Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Toxic Teaching: The Truth About Discipline

This might be my most controversial post yet, which is why it's taken so long to compose. I have literally been working on this for a month. Here goes nothing... 

Discussing discipline in schools is tricky nowadays. I recognize that zero tolerance policies are not as effective as some may think. As this article by the APA states, many of these policies were developed in the 1980s and required harsh consequences for infractions. 


But, "schools are not any safer or more effective in disciplining children than before these zero tolerance policies were implemented in the mid 1980s. The research also shows that while school violence is a serious issue, violence in schools is "not out-of-control."

Furthermore, the evidence suggests that zero tolerance policies do not increase the consistency of discipline in schools" (Zero Tolerance Policies). 
The APA recommended a number of changes to zero tolerance policies, including the following: 
  • Allow more flexibility with discipline and rely more on teachers' and administrators' expertise within their own school buildings.
  • Have teachers and other professional staff be the first point of contact regarding discipline incidents
  • Attempt to reconnect alienated youth or students who are at-risk for behavior problems or violence. Use threat assessment procedures to identify those at risk


So, as you can see, the pendulum has started to swing in the other direction, as it always does in our society. It feels and seems, to me, like we are swinging from authoritarian to full on permissive sometimes. 

This post is not going to debate the merits of different discipline policies or beliefs. 

I am not claiming to be an expert in classroom management and discipline. I'm also not arrogant enough to think that I didn't have room to grow in this area. I am also not attacking or shaming teachers or administrators. We all do our best, y'all. But I will be speaking from my own experiences, so here goes: 

1) Discipline takes time. It takes time to address it in the moment. It takes time away from learning. It takes time (that frankly I don't always have) during my planning period or before/after school. 


I appreciate that experts, Central Office, administration, and parents want teachers to be the first point of contact for discipline issues. Teachers SHOULD be the first point of contact, for sure! Instead of immediately writing a student a referral to the administrator, teachers should have conversations with kids, come up with a behavior contract, assign a detention of their own, or do whatever other steps they deem appropriate. 


But in order to do that, teachers need TIME. When I taught, I had one 90-minute planning period every other day. I often had meetings before school, during lunch, or after school (or I was a coach and had practice after school). 


I really didn't mind calling parents or writing up behavior contracts or having a kid in my room for detention. But I needed time to do this. A planning period every day would've been so helpful for discipline (and other things, of course). Or teacher workdays that are ACTUALLY teacher workdays (teachers nowadays have so much professional development and few actual workdays, which many who are not in education don't realize). 


And one reason that sometimes my discipline wasn't followed through, on MY part as the teacher, is because I simply did.not.have.time. I guess I could've made time-- at the expense of grading assessments, making copies, tutoring, sponsoring clubs, coaching... 

2) Reducing suspensions and expulsions doesn't mean kids are behaving better. 


This is a statistic people LOVE to point to: "We've reduced suspensions by ___ percent! Go us! Pat us on the back! Aren't we so awesome?"


But I want to emphasize: this does not necessarily mean schools are safer or students are better behaved. It does not necessarily mean teachers are more effectively disciplining students. It might. But it might not. 

It may mean that a) teachers aren't writing referrals and are perhaps being more permissive or b) administrators are assigning other consequences (such as a verbal warning or a lunch detention) instead of a suspension. Please hear me when I say that those two things are not necessarily bad. 

Also, please hear my when I say I'm not saying we need to suspend kids more.

But I am saying that I've sat in community meetings and heard people rejoice over the fact that suspensions are down.

My question is this: is that really the ultimate goal? Is the ultimate goal merely to reduce suspensions? Or is it to teach appropriate behavior and keep kids in class learning? 

One reason people don't like when students are suspended is because it means they're missing instructional time. I agree with that. I can send the work home, but not having me there to teach the student is a huge detriment to them. I do want to clarify, though: just because the kid isn't suspended doesn't necessarily mean that kid is in class learning. The kid might be present at school but skipping. The kid might be present at school in class but sitting on his/her phone the whole time or not doing any work. So, we cannot make the assumption that JUST because a kid isn't suspended means he/she is sitting in class studiously completing assignments. 

So, don't be misled by statistics about expulsions and suspensions being reduced. I'm not saying suspending kids for every little infraction is a positive thing, by any means. But the goal should not be to merely reduce suspensions and expulsions. 

It should be to address the roots of the discipline issues. 
But that takes time. Resources. A cooperative parent/guardian. Oftentimes a counselor, who may or may not be readily available because of his or her own obligations (because I don't know if y'all realize, but school counselors nowadays do SO much more then just help kids pick classes <3). 

