10-30-08 - Tough Love vs. Spanking

Tough Love vs. Spanking - Good Argument Most of America 's populace think it improper to spank children, so I have tried other methods to control my kids when they have one of 'those moments.'One that I found effective is for me to just take the child for a car ride and talk. Some say it's the vibration from the car, others say it's the time away from any distractions such as TV, Video Games, Computer, IPod, etc.Either way, my kids usually calm down and stop misbehaving after our car ride together. I've included a photo below of one of my sessions with my son, in case you would like to use the technique.

Sincerely,Your Friend

I think this will work with grandchildren, nieces, and nephews as well.





Author Unknown

10-21-08 - The Letter of the Law

I rushed out the door, slammed the car door shut, dodged the trash bins carefully arranged on the curb, laid my cell phone on my lap and hit the "speaker phone" button lest I get ticketed by some over zealous cop. On the other end of the phone I heard a comforting voice, Debbie had returned to work and hopefully stability would return to my professional life. In my best Elmer Fudd impression I rattled, "7:40 meeting, I'm late, don't know why meeting." Having eight years experience of understanding my morning gibberish, she replied, "I don't have a contract for a return from suspension, I will check your master calendar to see who you are supposed to meet and hold them until you get here.

I finally walked in the building greeted by Deb who asked are you sure you aren't supposed to meet with counselor and student? I can find no scheduled meeting this morning. I took a deep breath, and thought ahh-- crisis averted. (or so I thought!) About 9:00 a.m. one of our counselors walked in my office, he told me that the meeting I had on the calendar was actually rescheduled for 3:00 pm with a student, angry parent and teacher. The Cliff Note version of the story is the student had missed several days at the beginning of the year for an out of town bereavement and a couple weeks ago he had missed another day because he was staying with friends while his parents were out of town and got locked out of the house. His teacher refused for him to make up missed quiz because of the absences.

I checked the attendance data base, his mother had cleared the absence per personal business in the appropriate amount of time. I scratched my head and thought I should email the teacher. Surely there was more to the story, we have an awesome staff and I have never dealt with a teacher unwilling to help a child in a awkward position. I mean after all, he wasn't hanging out in the wash smoking dope, this situation was truly out of his control.

I emailed the teacher asking for clarification of the problem lest I embarrass us both in the meeting. The only response I received was "He has already missed seven days." OK... so what bearing does this have on this situation? Shortly after she appeared in my door stating, "we have a policy and I intend to follow it." I looked up now angry, and said "This is the first time in my career I do not think I can support a teacher in a meeting." She huffed! "Well, if I am not getting supported by administration, I can't attend the meeting this afternoon." I shook my head, "I am glad that when I am on the freeway and I glad the police don't enforce the letter of the law"! She stomped out. I told her she could speak to the Principal about attending the meeting.

I have always supported teachers in meetings... we may have a heart to heart afterwards, but this time was different. I could not in good conscious tell this parent that her child did something wrong. We have always prized our school as "kid friendly" and for some reason this incident had headed down the wrong tracks at top speed.

Now I was just plain hacked off! I finished a pile of paper work, then emailed the teacher's department chair with my frustration! The frustration spiraled as I dealt with kids with drugs that afternoon. When my principal returned from his meeting I explained the incident and he was able to convince the teacher the benefits of allowing this student to make up his work... ugly meeting averted.

If we want kids to give us 100%, then as adults we must be willing to embrace the "spirit of the law." When a child feels that nothing they do is good enough they become frustrated and lash out to those around them. By the time these kids get to high school they are ticking time bombs... push the right button and they go "Kaboom"! Adults pick your battles, kids will be kids. Making mistakes is how they learn and grow. Some discipline is healthy for growth, others are simply done by adults to release their anger.

You can probably remember a few times you failed the "letter of the law" ... so for heaven sakes, cut them some slack already!

10-17-08 - FREAKY FRIDAY!

