The Principal's Office First

“The state asks that the defendant, although a tadpole, be charged as a frog.”

The Principal’s Office First
New York Times Editorial
January 5th 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05mon3.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=principal&st=cse
The editorial states that; “There is little question that the police have made many schools safer. There also is growing concern that the larger number of police officers, plus zero-tolerance policies at many schools, has led to unnecessary arrests.”
Certainly it is important to have a safe school environment for the sake of the learning process but the method we have used to ensure that is archaic. Fear and threats are the not the way to make children, especially young ones behave.
Another article in the Times addressed the same issue a month ago when a first grader robbed a classmate in school with a table knife. It would seem that it is exactly these kinds of situations that have caused the recent increase in school security.
First Grader in 1$ Robbery my Face Expulsion
By Yolanne Almanzar
December 3rd 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/us/04knife.html?scp=1&sq=child%20armed%20robbery%20school&st=cse
Though this is a very disturbing case a few trips to the school psychologist may be in order but certainly not an arrest. There is a reason why we have different consequences for minors: they don’t understand what they are doing in the same way that adults do. Though it isn’t much different being a 17 year old or 18 year old, 7 and 18 is quite a range. We cannot expect children to have as deep an understanding of the meaning and consequences of their actions. No doubt this child is now facing more serious emotional crises than before.
As we can see it can cause more problems than it solves, as children get arrested frequently for crimes that could be handled within the school.
My suggestion: require more child psychology classes for teachers and encourage them to continue taking them throughout their careers. Children cannot be handled the same way that adults are. The human brain isn’t fully formed until age 25, that combined with a lack of experience explains many of the behavior problems in schools. The first step should be to see if the problem can be handled without the principal, simply by trying to understand the problem instead of indiscriminately punishing them. For example in preschool I once got into a verbal fight with a friend that resulted in a play kitchen being knocked over. Thankfully my childhood was not scared by a trip to the police station; rather my teacher took us aside and had us talk about the problem after a time out. That is an appropriate response for the age of the child.
Though kids shouldn’t feel that their school is a safe zone where anything goes the responses to their actins should be reasonable. We should focus more on preventing the situation in the future than scaring and punishing.

Amanda Furcall