Differentiated Discipline -- Is It Time?

Lost in the hubbub surrounding the release and interpretation of this year's NAEP scores (yawn) is a fascinating and powerful story in the Chicago Tribune about what happens when researchers analyze another kind of performance -- suspension rates -- by race and poverty groups.

The fact that black kids --especially boys -- are disproportionately affected is vivid but not surprising. (Even though the suspension rates are double and even triple what they should be.) The fact that black middle class kids are suspended at higher rates, too, is a little more eye-opening. (Black students are no more likely to misbehave than other students from the same SES background.) And the reactions of schools with these different outcomes is perhaps the most interesting of all. (Many defend the differences because they are applying a uniform discipline standard.)

Are discipline codes being applied uniformly in schools? Does it make sense to use them if their real-world results are so skewed? What about some "differentiated" discipline to go along with all the adjustments and tailoring that is being done on the instructional side? We know that kids don't all benefit from uniform instruction. National story here. Chicago story here.

Comments

[Sandra]

Alexander are you attempting to discuss the black middle class complex of wanting to be "ghetto?" Does it exist, sure it does. Those of us who are black teachers have seen it not only among our students, but among our own children or in our middle class friends' children.

This is a problem that to put it simply drives sucessful black middle class families crazy and frightens us for our children. Let me be clear I an not talking about acting white, I am talking about middle class black children who confuse black culture with gang/drug dealing ghetto life styles. What better example is there of the idealization of that culture than the reality of the quarterback for the Falcons and the dog fighting operation he was running that will completely destroy his life.

So yes we have got a problem with discipline and control over some of our children who are from middle class families. Does this explain why middle class black children are suspended at higher rates than their white counter parts? To some degree I think it does. But is there racism involved, in some cases yes there is.

[cermak_rd]

I don't see how you can thread the needle with differentiated discipline and not come out with something that's an injustice system. I think the "Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports" program they're trying out in Austin may be a better solution, essentially training teachers and students to interact appropriately with each other, so that students aren't punished for simple communication snafus.

How many students are suspended in CPS for silliness? It seems like it's difficult to suspend a student even for assault, so I can't imagine that many are suspended for frivolous reasons.

I think we have to meet half way on this, Alexander. Unless people have spoken views of hatred of the races, they do not think they are racist. Yet whites who pass over people of color for initial employment or promotion are often making unconscious judgements about how 'comfortable' they feel about the person, or concernded about how well they will 'fit in'.

In other words, while I will give you there could be a phenomenon such as that suggested in another thread, that minorities are harder on their own, or that standards of behavior could be different across racial and ethnic groups, the fact is that whites set those standards which even minority administrators and educators are enforcing, and many if not most whites' unconscious inclinations are to be suspicious or afraid of young black men, even when they clearly are children, as in the case of the Jena 6.

I see 'discipline' cases such as this one and the one last year with the fifteen year old girl who had been in jail for months on a school behavior incident, and then contrast these proceedings against the solving of the Martha Moxley murder.

Martha Moxley was a Greenwich Connecticut teenager from a well-to-do familiy, who was bludgeoned to death over thirty years ago, when she was fifteen. Her murderer was a neighbor, also fifteen at the time.

But - he also happened to be wealthy and a relative of the Kennedys, to boot.

When he was finally caught, he was already 40 years old. Yet incredibly, he was initially charged to stand trial ::as a juvenile::. This was eventually rectified by another judge after the ensuing media storm triggered outrage even in that community.

I always think about that case when I see young children recruited into gang-banging activities here in Chicago, where the outrage at how ::young:: they are - fourteen, ten, even seven, causes judges to order them tried as adults.

On what planet does this make sense?

How are these actions not colored by peoples' perception or the race and social position of the players in these tragedies?

Are we suggesting that CPS is too harsh in punishing disruptive students? Are we too strict? Are our schools too controlled and controlling?

How many schools' academic programs are off track because of behavior problems? When is the last time you walked through a school, elementary or high school, and thought, the adminstration needs to loosen up and let the students be a little more disrespectful or disobedient?

I refuse to let my students' academic performance suffer because of misbehavior in the classroom. If anyone thinks that makes me a racist, so be it. I'm okay with that, as long as my students succeed.

