The video was apparently posted by a local newspaper, Frank Magazine, after the husband of the school board Superintendent entered her confidential board email, sent the video to his own mail, and then forwarded it to the magazine. Crazy goings on that have led to demands for the firing of the super, but that’s another story.

The principal came very close to being fired, and has been transferred to another school. Comments posted below the video seem balanced about evenly between supporting him and demanding his firing. While it’s easy for a teacher or administrator to lose their temper in a confrontation with an uncooperative student, the principal got himself into a situation that escalated into a battle of wills, and he unfortunately carried things too far. Sometimes, like a high speed highway chase that needs to be abandoned, the guilty party must be let go and picked up another day. Things have a way of escalating.

A few days ago, an article in the Chronicle-Herald newspaper also called attention to the apparent lack of any mandatory school attendance in Nova Scotia. While I suspect that things are better in rural areas (students need school here for social life!), the writer was highlighting the Halifax situation as being lax to the point of ridiculous. He described classes of about thirty students with about twenty regularly showing up, and apparently not always the same twenty. He also indicated a policy with assignments that basically gave students no enforceable deadlines, allowing work to be passed in at the eleventh hour of a semester and still be eligible for full credit. It’s school when you feel like it.

I suspect the policies are the same across the province, although some boards and schools might not make students as aware of their “options” and therefore teachers may be getting away with rules that are ultimately not enforceable.

“Ultimately not enforceable.” That should be the motto for most of our public school systems these days. It’s a legal motto, but also one of society’s choice. Most people are aware of at least occasional situations of outrageous student behavior in schools, and they shake their heads at the situation and frequently blame the teachers. While much of the time learning is taking place in our schools, sometimes in a creative and exciting fashion, at other times it’s being disrupted by the minority who have laid claim to the motto. We run schools of a thousand students with a staff of about seventy, control maintained in the building by regulations that are “ultimately not enforceable.” It’s a poor situation. It’s very fortunate that 95% of these students are good kids, and are quite willing to cooperate, otherwise it would be anarchy.

People who have little experience in a school setting are generally unaware of the antics of this other 5%. The few parents who hang around the school for extended periods as volunteers sometimes see shocking situations that change any perception they might have had that teachers don’t earn their pay. Parents who have the misfortune to be close when a student is called to a high school office for an offense sometimes hear loud and angry language beyond their imagination, as staff are told to ****-off , labeled with allusions to their lack of clear parentage and often their maternal relationships. (Don’t ask.) Then the student kicks a few walls, slams door and lockers, and finally departs. Generally these are male students, but the language of some female students, and their willingness to use it, would shock a longshoreman.

“I can’t believe he talked to you like that!” the parent will say to administrators. Believe it.

I recall one student at my former school who left the office and proceeded to go into several of the Grade 9 classrooms across the hall. He walked among the desks in those, oblivious to teacher demands to leave, greeted friends, insulted a few other students, then left for the next class. He was aware that nothing could be done. No staff member was going to touch him. None were allowed to. Words, no matter if said in an attempt at authority, meant nothing. The RCMP could be called and he could somehow be charged with trespassing, but it would be half an hour before they showed up, and if they did he would cheerfully leave the building and no charges would end up being filed. He understood the motto.

He would be suspended, for only up to five days without need for board approval. During that time, teachers would have to prepare work for him, because his education must not be jeopardized by the suspension. In all likelihood he had neither pen nor paper at the school, since he hadn’t done a bit of work unless these items were supplied by a teacher (and they would be thrown, probably on the hall floor, following class), but his education had to continue. Textbooks? He has no idea where those went. Hasn’t seen them in months.

Troubled student? No doubt about it. But with no interest in changing. Walking to a different drummer. School was not cool. School was populated by dumb teachers, and dumb students, and an office full of jerks. He’d probably learned that at the supper table, though not always. True life was the weed he was going to smoke as soon as he ran into some friends, and true life was found in the cases of beer at the camp on the weekend. Ride the four-wheeler. Get smashed. Ride the four-wheeler smashed. Get some girls.

So why was he in school at all? He meets friends at school. He meet girls at school. He can buy dope at school. He can make plans for the weekend at school. And the Old Lady won’t give him money unless he goes to school. And the Old Man will crack him on the side of the head if he doesn’t get out of his sight (but threaten to sue if a teacher takes him by the arm).

But the bottom line is that he disrupts the education of others. He needs an alternative education, but his intent is not to get it in any of our institutions.

