I'm inspired by two recent news reports about discipline in public schools. The reports have me thinking in new ways.
The first report involved duct tape; the second involved sandpaper.
To begin, a brief article from Reason magazine's Brickbats blog:
Nate and Elizabeth Searcy say they were stunned when their 8-year-old daughter Shaylyn came home from school with her shoes and socks wrapped with duct tape. Elizabeth says school officials had complained that Shaylyn refused to put her shoes on, and she suspects that may have prompted someone to tape the girl's shoes on her. Officials with the Wayne Township, Indiana, school system are refusing to talk about the case.
And Shaylyn has Down syndrome, which makes the duct tape seem even crueler.
The second incident, again summarized in the Brickbats blog, read:
Florida's Burns Middle School has placed teacher Anna Garrett on paid leave. Students at the school claim she punished them for misspelling words by forcing them to trace the letters of the words on sandpaper with their fingers until their fingertips bled.
These improvised approaches to behavior modification have opened a new pathway to creativity in my mind.
I want to provide teachers and principals with a short list of handy, easy-to-use techniques to get kids to do the right things -- in the right ways.
1. Failure on a Spanish test will result in one 40-hour work week in the kitchen of a Mexican restaurant.
2. Any kid who is bullied at a bus stop will be allowed to watch a 6-foot-4-inch, 270-pound male (with anger-management problems) retaliate against the bully or bullies.
3. Mistake in chemistry or biology lab? You eat it. And I don't mean the costs.
4. If a kid is sending text messages during class, he will have his hands cuffed behind his back for the duration of the day. Unfortunately, school policies do not allow anyone to help students use the restroom.
5. Bring drugs to school and you will have to consume your entire stash. Within 5 minutes.
6. If caught sticking chewing gum under a desk, you must take all the gum blobs stuck underneath anything in the room and chew them, together, for the rest of the day.
These six approaches to school discipine will make our future brighter. And that's just a start. What would you add to the list?
-Colin Foote Burch
