11 ms·

> Social norming can work both ways. If you remove all of the students whose parents are willing and able to go through the application process, the norms of ac

> Social norming can work both ways. If you remove all of the students whose parents are willing and able to go through the application process, the norms of acceptable behavior for those left behind will move in an ugly direction and the kids who started out with the greatest disadvantages would be left to bear the burden I went to public school as a kid and the disruptive kids were expelled. Not just kicked out of class - totally kicked out of school and told to find a new one! One reason I send my kids to private school is if you don’t want to learn they will kick you out. In public schools today you get a few bad kids and it ruins the whole class. This is a big reason why teachers are quitting en masse from public schools - they are behavioral consultants rather than teachers. The pay has always sucked - it’s the lack of ability to discipline bad kids that makes it miserable, and then parents blame you for everything when you just want to teach math and go home.

bannedbybros 3y ago
[dead]
micromacrofoot 3y ago
“bad” kids don’t need discipline, they need help - of course they don’t behave well when there’s 0 modeling at home, it’s not because someone isn’t yelling at them enough - raising a child “takes a village” and many of us aren’t operating within a village anymore, we’re all stressed out and working too much
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  This is why if I had to teach I would teach college kids. I don’t want to be a therapist and bear the weight of all parents’ failures. I want to teach math. So if to be a public school K-12 teacher you have to also “model” how to be a functional human (as the kids go home and see the opposite) then I would never accept that job. I was raised by a single mom who worked a million hours and didn’t have a baby sitter when I let myself in after school. Don’t see how “working too many hours and being stressed” is a new phenomenon because most of my extended family is poor and have always been. My mom told me not to steal and don’t be an obnoxious asshole in school, wasn’t exactly rocket science.
  - mbork_pl 3y ago
    While (as a former math teacher, btw) I sympathize with you, let me point out that absolutely every teacher should "model how to be a functional human" (and in fact does, better or worse). This is true for every stage of education, from kindergarten to a university.
- briHass 3y ago
  Discipline does work; it's ultimately what the 'bad' kids get when they have runins with the criminal justice system. The lack of discipline from the parents, mentors, and teachers early on is why the State has to do it later. Discipline is not orthogonal to 'help'.
  - afavour 3y ago
    > Discipline does work; it's ultimately what the 'bad' kids get when they have runins with the criminal justice system. …and does that work? Recidivism rates would suggest otherwise.
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      Considering a large experiment has just occurred with progressive prosecutors no longer putting criminals in jail, and the SF prosecutor was recalled and a tough-on-crime mayor was elected in NYC, I think the results are that “throwing criminals in jail” works better than not.
      - afavour 3y ago
        As an NYC resident I can assure you in at least one of those examples you are vastly, vastly oversimplifying matters.
        mikeyouse 3y ago
        Both examples are silly and bad. Alameda County (Oakland) elected a tough on crime DA at about the same time as SF’s “reform” one and their crime rate increased more than SFs in that period.. there are no easy answers in policing or discipline.
        monero-xmr 3y ago
        Yes the “crime rate” when no one goes through the hassle to report petty crimes because it’s a pain in the ass and they won’t solve it anyway. The stats are a joke and everyone knows it.
- goda90 3y ago
  Yelling isn't the only form of discipline. There's withholding privileges. There's physical restraint even. Without cooperation from parents, school staff can't really do either. A teacher I know tells me how some of the violent elementary school children just get put in a room alone when they are having an episode because that's all they are allowed to do. These children (under 12 years old) have sent teachers to urgent care with injuries, and the kids are let back to school not long after.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    physical restraint and discipline addresses a symptom, not the cause — if discipline worked the US wouldn't have outrageously high prison population and recidivism rates
    - goda90 3y ago
      The US justice system isn't discipline. It's punishment. Discipline isn't just giving consequences for actions, but it's also giving tools to choose better actions.