Overall, the education system is trying to do a better job of addressing root causes, and for that, I am excited. I received training in trauma informed care and being an inclusive educator, and those trainings were immensely helpful. 

But if we really want to make a difference, it's going to take more than a handful of teachers being trained. It's going to take time, patience, love, parental support, and teamwork. 

3) We are spending 80% of our time on 20% of our students. 

And this is the most frustrating part of discipline issues for me: I literally spent the majority of my time addressing the same handful of students all year long. 

They have a right to an education, but at the expense of all of my other kids? I don't think so.But as a teacher, sometimes my hands are tied. The system is flawed. The disruptive student who is making poor choices gets to stay in class, and no matter what I try or who talks to him or how many behavior plans we go over or how many times I call home, the student's behavior doesn't change, and class is ruined for 25 kids who actually want to learn. 

4) We are not making the student take responsibility for his or her actions. 
I'll end with this one. 
Too much of the responsibility for student behavior is put on everyone except the student. 

We excuse their behaviors. 
We have low expectations for them. 
We, as the adults, are permissive. 
We make empty threats and don't follow through. 

I am guilty of all of the above. So what I'm about to say isn't pointing fingers at any other teacher out there. It is hard to have consistently high expectations every single day. It's exhausting. We just want to teach our content, and instead we spend a good chunk of time managing behavior. 

As the adults, we have allowed the kids to have too much power. I am ALL about respecting our students as people and allowing them choice, autonomy, and an appropriate amount of power. 

But we have given them too much power and not enough responsibility, and it has resulted in some students feeling entitled. 

This is not beneficial for our kids. And after all, didn't we all become educators for the kids' sakes? 

By failing to have high expectations, failing to follow through, failing to hold students accountable, we are failing them in the long run. There are consequences in real life. If we shelter them from all consequences in school, we aren't preparing them for life outside our classroom walls. 

By failing to hold them responsible, we're also saying we don't believe in them. 
We don't believe they can be better. Do better. Act better. Decide better. We're telling them they're incapable of better. And that is not true.

Teenagers are amazing, y'all. Kids are incredible. They are capable of a lot of we push them to be. 

Unfortunately, overall, we have somehow created a system (that goes beyond a specific classroom, school building, or even county) that coddles kids. 

We have to work to change the system so our students will learn to step up and become responsible students and, ultimately, citizens. 






Friday, August 3, 2018

Eight Marriage Lessons

People are sometimes surprised to learn that I've only ever dated one person. I won't bore you with the details of my high school social life, but let's just say that I was raised in the purity culture and read Josh Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and I was the oldest child, so... no way was I getting a boyfriend until I was 30, am I right? #courtingforthewin

Obviously, since you're all smart folks, you can do the math and figure out that if I've only ever dated one person, I ended up married to that person. He's my best friend, confidant, sounding board, and the most amazing father to our little girl.

But it wasn't always that way. 

I could (and really should) write a juicy book about all the relationship drama we had early on-- crushing on each other, going to homecoming together, ignoring each other for two months, reconnecting on a missions trip in Jamaica under the stars (yes, it was as romantic as it sounds), returning to the States just to ignore each other for five months...

I could go on.

Oftentimes anniversary posts are sappy and glamorize relationships.

But what makes our marriage so incredible is that it was-- and is-- messy. It's real. 



One quick story, and I don't know if you'll find this romantic or creepy, but here goes.

Randy and I officially met when I was a freshman in high school and he was a sophomore. I remember this detail because my hair was really poofy (I didn't need mousse or gel when I was homeschooled) and I had braces. The creepy part is that I knew exactly who Randy was before we even spoke. Fun fact: he played one season-- I think it was just one-- of volleyball, and I had seen him at the gym on my way to practice. I was like 12 when this happened. But I remember noticing him because he was competitive and mature on the court-- I look for the important things, folks.

Anyway, we officially met through a church Easter cantata. My piano teacher was also the music minister at Randy's dad's church, and my teacher asked me to sing in this church's production, and I said yes.

And our first conversation was AFTER the cantata was over at the cast party. I'm pretty sure it went something like this. It was truly riveting:

Randy: So are you new to church?
Me: Oh, no, I just take piano lessons from Mr. McD.
And maybe something about how we would both be going to the same high school the next year.

So, as you can see, we established early on that we were really good at having in-person conversations.

Who knows when our next one was or what it entailed, but I actually started attending his dad's church. Randy and I were in youth group together, and on praise team together, and we were both in choir at the same high school. We had a lot of mutual friends, but if I'm being completely honest, we actually weren't really...friends.

If I'm being even MORE completely honest, in my head, we were in a secret competition for who was the smartest in Sunday School class. Sometimes I flipped my Bible to the necessary verse faster, so I won, but most of the time, he just knew exactly what to say (some things don't change).

