Thoughts on Disciplinary Actions of Schools

Some of you may have heard about the now college student girl who was strip searched by school officials when she was in middle school(click here for news article). Her case is getting ready to be heard by the Supreme Court and I'm very interested in it's outcome.

My interest stems from what the verdict may possibly mean for discipline in schools. What are the lines that schools can't cross and how would they allow unruly behavior to either go rampant or remain in check?

It seems to me that everyone calls for a tougher school system, until its their child caught doing crap and has to be dealt with. Unfortunately, I see this continuing for quite a while because lets face it - people are simply raising assholes.

Yes, thats right - people are raising asshole children. Now before everyone gets up in arms, lets look at some examples:

The student who got the girl in trouble in the afore-mentioned case by lying about where she got her pills from - an asshole.

The students I've mentioned in some of my previous posts (here and here are doozies) - all assholes. Grade A assholes because I have to live with them.

So there, prime evidence. Be aware though that this isn't to say that every child adheres to such standards of asshole-dom, it is merely to say that as a culture, we are raising some wicked evil things.

Now, if the parents are indeed doing this, what could possibly have a chance at correcting such behaviors from roaming the streets, night and day infecting the younger masses and effectively making them our future liabilities. Schools are the answer - they are the second line of defence when the parents right out fail at these things.

However, I've noticed that most educator's hands are tied. One can't do this and one can't do that - all of it makes for a very bad environment to learn. And the reason this happens is because the limits on disciplie makes it non-existent - like I said before, parents and others alike call for a stronger staff and rules to prevent extreme incidents - school shootings perhaps? - yet they are the first to call fowl when the crap hits their door step.

I see this case as the big one that will set the stage for the next wave of disciplinary reforms to come. This will either make it so that schools will do their job or make it so that things become worst. I personally advocate for a system that downright forces parents to see their child for what the really are and take action accordingly along side of the school - that way, no one can dear point fingers at another party due to the fact that all hands were involved*.

Of course, all of this really makes me question what am I going to do in regard to my own children's education. It seriously makes homeschooling look like a positive alternative.



*And even this will cause its own problems. "YOU can't tell me how to raise my child!" type rhetoric and crap. ::sighs::