Rock on
The kids in this town have an absolute fixation with rock-throwing. I can think of easily six or eight rock-throwing incidents from this year alone, from throwing rocks at cars to hurling rocks at teachers. To make matters worse, the xeriscaping around the playground is riddled with stones from golfball- to cobble- sized. A maintenance man told me they had to replace windows in an outbuilding at least once a month.
Today, a teeny little waif of a fifth-grader came in crying, covering one eye, asking to go to the nurse. Someone had thrown a rock and hit her in the face. The usual round of questioning took place and yielded a suspect-- a classmate who always seems to believe (at Mom's urging) that the rules don't apply to him. When asked about it, he said he was holding the rock and twirling in a circle when it just flew out of his hand.
*stunned silence*
Today, a teeny little waif of a fifth-grader came in crying, covering one eye, asking to go to the nurse. Someone had thrown a rock and hit her in the face. The usual round of questioning took place and yielded a suspect-- a classmate who always seems to believe (at Mom's urging) that the rules don't apply to him. When asked about it, he said he was holding the rock and twirling in a circle when it just flew out of his hand.
*stunned silence*
spoken by Sister Morpheme at 4:56 PM
4 Rants:
Maybe it's a materials issue, an outcome of confiscating slingshots and water pistols. I'm trying to remember what we little thugs threw in south Louisiana. Mudballs I think. I suppose zeroscaping with silly putty is out of the question.
Well, yeah...but inmates can make shanks out of almost anything. I don't think the solution is to remove anything & everything with the potential for harm. It's the mentality that I find disturbing. We could have a yard full of feathers and said Silly Putty and there would still be some evil little MacGyvers making pipe bombs or something.
Having hypocritical adults scream threats at them as a countermeasure hardly helps either. Surrounded by domestic violence, shoot 'em up gun culture, and do as I say not as I do, why should they heed admonitions, especially when it counters the truth they actually see. Scattered exceptions are not enough to outweigh the hypocrites.
Comment about Louisiana middle school students displaced by Katrina:
"They were thrown into a classroom without close monitoring, without the necessary mental health help that they needed, and the only thing they had left that they owned was their ego," said Tommy Cowsar, a volunteer who has been teaching children on site at Renaissance Village. "When they were pushed slightly, they pushed back."
PS Louisiana's public education system quite often (if not usually) ranks lower than NM's. They jockey for bottom position.
Post a Comment
<< Home