Gang Banger in the Classroom – Principle # 2 – Honesty

Hello again…sorry for the delay, but I was on a much needed vacation.  Below please find Principle # 2 for this series on Gang Banger in the Classroom. 

The Double Standard and the Response of Honesty 

The double standard usually occurs when a teacher crosses the line verbally or physically but penalizes the student when they do the normal thing most kids do in this situation – retaliate in kind.  I have personally witnessed this many times when the teacher initiated a sarcastic comment that started off  “in fun”, the student shot back an equally “fun” remark, to which the teacher, not only responded to, but took the sarcasm to another level, to which the student, not knowing how, where or when to quit, took it too far and ended up in the vice principals office for being disrespectful to the teacher, or something to that affect.   

However, the question is who is going to hold the teacher accountable for their inappropriate behavior?  The answer is, the teacher is really the only one that can hold themselves accountable, which will take the personal integrity of honesty, a virtue that can, in a short period of time, give a teacher much credibility that creates productivity in their students.  But without the teacher holding themselves accountable for their part in the “drama”, the student is left to defend themselves and tell their side of the story that “the teacher started it” and said this and that too, etc., but this all too often falls on the deaf ears of school administrators and little to nothing is done to the teacher, while the student can end up with any number of consequences; from after school detention to suspension, depending on the teacher, the vice principal and past history of the student.   

This causes a lot of resentment for the teacher and now the battle is “on”.  I remember witnessing this on almost a daily basis when I worked as a teacher’s aide in a Juvenile Hall facility.  Some of the teacher’s and Juvenile Hall employees delighted in using this double standard as a means of getting kid’s in trouble and in some cases causing kids to forfeit their release time and having to stay an extra week or month or longer, because the kid would react to the teachers provoking of anger and inappropriate language and/or behavior.  Some would even challenge the youth and tell them they would not make it through the day without getting in trouble so they could penalize them by sending them back to their cell or take away their recreation time or even worse, reporting them to their probation officer, who would then not release them on their previous release date and make them stay longer.  The teachers would then proceed to harass and provoke the kid throughout the day to see if they could “win” the challenge, which they often did.   

Unfortunately some teachers, and others in positions of authority, know there’s a double standard and that they can get away with physically, emotionally and verbally abusing a youth without being accountable for their wrong behavior.  For example, a few years after I had stopped working at the Juvenile Hall, I would still visit kids and/or be invited as a guest speaker to these classes from time to time and thus maintained my contact and awareness of how things were going for many of the youth I was working with at the time.  One time I got so tired of hearing about this ongoing practice of what I am calling a “double standard” that I reported it personally to the County Superintendent of Schools.  He listened intently and said he would look into it, even into the specific cases of specific names I had given him that were actively violating their authority, but to my knowledge, nothing ever came of it.   

This issue of the “double standard” is important for a number if reasons, especially when dealing with at-risk youth involved in or on the fringes of being involved in negative lifestyles such as being in a gang.  Because what is often at the root of their cynicism for rules and defiance towards teachers is a rebellion against authority based on injustices or abuses they have experienced in their early years of development.  Thus, in general, the double standard produces a justified cynicism for obedience to rules, and has for a long time become one of the main challenges teachers in the class room face on a daily basis.  Thus, how should a teacher deal with this cynicism for rules and defiance to their authority in the class room?  I suggest that one strong response is that of personal integrity and honesty, especially if the inappropriate behavior of their students was teacher initiated.  My experience has been that personal honesty goes a long way in bringing children/students into a willing submission to class room rules of behavior when I have been honest about my mistakes and admit to having broken my own rules.