|
 n
May 9, 2001, a fifth-grader was handcuffed at Oldsmar Elementary
School near Tampa, and taken into custody by police. "That's normal
procedure in a situation like this," said school district spokesman
Ron Stone.
What crime could this youthful offender have committed to warrant
such treatment? His dastardly deed, ferreted out by an alert teacher,
had been to draw some pictures of weapons. And the punishment meted
out, aside from the lifelong trauma that comes from being treated
like a violent criminal, was suspension from school — the same
punishment he would have received had he actually brought a firearm
to school. Said principal David Schmitt, "the boy probably won't
return for the rest of the year and probably would be moved to another
school." Added Schmitt reassuringly, "The children were in no danger
at all. It involved no real weapons."
Now consider the CD Violence, released last fall by the group
Nothingface.
One of the songs, "American Love," contains the following lyrics:
"We all just want to see…you get kicked in the face….
I'm here to wait for all the killing…". In another selection,
"Blue Skin," one hears the lyrics, "I got machine guns. And yes
they're lots of fun. We got some bullets and we're mowin' everybody
down…".
These selections, and the rest, are filled with obscenities and
violence. Yet Violence is considered "creative" and "artistic"
— and if you dare to criticize it, the Hollywood elite will
condemn you as intolerant. But where's the concern for children
who get expelled from school for much more benign art?
Many adult Americans today smugly contrast themselves with their
narrow-minded, intolerant ancestors. Back in the 1890s, for example,
there were many parents and teachers who forbade young people to
dance, play cards, or attend the theater. In the middle decades
of the twentieth century, teenage schoolgirls were warned against
wearing patent leather shoes, because the shoes might reflect their
underwear.
While it's easy to smirk at hyper-fearful parents and teachers who
pestered children about Whist or patent leather shoes, less amusing
is the realization that many of today's educators have far surpassed
their ancestors in imposing absurd restrictions on young people.
Today's restrictions go by the name of "zero tolerance," and for
once, this is a government program aptly named. To have "zero tolerance"
is the same as to have "no tolerance," which is the same as being
"intolerant" or "bigoted" — the precise opposite of "celebrating
diversity" or "embracing tolerance." And just as we might expect
as much from programs that revel in intolerance, "zero tolerance"
is used by an increasing number of so-called "educators" to suppress
the behavior of students who deviate from today's politically correct
norm.
As originally conceived in the 1980s, "zero tolerance" had nothing
to do with expelling children from school for thought crimes involving
art projects or playground time. Rather, "zero tolerance" meant
setting strict rules against bringing guns, knives, or potentially
dangerous items to school, and imposing automatic and uniform discipline
for violators. The inflexible nature of the system was meant to
protect schools against discrimination complaints by racial-minority
students who violated the rules.
"Zero tolerance," however, has morphed into a thought-control program
that would have impressed Chairman Mao. In an
August 2000 report, Prof. Russell Skiba, Director of Indiana
University's Institute for Child Study, noted that, "School punishments
greatly out of proportion to the offense arouse controversy by violating
basic perceptions of fairness inherent in our system of law."
A perfect example was reported by the Associated Press on January
31, when "an 8-year-old boy was suspended from school for 3 days
after pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and saying
'Pow, pow, pow'. The incident apparently violated the Jonesboro
[Ark.] School District's 'zero tolerance' policy against weapons."
South Elementary principal Dan Sullivan said that, "The school has
zero-tolerance rules because the public wants them." After Jonesboro's
1998 school shootings, said Sullivan, "People saw real threats to
the safety and security of their students."
How silly must school administrators become in order to convince
the public that children playing with a chicken finger are "real
threats" to "safety and security"?
Declared Sullivan, punishment for a threat "depends on the tone,
the demeanor, and in some manner you judge the intent. It's not
the object in the hand, it's the thought in the mind. Is a plastic
fork worse than a metal fork? Is a pencil a weapon?"
On March 24, the Associated Press reported that a third-grade honor
student at Lenwil Elementary School in West Monroe, La., was suspended
for three days because he drew a picture of a soldier holding a
knife and a canteen. The picture also included a fort filled with
appropriate gear, including rifles, handguns, knives, and first-aid
kits. The school's principal defended the suspension because the
school "can't tolerate anything that has to do with guns or knives."