      - micromacrofoot 3y ago
        On that I agree, but specifying "discipline" for the average person often means punishment only. This is why the prison system is the way it is... no one wants to pay for things that benefit the prisoners, just the punishment.
    - AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
      [dead]
- AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
  [dead]
- giantg2 3y ago
  '“bad” kids don’t need discipline, they need help' Some would argue that disciplining is helpful in many cases. Proper disciplining is not just punishment but should include an explaination of why what they did was wrong and what the right thing to do is. Kids having discipline is a slightly different topic, but can be partially built through the process above.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    Discipline without love or some care starts to look like authoritarianism, so if you're not careful you can instill a strong sense of oppositional defiance and make things worse. This is a very difficult problem to solve and people will often support the stick and complain that someone doesn't deserve the carrot. Everyone needs both.
- MisterTea 3y ago
  A friend taught public school in a poorer area outside of DC for about 8 years until moving into admin. He had one tactic that worked for many "bad" kids - call their parents, in the middle of the class if need be. He said today's young teachers, are non-confrontational and not used to verbal communication over phones as they were raised on social media and texting. So those young teachers sit there helpless while the student runs wild. Now in admin hes some kind of teacher manager and he had teachers come to him, sometimes physically crying, unable to deal with a child with a behavioral problem. His says 99% of the time these problems are corrected with a single phone call to the parents. Just one call but no - young teachers these days don't have the guts or social wherewithal. So his job is now teaching adults how to make phone calls. Another thing to realize is a lot of these kids do respond positively to teachers when they show them that they care and aren't there to simply baby sit and yell at them. He has had many students come to him later on thanking him for breaking their balls and setting them on the right path. Kids aren't stupid - they want respect but are treated like little monsters to be corralled and controlled like cattle. Showing the kids you truly care is incredibly powerful for them - it connects at the human emotional level and those positive interactions boosts the kids moral and they feel more confident or centered in life.
- JediWing 3y ago
  Agreed, but teachers can't be expected to be the only ones providing this help. Other public institutions outside the school system need to be in place to support the parents who are stressed and overworked and barely have time to parent. And their right to be helped stops at the line where they're causing harm to the learning of others. Discipline in schools isn't and cannot be about holistically reforming the problem kids, it's about making sure those who want to learn can. You can't dump the entirety of systemic poverty, racism, mental health, etc. on the education system and expect it to work well.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    Yep, but also many schools in the US don't even have the basics AND they're getting all of that stuff dumped on them. Teachers are quitting at alarming rates since the pandemic. This is not being treated remotely like the emergency it is, and 10 years from now we're really going to feel it.
Simulacra 3y ago
I went to a public school and disruptive kids were NEVER expelled, or kicked out of class, they were just tolerated and placated. I wish I had gone to your school because no matter how disruptive they were, or how much they bullied others in class, the school simply would not expel them. The worst they would get is after school detention. It was hugely disruptive and made life miserable for the rest of us. If only disruptive kids were expelled instead of placated MANY of us might have had a better education.
- civilized 3y ago
  Too many liberals feel such guilt about expelling disruptive kids, when the reality is just what you've said: if they stay, they don't improve and they ruin genuine learning for everyone else. It is so wrong for adults to fail to protect children who want to learn simply because they want a facade of feel-good egalitarianism.
  - afavour 3y ago
    I think it’s correct to feel guilty about expelling disruptive kids. Majority of cases they’re disruptive as a direct result of their home life, which you’re now throwing them into full time. I agree that keeping them in general education is bad too, though. A caring society would take that kid somewhere with specialised staff that will help them work through their issues.
