On Monday, a male student went up to his teacher, slapped her twice in the face, and then called her a “bitch” in front of a laughing, making fun of North Carolina classroom.
Every day, fights and beatings in schools are shown all over the world. The girl who left was shaking after another girl hit her head on the ground.
A crowd of people laughed as an 11-year-old was hit on the ground.
A big kid in high school beat up a little kid in third grade badly on the bus.
Even though I’m sad about the bloodshed, I’m glad that so many of the events have been caught on camera. I’ve stopped fights in schools and stopped students from breaking the law while they yelled “F–k your dead dad” at someone.
I know how schools work now. In order for laws to change, the people need to see and feel it.
A study by the American Psychological Association in 2022 found that 14% of teachers had been physically abused by a student and 33% had been verbally threatened or harassed by a student.
Another poll backs up the idea that these aren’t just old people complaining about “kids these days.”
Since the pandemic, the number of fights between students and between students has doubled. These videos of violence and disrespect are not unusual; they are the standard.
This chaos is caused by a lot of things, including people’s loss of trust in schools, annoying TikTok trends and fads, the pandemic, careless parenting trends, and probably more.
But one thing in particular was a clear result of school policy: almost all schools got rid of discipline.
It’s always the same story. Restorative justice supporters think that adult power and discipline are too harsh, so schools don’t punish minor offenses and defiance.
Kids quickly figure out that they can get away with almost anything, and schools and places become a mess.
It’s not a surprise that most teachers want tighter rules and say that only a few students constantly cause problems.
This loss of control in school needs to be fixed in a way similar to how “broken windows” police cut down on crime in the 1990s.
Progressives don’t like it when schools punish kids for minor offenses like disobeying rules or being rude, and they want officials to only punish the worst offenders.
But this is so far backwards that it’s almost medieval. Modern social science has proven what Alexis de Tocqueville saw: “when justice is more certain and more mild, it is more effective.” This means that “when justice is more certain and more mild, it is more effective.”
Schools need to do something. Misbehavior shows up as a looser tie if they give detentions for dress code violations.
If a kid gets in trouble for talking back, it lets his friends know that rules have been and will be followed.
Kids will know that basic behavior is expected, that doing their best is encouraged, and that this school does not accept any kind of bad behavior if they miss recess because they didn’t follow directions.
If, on the other hand, consequences are only given for major offenses, students will think that adults don’t expect anything better from them, that they can do whatever they want, and that schools are no longer a safe or place to learn.