[AndrewP]

Only one thing comes to my mind: Is the process applied equally? If it is applied equally then whatever the results, it doesn't matter. If 75% of suspensions are applied to African-Americans or any other identifiable group then that's the result we should live with. Cultures and sub-cultures and their values apply. Any identifiable racial and/or ethnic group are not the same - duh! I was at one school where African-american students were beat up right outside the classroom when they did well academically for "acting white." At another school that I transferred to, that particular destructive dynamic among African-americans is muted. Same city, same school system but different neighborhoods.

Life isn't perfect and neither is our nation. We can only strive towards perfection. Our nation at least tries and re-examines itself often.

Again, the only thing we can do is apply the discipline process as evenly as possible. But because of different cultural and sub-cultural dynamics, the results can be wildly different.

Is there racism and bigotry in the school system? Sure there is. We can only supress it and strive towards the ideals. On my block I am the only caucasian in an African-American neighborhood. My relatives won't even visit me because they are scared. But I moved here from the northern suburbs and have found my neighbors refreshingly open and friendly - better than the suburbs. Yet, I live in a neigborhood that has the highest arrest rate in the city; 14 year olds on the corner selling drugs and supporting their parents mortgages; 8-10 year olds are mules and watch out for cops. Yet, they are a tiny minority among the neighborhood, but they are extremly visible. You can see the different cultures and sub-cultures within a block distance. However, if you go to south lake shore drive, many of those particular blacks are very well off playing on the golf course trying to be Tiger Woods.

The ghetto mentality is extremly destructive and demeaning leading to, at worst, a criminal & immoral life and, at best, if they reform, a mediocre life working jobs that will not bring them upward mobility.

To clarify some of the issues of disparities between races I suggest the book Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell.

The ghetto mentality is not restricted to blacks but finds itself expressed in different groups throughout the world. Black culture, which is not the same everywhere in the United States, has changed and will change again. That's the way life happens with every segment of the population.

Finally, again, the process should be equally applied as best as possible and let the results and its disparities be a comment on the culture.

For those who try to classify my thoughts as racist, I respond by saying that I am a cultural elitist. My culture is better than the sterotypical ghetto, hillbilly, or whatever negative category mentioned.

I think the issue is not about differentiating discipline once an incident is referred outside the classrom; the real issue is training teachers and students to communicate more effectively, as Cermak Rd pointed out with PBIS.

Another good book on this subject is Lisa Delpit's "Other People's Children," which goes into some depth about the troubles young white middle class teachers can get into using styles they are comfortable with to manage other people's children. Her basic point is that kids who are used to very directive approaches to behavior will tend to misbehave when confronted with the equivalent of "Would you like to sit down now?"

New teachers--how many of you were taught classroom management techniques as part of your training. If my experience in grad school was any indicator, I expect very few got really serious, helpful training.

Ghetto mentality is born of despair. It is returned to, even when offered an escape, or even when one has escaped, out of fear.

Commenting that your 'culture' is better is one of the attitudes that causes despair.

As teachers we must be able to communicate to both students and their parents that we only reject the actions that keep a society back, not the persons who committed them. Members of society trapped in a lifestyle should not judged unless those judging have walked in those shoes.

Children should not only be shown that education offers choice and choice=freedom, but that it is possible to continue to love ones family and ones parents even as you are making different choices with your life.

We conversely should acknowledge that however differently these parents are raising their children, we are not prepared to take on their responsibilities 24/7 (the few teachers I know who've done that for just one student will tell you what a challenge it is).

I think that is the greater pitfall for young teachers, is that as difficult as it is to teach without judging when you have kids, it is really a challenge when you haven't done so yet.

I am not judging you; I am including myself in this group. Who among us didn't sniff at our own friends' struggles with their children born before we had started our own families, then understood how dificult each parenting decision is?

Gardeners in the audience - how hard would you continue to try to grow plants in Chicago rated out of zone 5 (our frost zone). How enthusiastic could you continue to be all spring and summer, knowing the first frost would kill your baby?

Despair, folks. Despair and then fear is the enemy.

All of us, not just our students' parents, are afraid of being judged. And that fear makes us do odd things, and make odd choices.

[George Schmidt]

When I used to have student teachers, one of the things I included in my agenda was "Your F--- You Moment."

The problem is always in your face when you reach the "F--- You" moment in a classroom or school (hallway; gym; lunchroom). Usually, Johnny or Janie knows precisely why he or she is challenging your authority at that moment. The thing is not to ask "Why did you say that?" which simply prolongs the control the person attacking continues to have. And it's going to happen if you teach anywhere, just more likely sooner in hard core poverty areas. People are angrier, and for good reason. But there has to be a way of keeping that anger down in school.