    - zmgsabst 3y ago
      You should feel more guilty of subjecting twenty kids to the spillover of that one child’s dysfunctional life. The problem is the selective and performative guilt: Why don’t kids who have a terrible home life, but are studying diligently to better themselves and improve their lives equally deserve our help?
      - civilized 3y ago
        Exactly - this is the tragic mistake of fixating on only one type of "victim".
themitigating 3y ago
What makes a private school more likely to expell children? Since they are a for profit enterprise, unlike public schools, wouldn't there be a financial incentive to have as many customers as possible? In one particular area what is the reason a charter school would be better than a public school. Since the entry factor for most (excluding schools for smart kids) is money why wouldn't the same problems occur at a charter school? Finally, why can't we just fix public schools?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mhb 3y ago
  What makes a private school more likely to expell children? Uh, because more customers will leave if the private school is no better than a public school.
- conception 3y ago
  It’s a business where all the customers interact with one another. If it costs more in complaints, then you drop the bad apple.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  Because the paying customers will go elsewhere if they allow another paying customer to ruin it. They want 20 to stay even if they have to lose the 21st payer.
- giantg2 3y ago
  The private schools are seeking and selling quality. Plus, the majority of private schools are non-profits. Many are religiously affiliated and would like a large population as as a potential source of new religious members, but they also need some way to fund that. If a family is already paying $5k/yr in property taxes it is less likely they can afford another $10/yr for 2 kids to go to private school. The funding is the biggest blocker to increased private and charter school attendance. That's why there's so much talk about things like vouchers, 529s, etc. "Finally, why can't we just fix public schools?" That's a good question without a good answer. Perhaps the best answer is the meta that people don't agree on the course of action that would "fix" the schools since there are numerous opinions on what that is, resulting in no action or half measures.
JediWing 3y ago
This is absolutely a huge factor, if not the biggest factor in education: kids who are actively disruptive and harmful to the learning of others being kept in with other kids, draining all of the attention from the teacher. The causes and solutions are not as simple as "these kids are bad, kick them out of school", but any solution needs to involve kids who aren't disruptive and WANT to learn getting an environment conducive to that.
- stainablesteel 3y ago
  its worse than that, i have some examples of what always annoyed me: - a terrible kid was constantly given presents from a teacher, chocolates, and small things she could give him so that he would stop misbehaving in class. normally these prizes would go to a single student every day, for merit, but once this terrible person kept getting them, everyone else became pissed and demoralized. - the young kids copy the teachers behavior, and it creates this culture of "they have a harder life than you" when trying to complain about the terrible students in their vicinity (which i completely disagree with, they're not trying hard at all that's why they get like this), so when terrible people bully decent, kind, and hardworking students, there's no sympathy for the hardworking students. they get treated like shit and abused from the future-criminals who do nothing but degrade the experience of everyone who attends, then they get told "get over it, you have everything" by their peers who for whatever reason weren't bullied, and refuse to help. its cult-like behavior - you also have kids who are way too old for their grade, by at least 4 years. someone who should otherwise be way ahead of the classroom they're in is 2x the size of anyone else, is a literal delinquent, and is for some reason still allowed in the public school system where they either terrorize their classmates, get them into their same terrible habits, or bully people who express any kind of discontent with their behavior.
- tivert 3y ago
