New program to curtail unruly behavior

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Conn. Police Fine Students for Cursing

The Associated Press
Thursday, December 1, 2005; 5:53 AM

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Bad words are costing Hartford Public and Bulkeley high schoolers $103 each.

Police officers assigned to the schools have fined about two dozen students for cursing in a new program to curtail unruly behavior. The joint effort by school and police officials targets students who swear while defying teachers and administrators.

"We're sending a message to the parents and to the teachers," said Sandy Cruz-Serrano, senior adviser to Superintendent of Schools Robert Henry. "We are trying to bring back order to the schools."

Parents are required to pay the fines if the students cannot.

"Our heads are spinning with that," said Sam Saylor, president of the district Parent Teacher Organization. "The kids are really indecent with their swearing and they're swearing at teachers. This is their way of curtailing it _ making the parents pay."

Keila Ayala, 17, a Hartford Public sophomore, said she was ticketed for shouting an expletive in an officer's face while handcuffed for taking a swing at him.

"It'll stop me from swearing," she said. "Well, it won't stop me from swearing, but I won't cuss at the teachers."

George Sugai, who teaches school discipline at UConn's Neag School of Education, is skeptical of the effort. "Research says that punishing kids doesn't teach them the right way to act," he said.

But Hartford Police Officer Roger Pearl said the program is working.

"Before, the kids were swearing all the time. It went from many incidents to almost nothing," he said. "It's quiet in the halls."

___

Information from: The Hartford Courant, http://www.courant.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120100246.html
 
George Sugai, who teaches school discipline at UConn's Neag School of Education, is skeptical of the effort. "Research says that punishing kids doesn't teach them the right way to act," he said.
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Well, there's the problem, right there.

Kids are new to the planet, and need to be shown how the world works. They need to learn, early on, that actions have consequences. Good actions have good consequences, bad actions have bad consequences. If they do not learn this important lesson early on, while they are still too small to do much damage to the world or to themselves, bad things happen.

Good parents explain all this to kids, in terms the kids can understand, and keep doing it even when overwhelmed by the incredibly durable nature of the task. They teach their kids how to do the right things and reward the kids for doing them. They teach their kids what wrong actions to avoid and clearly spell out the consequences of doing them. And then they follow through. And they keep doing it. For years.

Bad parents come in two flavors: one kind might bop the kid upside the head for misbehavior, but never explain what the kids are supposed to do instead. The other kind let the little darlings do anything they want, and then erase the consequences for the kid if something bad results. And the worst parents simply alternate between these two idiotic actions on a semi-random basis, resulting in kids who think all adults are criminally insane and deserve to be treated like it.

Then education-college weenies come along and help the bad parents mess up their kids' lives, by telling the parents incredibly stupid stuff like, "...punishing kids doesn't teach them the right way to act."

For a kid-bopping bad parent, such statements merely reaffirm that someone has to bop the kids, because plainly the people they spend the most time with (the school people) aren't going to do it. So they bop the kids more than ever.

For an overly protective, permissive and indulgent parent, such a statement merely eggs on this bad parenting. It encourages them to continue sheltering their kids and preventing them from learning the necessary lessons of growing up.

And when you put all these things together, well, you end up with teenagers who don't think there's anything wrong with screaming profanities in their teacher's face.

pax
 
Wow... I can imagine my reaction if my kid came hope and said I owed over a hundred bucks because he'd said something in school. Even if it was a set of words I'd tried to teach him were in appropriate.

And then, there are the kids who learned those words from Mom or Dads that don't think they are inappropriate either...

I can just imagine... So what was it again that the school was trying to teach?
 
yorec ~

I think you missed an important sentence:
The joint effort by school and police officials targets students who swear while defying teachers and administrators.
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In other words, they aren't fining kids simply for cussing. They're fining them for cussing out the teacher in anger.

I think there's a difference.

pax
 
pax, I see your distinction, but I think I would prefer it the other way around.

If some words are unacceptable at school, they should be unacceptable in any context, not just when they are directed towards teachers and administrators.
 
Teacher says Johnny swore at me and the cop says that'll be $103 dollars, pay up! Since when do the cops have the authority to assess a fine? What happened to due process?
 
Then let's punish them for "defying teachers and administrators," not someone else for an emotional outbusrt or words whose acceptability may or may not be considered acceptable at home... And whose bright idea was it to steal from the parents because thier teenagers have an emotional outburst? Running around in little Johnny's head: "I'm gonna tell Mrs. Brightandfun to go @#$% herself - then dad'll have ta pay that hundred bucks - That'll teach him for shorting my allowance for drinking!" Yeah way to go... :rolleyes:

Dont' get me wrong - swearing by teenagers at school is uncool in the extreme - I sympathize, but this technique is wrongheaded and mistargeted.
 
Then let's punish them for "defying teachers and administrators,"...
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yorec ~

Keila Ayala, 17, a Hartford Public sophomore, said she was ticketed for shouting an expletive in an officer's face while handcuffed for taking a swing at him.
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Sounds like they're doing that already. And like the cussing ticket is a pile-on charge, like the cherry on top of a hot fudge sundae.

pax
 
That mommy and daddy get to pay? Yeah - really works and will teach young Keila that her speech pattern is unacceptable to whom? The enemy, that's who and that's what is being taught here - her and her friends' private conversational skills and patterns will not change. But thier perception of those in charge will worsen. :rolleyes:

Like I said, I sympathize with the problem - dislike the current situation a lot... but this is NOT a good solution to the problem.
 
"And whose bright idea was it to steal from the parents because thier teenagers have an emotional outburst? Running around in little Johnny's head: "I'm gonna tell Mrs. Brightandfun to go @#$% herself - then dad'll have ta pay that hundred bucks - That'll teach him for shorting my allowance for drinking!" Yeah way to go... "

yorec brought up a good point here. These kids can really rack up a bill for their parents without really doing anything but swearing. It gives the kids a chance to attack their parents financially, without getting punished themselves.