The second problem is actual behavior.

If all of the batteries and murders in a population group were committed by the Star Bellied Sneeches, and the Plain Bellied Sneeches didn't beat up or murder other Sneeches, why wouldn't it be appropriate for a society to punish the behavior at all times when it takes place?

Or would it then be a quotat system, where you could only arrest a certain number (or percentage) of Star Bellied Sneeches every month?

For more than 40 years, the reason the gangs have given the gun to "Shorty" (age 13) is that they know, better than most teachers, the ground level reality of American justice. If Biggy (age 18) pops a cap in Spooknose's, er, bottom, Biggy gets hard time in DOC.

But if Shorty does the same thing, Shorty gets Nancy B and out (with no record?) by Age 21.

It just happened a few blocks from my home a little over a year ago. A young man was murdered at the corner of Belle Plaine adjacent to Dickenson Park. The murderer had been doing such things before -- but as a Short Star-Bellied Sneech. So he was back on the street to do it again.

I know. I know.

We're always picking on the children.

It's the behavior, not the individual, that justice has the power and the right to curb. And it's what every one of our children (my three sons, the kids in our classes) should be learning and being taught -- both in theory and in practice.

Otherwise we're heading fast into more barbarism. (I say more because we've certainly got enough of it to go around, even leaving out Baghdad and environs).

[1.04]

The Blink

You hear it before you see it. A rapid oooch,oooch,oooch, rising in volume and
Getting closer every second. Students rushing in from classrooms drawn in like the suction of a F5 tornado. The blob of swirling humanity flows as if it is alive, fight.
Call security, no intercom third floor, forget security here we go. Use the swim method to get to the center of the vortex. Turn your body sideways and fling aside anyone who is in the way .Finally exposed two boys flailing away. Thank god it is personal and not gang
Business. By this time you are not alone more faculty are punching their way through.
But you are the first one in the melee so it is on you. The move, dangerous but effective, is your play. Duck down, get to the side , come up between the brawlers
Under the pumping arms. Smash one backwards with your rear end, shove the one facing you with everything you got. Instant separation glorious space. Make a rapid 90-degree
Turn look the , hopefully stunned, protagonists right in the eye and say stop. Usually
By this time the Calvary or their friends have restrained one. Whatever happens?
Keep them apart. Now comes the strange part. Furious bloody angry kids will suddenly
Blink and it’s all over.
Down to discipline 10-days off. Two more Black Kids are suspended. Just another
day in the hood.

[George Schmidt]

"...Turn look the,hopefully stunned, protagonists right in the eye and say stop. Usually by this time the Calvary or their friends have restrained one. Whatever happens? Keep them apart..."

This worked until one afternoon at Manley when my finger got caught under the leather glove of one of the protagonists (gloves hands to preserve softness underneath and all that) and when the two of us went flying in opposite directions you could hear the corkscrew SNAP (the finger; mine) like a dried chicken bone. Eventually, something like that will happen. The question is what you do next time the circle forms. Because if you back away...

Also...

It doesn't work if the protagonists are girls. Never get between two. Especially if they've greased up.

Greased up? Have we been insulted?

I find it frustrating that there are two comments posted essentially saying, "But I'm not racist." We immediately become on the defensive about race and what people might call us or how we view ourselves. It stifles the conversation. There is so much finger-pointing and attacking of others that we don't look closely enough at ourselves. We try to have the definitive word on whatever the topic is and stop listening.

I struggled with disruptive kids when teaching, at Manley actually, and there were days when I wanted them out. But I also realized that if I started picking and choosing which kids I thought were "teachable" or "save-able" that I was doing on a classroom level what happens across the board. We need to find ways to help our young people connect to school and to other alternatives to violence and the streets. It is TOO easy to kick them out and write them off. That changes nothing. Yes, maybe your classroom will be quieter for a few days, but nothing really changes, not on a substantial level.

As someone posted earlier, it IS about despair and hopelessness. If we do not have hope for these children, for "other people's children," what is the point? It's an exercise in futility then and we're all just spinning our wheels and going nowhere. I appreciate everyone's struggle to learn and engage in trying to find my own path and muddle through. Godspeed.

I just heard from a friend whose niece is at Farragut that the administration has threatened to suspend seniors who complained about receiving freshman schedules.

How's that for getting suspended for silliness?