  >> I went to public school as a kid and the disruptive kids were expelled. Not just kicked out of class - totally kicked out of school and told to find a new one! One reason I send my kids to private school is if you don’t want to learn they will kick you out. In public schools today you get a few bad kids and it ruins the whole class. > The causes and solutions are not as simple as "these kids are bad, kick them out of school", but any solution needs to involve kids who aren't disruptive and WANT to learn getting an environment conducive to that. But it might not be that much more complicated. It's been a long time since I've been in school, but in our district there was an "alternative" high school, which had a reputation among the kids as the place you'd end up if you were too much of a behavior problem. That said, the kids at my schools were well-behaved in class and I never knew of anyone specific who was expelled. If behavior problems are getting more widespread, maybe embracing more of an explicit containment strategy is appropriate.
jacknews 3y ago
Indeed, and the assertion that 'only poor kids together' will behave even worse certainly needs backing up with data. It seems obvious to me (since the experiment is repeated over and over within millions of families) that environment plays a major role in behaviour, but tbh I don't see good behaviour rubbing off onto the 'bad' kids in a mixed setting, it's almost always the other way around, or at best, a productive environment is disrupted by a few troublemakers. So 'good' kids should get an environment free of disruption so they can do what they do. And the 'bad' kids should get an environment much more focused on encouraging good behaviour, so they learn to do the good stuff too. Win-win.
- II2II 3y ago
  Except you run into a few problems when implementing that, especially for public schools. Proactive parents will typically want their children in good schools, regardless of their child's behavioural history. (This doesn't mean they refuse to acknowledge the issue, though some will. It simply means they want their children to have access to better supports.) There is an overarching philosophy within the school system that integration is better than separation. I don't know if this has to be the case, but it has been historically true. Think of it this way: even though some of the best teachers may want to serve the most challenging schools, good teachers almost always want to teach in good schools. Where does that leave the challenging schools? If they're lucky, with a great teacher. More often, with a bunch of mediocre teachers. Related to that, schools rarely have the resources to distinguish between students who would benefit from integration and those who would benefit from specialized and separate programs.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jacknews 3y ago
    I don't think you should segregate schools. Just classrooms. That gives students in 'bad' classes something to aspire to, and keeps them on the map rather than being written-off to a 'poor school', and parents should realise that, though their kid is in the 'bad' class, they are getting appropriate help, not just being discarded. In some ways, the 'best' teachers should be assigned to the 'bad' kids, certainly those with the best command of a class. The 'good' kids don't need that so much.
dehrmann 3y ago
> they are behavioral consultants rather than teachers During covid, someone observed that it exposed the primary role of public schools to be day care.
- analog31 3y ago
  Except there must be a difference between school and day care because the kids who stayed home during covid are now way behind academically.
nonameiguess 3y ago
I don't get the expulsion discussion here (not just your comment, but responses as well). At least in the US, these kids legally need to be educated somewhere. Expelling doesn't remove them from the school system. It just means they'll be disrupting a different set of kids at some other school. Making something someone else's problem isn't solving the problem. It's like dealing with homelessness by rounding them up and bussing them to a different city. You could conceivably create schools composed entirely of the kids who got expelled from somewhere else, which I think some districts have actually done (continuation schools), but you're effectively creating a juvenile prison system for people who didn't commit any actual crime and definitely never got a trial.
- sixothree 3y ago
  I think that's pretty much the crux of every argument here - move those other kids somewhere else. Don't worry about improving their situation, but make my situation better. Cite a study, draw incorrect conclusions from it that support your argument, find some exception to the norm and use that as your example, and don't forget - describe how you were brought up and how that was better.
JJMcJ 3y ago
An analogy. In a dorm the week before finals, 90% of the students are urgently trying to prepare for finals. 10% are drunk and or high and playing frisbee in the halls 24 hours a day. From friends who have taught high school in poor neighborhoods the situation as similar, only more violent.