Friday's are typically my favorite day of the week... folks seem to have a spring in their step thinking of the possibilities of the weekend to come. Sure schools get a little nutty, but I just remind myself that it is job security! Today I awoke and realized that this would not be "the happiest day of the week" and just rolled over when the alarm sounded. Since about the age of 13 I have suffered with acute angiodema... when triggered I look like a good bridal candidate for the Elephant Man. This time with all the smoke and gunk in the air, my allergies caused my upper lip to swell up which resembled a botox job gone really bad. I called the office to explain my plight and that would be in as soon as the meds kicked in.

Finally about 9:30 I was able to get out of the house with only a small bump over my lip. Realizing that Debbie would not be there, I sighed in disgust wondering what joys the children had in store for me today. My secretary, Debbie, had been off now for two weeks with personal business and no one had been dealing with my "bellows." I rushed to the building knowing there was an Assistant Principal's meeting which started an hour ago. My boss looked at me and resisted the temptation for another "Elephant Man" joke instead told me that we had two police officers were on campus because "there were rumors of a school shooting today." Immediately I knew the source. Yesterday a young man (known for his melodrama) rushed into my office and said he had overheard "some kids wearing black saying... yeah I'm gonna shoot him." He of course shared this with everyone he knew and caused mass hysteria among our parents. He could not tell me "who" said this or "identify" them from a picture book so I notified the police department and crossed my fingers it was just some smart mouth kid spurting his frustration. Of course our "melodrama king's" friends told their parents and the school phone rang all morning.

We searched every nook and cranny during lunch supervision when my colleague received a radio call from her secretary that a young man was in the office and needed to speak to her. We met the young man and he informed us that his girlfriend has just seen a kid that had been "mad dogging him" with a knife tucked in his pants. We immediately found the student in our lowest level of English Language Learners... we had much difficulty communicating with him but managed to get him out of the classroom and searched him on the spot. I radioed for the police officers to join us, but they could not find the weapon on him either. We escorted the young man office and managed to trace the description of another young man that he said showed him a knife earlier in the day.

Of course this young man had PE that period and was somewhere in the mass of hundreds of kids outside participating in activities. My principal searched his locker and I went on the trek to find him. I asked several kids where he was, and later found him with a group of kids huddled around him asking "What did you do"? Of course it is never a good thing for an assistant principal to come looking for you.

We escorted him back to the office and when I asked him why people said he had a knife, he replied I do. I asked him where it was located and he pulled it from the top of his boxer shorts and handed it to me. It was quite the sight... about a four and half inch locking blade. I asked him why he brought a knife to school and he replied, "Some friends told me that freshmen get beat up, so I brought it for protection." I asked him if anyone was harassing him and he replied, "no." I then asked him if it was OK for students to bring knifes to school in the Philippians, and he replied "NO" and looked at me as if I was stupid. I then asked him why then did he think it was OK to bring it to school in the US... he started crying.

I then attempted to explain to him that he was suspended, would be cited by the police and because of the nature of the offense he could not return to school until we attended an expulsion hearing. He then asked me if it was OK for him to go to his next period class because he had a test. This time I sat there with a look of bewilderment on my face, this young man had no idea how deep he was at the moment.

His parents were mortified as we sent him home. It simply breaks my heart to make phone calls that I know is going to devastate a family. It was now 2:30 pm and I made an attempt to sneak out the front door for fast food since I had not eaten all day... when a radio call came. The original two young men were facing off in the hallway. We had them escorted to the office for some good ole mediation... or basically "Knock it off or your Mama can pick you up at the Police Station"! The boys shook hands and left in peace.

I sighed a deep breath when our lead campus supervisor reminded me that we had football in a couple hours and my plants needed watering. The football game didn't get any better, chasing off local druggies, kids throwing food that almost ended in blows, and my all time favorite the 30 something drunks that were cuffed and taken to the ground before they opted to leave the premises... IS IT SATURDAY YET?