Over the time period of my teaching career, from the mid-seventies onward, the education system went through some radical changes, particularly in the area of school discipline, but also in the areas of accountability and responsibility. It’s likely that it went like a pendulum from a situation that was not ideal in many ways, to perhaps a brief passing through a rightness, and on to the other extreme of today: ultimately not enforceable.

When I started teaching, teachers had a lot of “authority”, certainly at times a useful thing with the right student, but occasionally carried to excess by some teachers and administrators. Secretaries at our school used to tell of hearing thumps coming from the principal’s office, recognized as a senior male student (who was probably quite used to it) being taken by the shirt front and rattled against the wall. Not an ideal situation, though it could be said that these students were from the small group apparently incorrigible repeat offenders who seemed to only understand that treatment– as shocking as it may seem to people now opposed to any kind of corporal punishment. I’ve heard a few of these students, grown men now, saying things like, “I deserved it,” and one fellow who complained that one administrator used to “talk” to him… he couldn’t stand that, and always wished at the time that the principal would strap him and get it over with.

I’ve seen as well, particularly as a new classroom teacher in those early years, a few senior teachers who had tempers far too violent and abused students when they lost control. A few instances were well over the line, but it was a time when parents seldom complained, and the student often kept quiet because he would get more at home.

Attendance in those early days was kept up by threats that seemed to have some teeth. Those were the days of “Family Allowance”, when parents received monthly federal money for assistance with raising children. While the amounts were not large, a family of four or five children were receiving an amount that made a difference. If a student started to skip school, the school had the ability, with the cooperation of community services, to have the allowance cut off for students failing to attend. There was even the extreme situation (and at a later time the threat of it still lingering) of students being sent to “the Boy’s School”, a reform school in nearby Shelburne, for as little cause as failing to attend school, if the parents indicated they had no ability to control the young person.

All of that is gone, of course. The family allowance is no more. The Boy’s School is no more. There is a court fine that may be still on the books for parents of children who fail to attend school, but it is something like $25 on a second offense, and no court would give its valuable time to prosecute.

For a time we had students in this area believing that they were relatively free to quit school at age 16, but not before that. Students usually failed to ask, “Or what?” That was fortunate, as by the 1980’s we had no real answer. For many years after the age limit might have meant something, we kept the threat going when actually there was NO “what” available. I think some parents and students still believe it today. Ultimately not enforceable.

The straps are gone from teacher and principal’s desks, gone for twenty-five years at least. Like most teachers of my generation, I’ve never had one in my hand (or desk). A teacher, under law, has the ability to act In Loco Parentis, meaning standing in for the parent. While this also carries responsibility for the safety of the student, at one time it also allowed a teacher to take a student by the arm at least, acting as a parent and disciplinarian. Now the ability of even the parent to discipline the student through any physical means is a grey area for the courts, and teachers have found that they should not count on that allowing them to touch a student in any manner, even to the point of taking them by the arm or shoulder, or physically blocking their travel. The only possibly safe ground for physical touching is in a clear case where the safety of other students or staff is at risk unless the student is restrained, and even that could end up a decision of the court as to the appropriateness of the staff response.

Teachers who spout warnings like, “Get that assignment in by Friday or you’ll get zero!”, or even those who deduct marks for lateness, are apparently working in the area of the official motto—not enforceable. Schools that attempt to fail students who were absent for most of the semester are also working in the grey area. Students who have learning problems require, and should receive, modified programs, but those who don’t achieve due to lack of attendance, effort, or cooperation can only be kept back (“failed”) twice in their possible thirteen year school career.

So the schools muddle on. Administrators who should be spending time creatively thinking up new ideas and plans for the school, who should be acting as resources and curriculum support for their frontline staff, spend far too much of their time dealing with this five percent who have no interest in education, who repeatedly disrupt others, but who, in the opinion of the decision-makers, should not have their personal education hampered in any way.

Attend if you feel like it. Do the work if you feel like it. Hand it in when you feel like it. Obey the rules if you feel like it. Certainly it requires responsibility, but unfortunately I’m not sure it builds it in many of them. It’s that old, “Or what?” problem again. “You won’t get an education” doesn’t do the job. “You’ll disrupt the education of others” is even worse. So at a time when we should be turning out students capable of taking on the challenges of a troubled world, we are not turning out our best.

I have some serious misgivings about our school system: it’s designed by people who like certain things and feel that everyone should as well, it’s not suited to all students, not realistic for the world the student lives in, etc., etc., but if society and government feels it should be a required and significant portion of a child’s development, it would be nice to think it could be done with definite requirements, with expectations, and in peace and in safety.

But– ultimately not enforceable.