AN IRRESPONSIBLE SOCIETY LEFT SCHOOLS WITHOUT A CHOICE

A group of high school leaders, at a California college campus for a
leadership workshop,get caught consuming hooch,and face instant suspension
and probable permanent relocation to another high school.

A grammar school kid brings a plastic knife to cut up his apple for lunch,
and the zero tolerance policy for weapons leads to suspension.

A five-year-old boy kisses a girl, and the school's zero tolerance policy
against sexual harassment results in the boy's suspension and a national
press frenzy.

How did we get to the point of enacting multiple zero tolerance policies?
What problems are they designed to solve? How did our civilization survive
without them?

It seems to me that school district zero-tolerance policies are a natural
outcome of a longtime progression of trends, and that they point to a social
problem few have the stomach to address directly. Here are some of the
milestones along the way to zero tolerance policies:

KIDS AS ADULTS.

The national policy-making machinery of public education (the Department of
Education) has become a magnet for social engineers, power accumulators,
political hacks and various do-gooders, all of whom agree on a few central
points: Local control is bad, parents are ill-equipped to raise their own
children, schools can teach values as well as knowledge and absolute values
of right and wrong are passe.

As a result, curricular activities such as music and art have been replaced
by values training, outcome-based education, moral relativism,
sex-education, the celebration of self-esteem over achievement and the
exaltation of individual over society. Schoolchildren are expected to form
adult ideas about sexuality, tolerance, morals and rights in fast-forward time.

These issues, however, take time to work through people's souls; they cannot
be "taught" like algebra and grammar.

ADULTS AS FRIENDS AND ENABLERS.

Pastor William Hemenway of Christ Lutheran Church in Costa Mesa lifts up
newly baptized children in front of God's altar, and reminds us that each
child is a "unique, unrepeatable miracle of God's creation."

If we believe this, we as parents bear responsibility as stewards of
children's souls. We do not own our children, they are entrusted to our care
for a short time, and it is our duty to make of them responsible,
self-sufficient citizens.

Too many parents abdicate this responsibility, because they want their
children to "love" (read, never be angry with) them. So, parents give up the
responsibility to set limits, teach right and wrong and model proper
behavior for their children. I guess those who give up the responsibilities
of parenting figure that either a ) the kid will raise himself, or b) it is
the school's job to teach my kid everything.

SUBSTITUTING THINGS AND ACTIVITIES FOR RELATIONSHIPS.

For reasons too lengthy to go into here, there are many families with two
full-time working parents. Even when one parent alone makes a "good" income
(anything above $35,000), both parents choose to work. We need a bigger
house. I can't be self-fulfilled just raising kids. We like our skiing,
Lexus, tennis club, weekend getaways, etc. Whatever the justification,
parents choose to abandon the relationship that can only be groomed with
time together. Sensing that something is wrong, they give their kids cars,
computers, sports camps, SEGAs, and multiple overlapping sports seasons as a
poor substitute for time to simply be together as parent and child.

The result is time apart, a frantic schedule and kids who can never relax
and learn by example from their parents. They learn the curveball, but not
kindness; the jumpshot, but not creativity; the golf swing, but not imagination.

LITIGATION PROLIFERATION.

The slow erosion of parents' rights, along with the passive abdication of
parents' responsibilities, forces schools to establish standards of conduct
that should have been established within the home.

The problem is, how do you punish, how do you treat different degrees of
infraction differently, without the spectre of lawyers and the ACLU on your
doorstep? The schools must make the code of conduct as unambiguous as
possible, and enforce it without regard to degree of offense, in order to
steer clear of lawsuit city.

Because schools are stuck with kids whose lives are overscheduled, whose
parents are hardly home and whose most time-intensive relationships are with
peers, the schools are assumed into the role of somehow grooming citizens,
in addition to teaching bodies of knowledge.

Though the burden has been loaded onto the schools, they do not possess the
tools, time or ultimate responsibility. Playing defensively, schools are
forced into zero tolerance as their only option.

The critics of zero tolerance, instead of criticizing the schools alone,
should consider the others whose action or inaction forced schools to take
on this stance.