10-13-08 - Fire Days

Some folks call them "snow days," when I lived in Dallas we called them "ice days." Rural areas in the South often have "rain days." In California, we call them "fire days." These are the days when school officials gather around the TV to see if Mother Nature is going to heap her wrath on mankind and leave the kids cheering with the possibility of the cancellation of school for a few days.

When I moved to California seven years ago I was introduced to this anomaly. The dry heat of Santa Ana winds coupled with no humidity makes the perfect setting for raging wild fires... in most cases, they are assisted by local "fire bugs." During my first fire I found myself glued to the TV amazed at the total devastation that accompanied these raging fire storms. Luckily Southern California is home to the best trained fire fighters and police officers in the world and they approach them with the skill and precession of a surgeon.

Monday was a fire day. We began school with the howling winds and the anxiety that any moment we could get word of fires and evacuations. About 10:00 a.m. our fears came true. We constantly monitored the air, as we have a directive from county officials that when the air quality gets bad all outside activities are cancelled. At first the wind appeared to blow away from us and our football staff held their breath with the hopes they might practice before Fridays big game. Unfortunately that was not the case.

There is just something about the warm howling winds and the smell of fire in the air that seems to bring out the worst in all of us. The fires seemed to be contained on the other side of the hill, so we opted not to close school. However, all day we were extinguishing the "social fires" that had been raging from the stress. We thought that all was calm, until a radio call came immediately after the final bell sounded that two young men were fighting in the middle of campus.

I rushed outside to find a Caucasian young man yelling "Yeah I said it, He's a F--king Ni--er." The stress of the day had certainly brought the worst out in Denver. A few weeks ago I had a discussion with Denver about his brother's ties to the white power gang and how he was trying to break away for a fresh start. So much for that lofty idea.

I escorted him to my office, reminding him to breathe deeply along the way. Of course I heard all the male prowess of how he "knocked him out" and I tried to contain my deep desire to "knock him out" too. Denver was out of control. I managed to get him to my office where he managed to explain that a group of African American young men had approached him about saying the "N-word" to someone years ago.

My colleagues had escorted the other half of this fire day drama to the office. When I opened the door Robert was explaining how he had approached Denver about calling a young lady the "N-word" in their math class when he got upset and started challenging him to fight. Now knowing Denver this sounded a bit more truthful... he has always had a short fuse and he was still flapping around my office like a bottle rocket on steroids.

After taking many statements we finally put the final piece of the puzzle together. It seems that both the young lady and Denver had a long history, dating back to middle school of calling each other racist names. For some reason this generation thinks that if you put an "a" on the end of a very ugly word it makes it OK. I questioned Denver if calling him a "Cracka" makes it any less nasty simply because they changed an "er" with an "a"?? He admitted no, and I suspended him for five days.

We then turned our attention to Robert to had led the vigilante charge. I asked him since when was he hired to do my job. Given that I grew up in the Deep South, I have seen this sort of "ugly" all of my life and I probably have a smaller threshold for dealing with it... I have seen what it can do to schools and communities first handed. We then informed Robert that he was also suspended for five days.

The lesson here is how do we stop this "Ugly"? For some reason racist names have now become terms of endearment (if you are of the same race.) When someone from another race uses that same name it then becomes vial. I have seen kids of ALL races fall into this fallacy. Ugly is just Ugly no matter what its skin color happens to be... for heaven sakes, let's teach our kids better words to insult their neighbors and friends like, skinny, bow legs, four eyes, or fatty and leave the racist names alone!!!

10-7-08 -- Do Over!

Since I first met Julius, an entire section of my head has turned a vibrant shade of white. Julius is now 17 years old and I should have insisted that he be transferred to the alternative school years ago. He is now at least an entire year behind in credits, has been dragged to truancy hearings more times than I can remember and this coupled with his substance abuse I am now on a first name basis with his probation officer.

In my quest to rid our high school of any appearance of gang activity, he has been a prime target for three years. I have "encouraged" almost all of his friends to seek their education elsewhere... some via expulsion hearings, but for some reason this kid stole a chunk of what is left of my now jaded heart.