bannedbybros 3y ago

[dead]

micromacrofoot 3y ago

“bad” kids don’t need discipline, they need help - of course they don’t behave well when there’s 0 modeling at home, it’s not because someone isn’t yelling at them enough - raising a child “takes a village” and many of us aren’t operating within a village anymore, we’re all stressed out and working too much

monero-xmr 3y ago
This is why if I had to teach I would teach college kids. I don’t want to be a therapist and bear the weight of all parents’ failures. I want to teach math. So if to be a public school K-12 teacher you have to also “model” how to be a functional human (as the kids go home and see the opposite) then I would never accept that job. I was raised by a single mom who worked a million hours and didn’t have a baby sitter when I let myself in after school. Don’t see how “working too many hours and being stressed” is a new phenomenon because most of my extended family is poor and have always been. My mom told me not to steal and don’t be an obnoxious asshole in school, wasn’t exactly rocket science.
- mbork_pl 3y ago
  While (as a former math teacher, btw) I sympathize with you, let me point out that absolutely every teacher should "model how to be a functional human" (and in fact does, better or worse). This is true for every stage of education, from kindergarten to a university.
briHass 3y ago
Discipline does work; it's ultimately what the 'bad' kids get when they have runins with the criminal justice system. The lack of discipline from the parents, mentors, and teachers early on is why the State has to do it later. Discipline is not orthogonal to 'help'.
- afavour 3y ago
  > Discipline does work; it's ultimately what the 'bad' kids get when they have runins with the criminal justice system. …and does that work? Recidivism rates would suggest otherwise.
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    Considering a large experiment has just occurred with progressive prosecutors no longer putting criminals in jail, and the SF prosecutor was recalled and a tough-on-crime mayor was elected in NYC, I think the results are that “throwing criminals in jail” works better than not.
    - afavour 3y ago
      As an NYC resident I can assure you in at least one of those examples you are vastly, vastly oversimplifying matters.
      - mikeyouse 3y ago
        Both examples are silly and bad. Alameda County (Oakland) elected a tough on crime DA at about the same time as SF’s “reform” one and their crime rate increased more than SFs in that period.. there are no easy answers in policing or discipline.
        monero-xmr 3y ago
        Yes the “crime rate” when no one goes through the hassle to report petty crimes because it’s a pain in the ass and they won’t solve it anyway. The stats are a joke and everyone knows it.
goda90 3y ago
Yelling isn't the only form of discipline. There's withholding privileges. There's physical restraint even. Without cooperation from parents, school staff can't really do either. A teacher I know tells me how some of the violent elementary school children just get put in a room alone when they are having an episode because that's all they are allowed to do. These children (under 12 years old) have sent teachers to urgent care with injuries, and the kids are let back to school not long after.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  physical restraint and discipline addresses a symptom, not the cause — if discipline worked the US wouldn't have outrageously high prison population and recidivism rates
  - goda90 3y ago
    The US justice system isn't discipline. It's punishment. Discipline isn't just giving consequences for actions, but it's also giving tools to choose better actions.
    - micromacrofoot 3y ago
      On that I agree, but specifying "discipline" for the average person often means punishment only. This is why the prison system is the way it is... no one wants to pay for things that benefit the prisoners, just the punishment.
  - AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
    [dead]
AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
[dead]
giantg2 3y ago
'“bad” kids don’t need discipline, they need help' Some would argue that disciplining is helpful in many cases. Proper disciplining is not just punishment but should include an explaination of why what they did was wrong and what the right thing to do is. Kids having discipline is a slightly different topic, but can be partially built through the process above.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  Discipline without love or some care starts to look like authoritarianism, so if you're not careful you can instill a strong sense of oppositional defiance and make things worse. This is a very difficult problem to solve and people will often support the stick and complain that someone doesn't deserve the carrot. Everyone needs both.
MisterTea 3y ago
A friend taught public school in a poorer area outside of DC for about 8 years until moving into admin. He had one tactic that worked for many "bad" kids - call their parents, in the middle of the class if need be. He said today's young teachers, are non-confrontational and not used to verbal communication over phones as they were raised on social media and texting. So those young teachers sit there helpless while the student runs wild. Now in admin hes some kind of teacher manager and he had teachers come to him, sometimes physically crying, unable to deal with a child with a behavioral problem. His says 99% of the time these problems are corrected with a single phone call to the parents. Just one call but no - young teachers these days don't have the guts or social wherewithal. So his job is now teaching adults how to make phone calls. Another thing to realize is a lot of these kids do respond positively to teachers when they show them that they care and aren't there to simply baby sit and yell at them. He has had many students come to him later on thanking him for breaking their balls and setting them on the right path. Kids aren't stupid - they want respect but are treated like little monsters to be corralled and controlled like cattle. Showing the kids you truly care is incredibly powerful for them - it connects at the human emotional level and those positive interactions boosts the kids moral and they feel more confident or centered in life.
JediWing 3y ago
Agreed, but teachers can't be expected to be the only ones providing this help. Other public institutions outside the school system need to be in place to support the parents who are stressed and overworked and barely have time to parent. And their right to be helped stops at the line where they're causing harm to the learning of others. Discipline in schools isn't and cannot be about holistically reforming the problem kids, it's about making sure those who want to learn can. You can't dump the entirety of systemic poverty, racism, mental health, etc. on the education system and expect it to work well.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  Yep, but also many schools in the US don't even have the basics AND they're getting all of that stuff dumped on them. Teachers are quitting at alarming rates since the pandemic. This is not being treated remotely like the emergency it is, and 10 years from now we're really going to feel it.