And if I'm going to give you all this honesty, let me also confess that he was literally the first and ONLY guy who had ever intimidated me.

Since I knew I was never going to date in high school, I really didn't give guys much thought as dating material. Sometimes I flirted with them, or sometimes I had crushes on them, but it never went any further because I kissed dating goodbye, remember? So, guys never intimidated me.

But, y'all, this Randy kid... he was crazy smart. He was super athletic. He was definitely an introverted slightly socially awkward teenager (but so was I), but he was also incredibly funny and clever. He was respectful and mature.

The next in-person conversation I remember having with him is my junior year of high school. It must have been October of 2005. This conversation also occurred at church, and it went something like this (he may remember it differently):

Randy: Hey Christine, can I talk to you for a second?
Me: Sure!
Randy: So homecoming is approaching, and the football guys said that I have to go since I'm the quarterback. And I've really enjoyed the conversations we've had, and I'm hoping you reciprocate those feelings.

And then he asked me to homecoming.

A couple of highlights:
1) I went to homecoming with the quarterback. Yup.
2) He used "reciprocate"-- SWOON! Be still, my heart! Big vocabularies are uber attractive.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can't even say, "and the rest is history," because our relationship went through many ups and downs. We didn't even start dating until over a year after that homecoming dance. We broke up twice in college--once was my doing and the other was his. I mean, y'all, we started dating when I was 17 and he was 18. We were BABIES.

But looking back, I now see how every single step those babies took, every mistake we made, every minute of uncertainty in our 17 and 18-year-old selves led us to the beautiful marriage we have today.

I've also learned a lot of lessons from our relationship:

1) Teenagers and young people ARE capable of deep, serious love. Don't minimize their high school relationships, something we adults so often do. Even if teens don't end up with that person, the love is still real. The pain of that breakup is still real. I mean, yes, I love Randy so much more deeply now than I did at 17 and 18 and 21, but that doesn't mean I didn't love him then (oh.my.gosh, y'all, that reminds me-- should I do a blog post about how we didn't say "I love you" for like literally two years?! Aaaaaah I forgot about that). 

2)  Young marriages aren't for everybody, but they can be amazing. People say that you need to "become your own person" before you marry. I guess that's partially true. But it's also beautiful to grow up WITH a person. Do you know how cool it is that Randy and I have almost 13 years of shared history? That we were there to support each other through life's biggest changes, and we are STILL here for each other? It's pretty special.

3) Humor diffuses tension like no other. I learned this one from Randy. When I nag him about socks on the living room coffee table, he replies, "Yeah, I was leaving them there just for you" before picking them up. And then I laugh. And instead of being irritated or potentially fighting, we just move on with life. We laugh constantly when we're together, and I'm forever grateful to be married to one of the most hilarious people I've ever met. He's taught me not to take things too seriously and to not sweat the small stuff.

4) Marriage isn't as much about finding the right person as it is about being the right person. I feel like some marriage expert said that, and I don't mean to plagiarize them, but the sentiment is so accurate. Neither Randy nor I necessarily believe in soulmates (though I grow more convinced he's mine every year). The idea of a soulmate takes the responsibility off the parties involved. If I "fall out of love" or "decide he's not the one," I have an easy out. A love where you are actively, constantly CHOOSING someone over and over again is much more real and powerful, in my opinion.

5) It's okay to marry someone who has terrible taste in football teams. I didn't know a Redskins fan could marry a Cowboys fan and both could survive more than one football season, but we are proof.

6) Marriages go through seasons, and that's okay. In one season, I was working full-time while Randy was in school. In another season, he was working and I was going to school. It's okay for the norm to change.

7) Don't get a cat. It will disappoint you by loving your husband more than it loves you, even though you're the one who wanted it. Rude.

8) Marry someone who was a cute baby. Because even if you carry the child for nine months, endure morning sickness and sciatic nerve pain, withstand labor and delivery, and nurse the child from your own breast... the baby will probably look like your husband. Thanks, universe.


I've only ever dated and loved one person, and on July 31st, we celebrated eight years of marriage. We had pre-marriage years of late night AIM conversations when we weren't sure we were even going to date. Post-marriage years of sleeping on an air mattress because we had no money for furniture. Years of trying to have a baby, losing a baby, becoming parents to the world's most adorable baby. Years of supporting each other through school and career changes and injuries and illness. Years of falling asleep holding hands. Years of texting each other memes about Lavar Ball and The Office and Tony Romo.

I hope and pray for many, many more sweet years together. Because otherwise whose dirty socks will I pick up from the living room?

Song of Solomon 8:6-7a

Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.