Now Julius stands about six foot four, quite imposing to those around him. He is stout for his age and would be perfectly suited for a defensive lineman on the football team if he could ever manage grade eligibility. He moved to our school from another district where his "uncles" are up to their wazoo in local gang activity. Julius has been in juvenile hall about four times, last year wore an ankle monitoring device to school just a few months before he almost died from a stab wound inflicted as a result of his "family doings."

As "scary" as this "gangster" may seem to anyone on the street, I have had no problem telling him to get his butt in my office and if he didn't straighten up I would rip his ears off and feed them to my Shih Tzus. He knew I would do it too.

To our amazement this school year Julius totally reinvented himself to become the model student. While visiting classrooms the first day of the school year, my principal and I were totally speechless when we entered a chemistry classroom and saw him sitting in the front row with his chemistry book open ready to learn!

We also heard stories of the health teacher going from classroom to classroom asking teachers to step in and see who he had taken on as his student aide. Julius had approached him the first day of school, apologized for the daily discipline referrals and offered his assistance. I even noticed he was not dressing in his normal "colors" and actually avoided all the beginning of the year "Homie drama." This kid had renewed my faith in this generation and I had high hopes for his future and his ability to actually "get away from his family."

Until today... I had just returned from a doctors appointment. I won't go into details, but let just say if I ever see another latex glove I think I will be too soon! I walked into school and realized that I had entered a war zone. I shook my head, thinking to myself how quickly things change in public high schools. I had left the place in peace!

My first eye contact was with Julius who was seated outside my colleagues office breathing heavy and red eyed. I blurted, "What did you do"? when my colleague summoned me into her office. She reported that a teacher had stepped outside his classroom to find Julius and friends in a cloud of marijuana smoke. Administration was summoned and the boys were quite belligerent on the way to the office. In an attempt to calm Julius, she tapped him on the arm only to send him into a rage... he swung his arms back and when she flinched he said "Yeah, that is what I thought." She told me she thought he was going to hit her.

I swung open the door and repeated the phrase he has heard many times before ... "Julius get your butt in here... NOW"! He was quite upset and kept saying, she kept poking me! I told her not to poke me! I calmed him down and took him to my office. Almost immediately he began sobbing. He had been working for so long to get his act together, and in a matter of moments he was now facing juvenile hall again. Did I mention that none of the boys were in the possession of drugs or paraphernalia.

I had to fight the tears myself... for now four years I have watched this kid fight his background, pay for his bad decisions both physically and emotionally and now there was literally nothing I could do! I made a lame attempt to speak to him about anger management and explain to him due to his size when he acted in anger it startled people... with great size comes great responsibility. (Being vertically challenged myself I have never faced this dilemma)

I left him sobbing, returned to my colleague still a bit shaken from in the incident and now in the company of law enforcement. I can count on one hand the times I have asked the police to go easy with a student, but I was willing to eat a bug to keep this kid out of the Hall. He had come too far to lose it all now!

Being compassionate by nature, my colleague requested to speak to him again. He tried his best to swallow his tears, but once again he began sobbing... she praised him for his good work, but was firm with the discipline. He was cited by the police, but not with a felony threat against a government (school) official as they have in the past. This is an ugly place, Julius needed to be taught this behavior is not acceptable, if we did nothing he would surely repeat it, possibly outside the "safe" school zone. On the other hand, throwing him back in juvenile hall would only crush his attempts of reform.

Today I spoke to his probation officer in my office... we both know how hard this kid has worked, but now his fate will rest in the hands of the courts. It breaks my heart that most kids just don't understand that just a moment of stupidity can drastically alter their life. Some end up in prison, pregnant, hospital or even dead as a result of only one poor decision. Making them understand the stakes of this game called LIFE is truly a challenge and one that the adults in their lives should not take lightly. As a child I remember playing games and yelling "do over." This was one of those times my heart ached to yell that redeeming phrase, unfortunately we don't always have that option.