Simulacra 3y ago

I went to a public school and disruptive kids were NEVER expelled, or kicked out of class, they were just tolerated and placated. I wish I had gone to your school because no matter how disruptive they were, or how much they bullied others in class, the school simply would not expel them. The worst they would get is after school detention. It was hugely disruptive and made life miserable for the rest of us. If only disruptive kids were expelled instead of placated MANY of us might have had a better education.

civilized 3y ago
Too many liberals feel such guilt about expelling disruptive kids, when the reality is just what you've said: if they stay, they don't improve and they ruin genuine learning for everyone else. It is so wrong for adults to fail to protect children who want to learn simply because they want a facade of feel-good egalitarianism.
- afavour 3y ago
  I think it’s correct to feel guilty about expelling disruptive kids. Majority of cases they’re disruptive as a direct result of their home life, which you’re now throwing them into full time. I agree that keeping them in general education is bad too, though. A caring society would take that kid somewhere with specialised staff that will help them work through their issues.
  - zmgsabst 3y ago
    You should feel more guilty of subjecting twenty kids to the spillover of that one child’s dysfunctional life. The problem is the selective and performative guilt: Why don’t kids who have a terrible home life, but are studying diligently to better themselves and improve their lives equally deserve our help?
    - civilized 3y ago
      Exactly - this is the tragic mistake of fixating on only one type of "victim".

themitigating 3y ago

What makes a private school more likely to expell children? Since they are a for profit enterprise, unlike public schools, wouldn't there be a financial incentive to have as many customers as possible? In one particular area what is the reason a charter school would be better than a public school. Since the entry factor for most (excluding schools for smart kids) is money why wouldn't the same problems occur at a charter school? Finally, why can't we just fix public schools?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mhb 3y ago
What makes a private school more likely to expell children? Uh, because more customers will leave if the private school is no better than a public school.
conception 3y ago
It’s a business where all the customers interact with one another. If it costs more in complaints, then you drop the bad apple.
monero-xmr 3y ago
Because the paying customers will go elsewhere if they allow another paying customer to ruin it. They want 20 to stay even if they have to lose the 21st payer.
giantg2 3y ago
The private schools are seeking and selling quality. Plus, the majority of private schools are non-profits. Many are religiously affiliated and would like a large population as as a potential source of new religious members, but they also need some way to fund that. If a family is already paying $5k/yr in property taxes it is less likely they can afford another $10/yr for 2 kids to go to private school. The funding is the biggest blocker to increased private and charter school attendance. That's why there's so much talk about things like vouchers, 529s, etc. "Finally, why can't we just fix public schools?" That's a good question without a good answer. Perhaps the best answer is the meta that people don't agree on the course of action that would "fix" the schools since there are numerous opinions on what that is, resulting in no action or half measures.

JediWing 3y ago

This is absolutely a huge factor, if not the biggest factor in education: kids who are actively disruptive and harmful to the learning of others being kept in with other kids, draining all of the attention from the teacher. The causes and solutions are not as simple as "these kids are bad, kick them out of school", but any solution needs to involve kids who aren't disruptive and WANT to learn getting an environment conducive to that.

stainablesteel 3y ago
its worse than that, i have some examples of what always annoyed me: - a terrible kid was constantly given presents from a teacher, chocolates, and small things she could give him so that he would stop misbehaving in class. normally these prizes would go to a single student every day, for merit, but once this terrible person kept getting them, everyone else became pissed and demoralized. - the young kids copy the teachers behavior, and it creates this culture of "they have a harder life than you" when trying to complain about the terrible students in their vicinity (which i completely disagree with, they're not trying hard at all that's why they get like this), so when terrible people bully decent, kind, and hardworking students, there's no sympathy for the hardworking students. they get treated like shit and abused from the future-criminals who do nothing but degrade the experience of everyone who attends, then they get told "get over it, you have everything" by their peers who for whatever reason weren't bullied, and refuse to help. its cult-like behavior - you also have kids who are way too old for their grade, by at least 4 years. someone who should otherwise be way ahead of the classroom they're in is 2x the size of anyone else, is a literal delinquent, and is for some reason still allowed in the public school system where they either terrorize their classmates, get them into their same terrible habits, or bully people who express any kind of discontent with their behavior.
tivert 3y ago
>> I went to public school as a kid and the disruptive kids were expelled. Not just kicked out of class - totally kicked out of school and told to find a new one! One reason I send my kids to private school is if you don’t want to learn they will kick you out. In public schools today you get a few bad kids and it ruins the whole class. > The causes and solutions are not as simple as "these kids are bad, kick them out of school", but any solution needs to involve kids who aren't disruptive and WANT to learn getting an environment conducive to that. But it might not be that much more complicated. It's been a long time since I've been in school, but in our district there was an "alternative" high school, which had a reputation among the kids as the place you'd end up if you were too much of a behavior problem. That said, the kids at my schools were well-behaved in class and I never knew of anyone specific who was expelled. If behavior problems are getting more widespread, maybe embracing more of an explicit containment strategy is appropriate.