And when the parents get angry and refuse to give the kid any more allowance, then he'll just swear at teachers more to teach his parents a lesson.

I don't think kids should be able to walk around cursing at faculty, but I just feel bad for the parents that have to put up with this kind of stuff if fining the family is the school's answer.
 
Little Jonnie would be getting $103 taken out of his backside. This idea that punishing kids doesn't teach them how to act is foreign to me. When I was a kid I was told not to do something if I did what I was told not to do, I had my backside busted and learned that I should do what I was told. It wasn't scientific, my dad only had a 7th grade education but trust me I learned a lot from that man. I don't feel like I was abused. All of this touchy feely stuff is pure quackery.
 
why take the $103.00 dollars out of Jonnies backside? I am sure that little jonnie probably has a room ful of game consoles and games to go with them. A TV and maybe a stereo...wouldnt take a few minutes to put on em e-bay
 
DAMN IT what COUNTRY are we living in?!

HOW does anyone think it's okay to force anyone other than the perpetrator of an act to pay a fine for that act?!

What if some kid's parents told him that he couldn't see a movie he wanted to see, and so to punish the parents -- and because he has no money of his own and won't be liable for the fines -- he goes and curses several dozen times, each time to be counted by the (thought) police as a separate incident?!

How is a parent supposed to be able to be in control of what his kid SAYS in any venue whatsoever?!

This policy is... there's no other word appropriate for it -- INSANE.

Show me any other thing a kid can do that's against the rules in a school that carries a FINE with it! Run in the halls, is there a fine? Spit on the floor, is there a fine? Wander the halls without a pass, is there a fine?

And now SPEECH carries a fine?!


-azuresky
 
pax said:
Then let's punish them for "defying teachers and administrators,"...

yorec ~


Quote:
"Keila Ayala, 17, a Hartford Public sophomore, said she was ticketed for shouting an expletive in an officer's face while handcuffed for taking a swing at him."

Sounds like they're doing that already. And like the cussing ticket is a pile-on charge, like the cherry on top of a hot fudge sundae.

pax
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Yeah, well, it's still wrong.

When did speech, even profanity, become a crime?

How can they FINE anyone for it?

What if you were being arrested for something, say, stealing a car, and as they cuff you, you said, "Yeah, well BLEEP YOU, pig!" and they added $103 fine to whatever others you faced for your actual crime?

It doesn't matter what else they're getting you in trouble for doing. "Piling on" the charges is vindictive when done by authorities. And just because the girl took a swing at the cop does not mean that her speaking should also get her into trouble. She's free to speak. This is America, right?

-azurefly
 
"I am sure that little jonnie probably has a room ful of game consoles and games to go with them. A TV and maybe a stereo...wouldnt take a few minutes to put on em e-bay"

Eghad, I like your way of thinking. Also, password protect the computer so little johnnie can't surf the net. If he's a TFL member, that'd be the worst punishment of all! :D
 
It's a stupid policy

When my daughter was about 14, she skipped school. I got a notice that upon the second offense that, among other things, I would be fined $500 (Miami-Dade County).

Now I ask you, if you have a stubborn and difficult teenager, just exactly what's the motivation to keep her from skipping school if it's the parent paying the $500 ?

And just in case you think I'm one to tolerate bad behavior, my kid knows my threats are as good as already done. At a later age, for shoplifting (while a runaway) I was phoned by a relative telling me she had called from jail and had been there 5 days and was going to call me to come and get her out (it took her 5 days to finally run out of "pride"). I waited. She did call. I told her I'd come get her but not today. Tomorrow. That I was busy.

Even parents who apply fairly strict discipline can end up with a really difficult teenager. Further punishing the parent, not the kid, with a fine is criminal.

Oh, and she was really much more cooperative at home after that 6th day in jail.
 
PAX
+1
"Research says that punishing kids doesn't teach them the right way to act," he said.
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Only a Liberal could think of an excuse like that... :barf:

It most certainly teaches them HOW not to act!!

And they wonder why the words "liberal" and "democrat" are "spat" out, with great muzzle velocity, by conservatives... :D :D
 
Research says that punishing kids doesn't teach them the right way to act
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No, but it sure as hell teaches 'em how NOT to act.

But to make the parents pay for their ignorant children is only HALF wrong. Maybe after a few "payments" they will start being "parents" instead of "buddies".

I do know that while I cannot control everything my children do, I would like to think that the way I have raised them will keep them from doing stupid and disrespectful things like this.

And THEY know that were they ever to cost me $103.00 for doing something so stupid, it would only happen that ONE TIME. Because the price they will pay for thier failure will be WAY more than the money it cost me.....
 
Punishing the parent is not going to work......

Like I said take thier computer, X-Box, PS2, Car, TV and sell em on EBay and recoup your money on the fine. Might even take some designer shoes and clothes and have a garage sale. I would make em pay for thier meals to recoup money. Then they would be taught what a GI Party is. If they want to keep doing it I would even see if I could send them to a foster home. I would even see if any local prisons or jails have a scared straight program. If I had one who was skipping school I might even take some vacation time and go to school with her everday for a couple of weeks. I know it hurts to do this to people you love. Some pain in the short run may save you pain years down the line.

I wasnt an angel but my Dad broke it down USMC boot camp style when I screwed up. He did not use physical punishment very much at all.

Love is good but sometimes fear of parents and ridicule from peers is better for some.

I remember a young friend who was once taken to a tour of Angola Prison in LA.... he did not have a bad day after that.

My Dad had to use some fear sometimes....but at 49 years old I appreciate every bit of it.
 
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