogether and tried a new popular technique of sending troubled student to the neighboring classroom to sit. The student ends up feeling disorientated in the new environment and end up being quiet. Such disciplining tactics are a way for teachers to bond together to stop disruptive students because the system has failed them.
How administrators fight school violence reminds me a lot of the beach ball incident of over-reaction. One student on dress-up day was sent home because he brought a toy cowboy pistol to class. One Oregon student was chastised for drawing a gun on the soldier art project he was drawing.
If you want to fight school gun violence why not allow the effective NRA’s Eddie Eagle program to be taught, allow random locker searches, or kick violent kids out of school instead of recycling them. All such viable solutions end up being opposed by liberals.
While liberals continue their heavy handed crusade against beach balls and costumed cowboys, we the average Oregonians will continue to point to real life stories of students committing tragedies that go unpunished.