jacknews 3y ago

Indeed, and the assertion that 'only poor kids together' will behave even worse certainly needs backing up with data. It seems obvious to me (since the experiment is repeated over and over within millions of families) that environment plays a major role in behaviour, but tbh I don't see good behaviour rubbing off onto the 'bad' kids in a mixed setting, it's almost always the other way around, or at best, a productive environment is disrupted by a few troublemakers. So 'good' kids should get an environment free of disruption so they can do what they do. And the 'bad' kids should get an environment much more focused on encouraging good behaviour, so they learn to do the good stuff too. Win-win.

II2II 3y ago
Except you run into a few problems when implementing that, especially for public schools. Proactive parents will typically want their children in good schools, regardless of their child's behavioural history. (This doesn't mean they refuse to acknowledge the issue, though some will. It simply means they want their children to have access to better supports.) There is an overarching philosophy within the school system that integration is better than separation. I don't know if this has to be the case, but it has been historically true. Think of it this way: even though some of the best teachers may want to serve the most challenging schools, good teachers almost always want to teach in good schools. Where does that leave the challenging schools? If they're lucky, with a great teacher. More often, with a bunch of mediocre teachers. Related to that, schools rarely have the resources to distinguish between students who would benefit from integration and those who would benefit from specialized and separate programs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jacknews 3y ago
  I don't think you should segregate schools. Just classrooms. That gives students in 'bad' classes something to aspire to, and keeps them on the map rather than being written-off to a 'poor school', and parents should realise that, though their kid is in the 'bad' class, they are getting appropriate help, not just being discarded. In some ways, the 'best' teachers should be assigned to the 'bad' kids, certainly those with the best command of a class. The 'good' kids don't need that so much.

dehrmann 3y ago

> they are behavioral consultants rather than teachers During covid, someone observed that it exposed the primary role of public schools to be day care.

analog31 3y ago
Except there must be a difference between school and day care because the kids who stayed home during covid are now way behind academically.

nonameiguess 3y ago

I don't get the expulsion discussion here (not just your comment, but responses as well). At least in the US, these kids legally need to be educated somewhere. Expelling doesn't remove them from the school system. It just means they'll be disrupting a different set of kids at some other school. Making something someone else's problem isn't solving the problem. It's like dealing with homelessness by rounding them up and bussing them to a different city. You could conceivably create schools composed entirely of the kids who got expelled from somewhere else, which I think some districts have actually done (continuation schools), but you're effectively creating a juvenile prison system for people who didn't commit any actual crime and definitely never got a trial.

sixothree 3y ago
I think that's pretty much the crux of every argument here - move those other kids somewhere else. Don't worry about improving their situation, but make my situation better. Cite a study, draw incorrect conclusions from it that support your argument, find some exception to the norm and use that as your example, and don't forget - describe how you were brought up and how that was better.

JJMcJ 3y ago

An analogy. In a dorm the week before finals, 90% of the students are urgently trying to prepare for finals. 10% are drunk and or high and playing frisbee in the halls 24 hours a day. From friends who have taught high school in poor neighborhoods the situation as similar, only more violent.