In fact, the school could tolerate drawings of soldiers, Civil War
battle scenes, police officers, and lots of other things that involve
guns or knives. They're present in our history books and our monuments
all across America, which honor those who have sacrificed their
lives for the liberty we Americans now enjoy. The school simply
chose to be intolerant. Punishing a third-grader for drawing a picture
of soldier doesn't make anyone safer.
Willie Isby, director of Child Welfare and Attendance for the Ouachita
Parish School System, called the student's picture "a violent arrangement
here" — even though the picture simply depicts a standing soldier,
and contains no violence.
"The punishment is not that bad in this case," Isby continued, "in
light of the fact that we have been having all these killings in
schools."
Isby's quote gets to the heart of modern "zero tolerance" policies,
under which third-graders are turned into scapegoats and punished
(even though they did nothing wrong) because the real criminals
(e.g., school shooters) are beyond the power of school officials
to punish.
Put another way, the schools themselves are perpetrating classic
bullying behavior. Emory University primatologist Frans
de Waal observes that most monkey or ape species have designated
scapegoats, who get picked on when the group is under stress. De
Waal explained, "The scapegoat also gives the high-ranking individuals
in the group a common enemy, a unifier. By uniting against the scapegoat
in moments of tension, it creates a bond."
Thus, when the high-ranking individuals in a school (administrators,
psychologists, and teachers) are under stress (because of highly
publicized school violence), they can unite by bullying the scapegoat
— namely the children who commit thought crimes.
Late last year, a third-grade boy in Pontiac, Mich., was suspended
because he brought a one-and-one-half inch "gun-shaped medallion"
to school. It wasn't a real gun, or a even a toy gun, only the symbol
of a gun. Punishing a child for a wearing a medallion is —
like punishing a child for artwork — simply a form of thought
control and bullying.
The reason that's usually given for zero-tolerance policies in schools
is the reduction of aggressive behavior. But does the process of
denying civil rights to children succeed in creating a safer learning
environment? Does promoting administrative bullying really reduce
aggression? Not according to Prof. Skiba, who concluded from a comprehensive
review of the literature that there is an "almost complete lack
of documentation linking zero tolerance with improved school safety
…Zero Tolerance is a political response, not an educationally
sound solution…. The most extensive studies suggest a negative
relationship between school security measures and school safety."
Concluded Rand Institute behavioral scientist Jaana Juvonen in
the March 9 issue of Salon, solutions to combat juvenile
violence "may not only be ineffective but may actually backfire."
Juvonen singled out "zero tolerance" policies as being the worst
example.
In short, there's no reason to believe "zero tolerance" policies
are any more effective than wishful thinking, just like the ubiquitous
signs around our nation's schools proclaiming, "Drug-Free Zone."
One can't help but wonder if the zeal to bully scapegoats might
be diminished if school administrators believed in the existence
of Hell (a concept which was popular in the late 19th and mid-20th
century, but one which is not taken seriously among the social classes
from which today's government school administrators are drawn).
If school bureaucrats could picture the Columbine murderers spending
eternity (or at least a long time) in Hell, would they devote so
much psychic energy to punishing children who are merely exhibiting
normal development by drawing pictures of soldiers, or by wearing
trench coats?
And what of the original core of "zero tolerance": weapons in school?
Even here, the enforcement has gone insane. Brooklyn high school
student Reginald McDonald was suspended for carrying a 12-inch metal
ruler, which the school labeled a "weapon" — even though his
shop class required him to have a ruler.
In Pennsylvania, a six-year-old was expelled because he carried
a nail clipper in his backpack. The capriciousness of the nail-clipper
expulsion is a central feature of totalitarian criminal "justice":
Anyone can be punished for anything. Random punishment for innocent
acts serves to create a sense of learned helplessness in the victim
as well as in those who witness the punishment. Did this youngster
have any more reason to believe he was committing a crime than Joseph
K. did in Franz
Kafka's The Trial?
Zero tolerance isn't a program to make our children safer. Instead,
it's a program to enable the bullying of children by intolerant
adults.
|
