>>SOUTHERN INDIANA — After kids complete eight years of schooling, they should be forced to get fast food jobs, drafted into the military or put in humane concentration camps until they’re 21. High school-age-kids are a menace to society. I should know. After spending over 30 years in bondage as a school administrator, I’m here to tell you that our society is doomed.

The public and the government know what ails the schools, don’t they? Wish I’d known that back in 1962 when I first became a high school principal. Corporal punishment bothered me then, but that’s the way it was in those days. A principal, who wasn’t “tough,” didn’t last. Leroy was the last kid I paddled. He was basically a good kid but always into something like pulling ponytails or trying to get spitballs to stick on ceilings. When he was sent to my office for the -nth time, I said, “OK, Leroy, I warned you and I’m fed up seeing you in here so it’s three licks. Take your billfold out of your pocket and put you elbows on the desk.” He knew it was coming, but I was certainly having second thoughts about this tried-and-true method. With the paddle drawn back, I hesitated.

“What would your mother think of what you’ve been doing?”

“My mother’s dead.”

“Well, then what would your father think?”

“He’s dead, too,” he said.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, they were. Leroy received three of the lightest licks, more like taps, and then we talked about his situation and came to an understanding. When Elza realized I was genuinely interested in him, he began shaping up. We became buddies in a sense, and he stopped driving his teachers up to the ceiling where the spitballs were.

School disciplinarians are expected to “punish” kids. Obviously, corporal punishment wasn’t the answer then or now. Suspension or expulsion isn’t either, although there’s no other choice with the hard core. In later years, I often assigned a troublemaker, who, in most cases, was “troubled,” a 500-word theme titled “My Family.” After reading these eye-opening themes, we’d have a time-consuming conference and talk about their behaviors and how to correct them. Many of these young people would pour out their hearts to someone who would listen, an opportunity to express their concerns, worries and feelings about, “My dad’s OK when he’s sober.”

Through the years, I confiscated stink bombs, knives and guns, and stashed enough cheap vodka and marijuana to send me up for a year. I’ve removed inebriated and stoned students from science labs and during Christmas Concert rehearsals in choir rooms. You name it, and I’ve dealt with everything imaginable, except rape and murder.

Not many young people living in a dysfunctional home environment will do well in school. After reading the accounts of these kinds of turbulent home situations, I often thought, that I would not be performing as well as this student in similar circumstances. The themes revealed everything from a stepfather sexually abusing his stepdaughter to a mother’s mental breakdown. A student worrying about what conflicts will erupt at home tonight cannot concentrate on diagramming sentences in English class today. A student trapped in an unstable home won’t perform well in any class.

A high school principal must have eagle eyes to spot sex. Students find ways to give massages on school buses, dark closets and vacant rooms. Some teachers teach Gray’s anatomy to students in dark rooms, too. Gay teachers write “love” notes to boys, which mothers find and share with you.

If a high school has 1,000 students and only 5 percent have problems, there are 50 students each day disrupting classes, skipping school or smoking something in a restroom. The most frustrating aspect is that there is simply not enough time to properly deal with it all. While quickly extinguishing one explosive fire, three others smolder.

One of my schools had 2,700 students. Add the total staff and it was like a town of nearly 3,000. My town, though, was enclosed in four walls with no escape. All I had to do everyday was keep the natives calm and peaceful, promote togetherness, happiness and love and pray that somebody out there was learning something.

It really wasn’t that bad. Most all kids are great and fun. Developing their amazing potential keeps you going as does having a “crazy” streak in you like them. 



Contact TLCTLC@AOL.com for an education.