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Realism at School The
political correctness that infects our colleges and universities has
been well documented over the years.
However, a lesser studied phenomenon is the amount of PC that
is present within our primary and secondary schools.
I noticed its presence during the time I interned at a major
suburban district. The
specter of Stalinist PC ended up having quite a bit to do with my
future vocational decisions. Now
I work at an alternative school, and when people ask me why I do, I
answer by saying: “There is no such thing as political correctness
at an alternative school. Life
is real there and reality can’t be covered up with lies and
euphemisms. That’s why
I’ll never leave.” I
had already completed three years of work at a job in the sticks when
I interviewed for my current position.
My interview was highly unusual.
I sat with the principal, who struck me as a tough, no nonsense
type of administrator. I
was pleased because those are the types with whom I usually get along
with best. She told me at
the end of our chat that she was retiring in a year’s time and that,
after 35 years in the business, the last thing she wanted to do was
physically restrain any more students.
She said, “I don’t want to wrestle on the floor at this
point and I shouldn’t have to.”
Therefore, in her mind, I was an ideal candidate for the job.
The school, as is the norm, contained mostly female employees;
so she wanted to have as many strong, young males in the building as
was possible. It
wasn’t until our meeting was over that I realized that her words
were completely scandalous in the current social environment.
You can’t say you’re even looking for a “hard-working
person” let alone a “male person.”
Yet, I wondered, what was wrong with her viewpoint?
I can completely empathize with her position.
At the age of 33, I now have little patience for conducting 45
minute restraints on students. I
can only imagine how much it will bother me at the age of 58.
In my mind, working with a violent population mandates having
employees around you who are able to deter and control chaotic
outbursts, but nowadays, such common sense is verboten. In
the years since, I’ve usually gotten dragged into a fight about
twice a month. Earlier
today, one of our social workers, who had the summer off, visited and
told me she heard that we lost three male employees and replaced them
with women. She laughed
and said, “You’re dead.” I
hope she’s wrong, but usually our female employees avoid getting
involved in student altercations (and I don’t blame them). Generally,
we handle students with an ease and gentleness that would impress any
outsider; although, on one occasion, we did not.
The situation concerned a student who was a ward of the state.
One morning he came to school with a set of dice, which is
against our rules. No one
would have made a big deal about it had he not been trying to get
students to gamble with him in the hallway.
A dean tried to confiscate the dice, but the student responded
by tossing them to the ground. When
the dean bent down to pick them up, the student punched him in the
face two times. Help
quickly arrived. A
classroom aide struggled to control the student and they fell to the
ground together. The
result was that the student’s arm was broken. His
DCFS guardians then conducted an investigation, complete with lawyers,
at our school. They were
outraged that the student’s arm was broken, and held us responsible.
To me, it seemed utopianism run amok.
I remember thinking that the way DCFS was acting, it was as if
the student was injured doing something benign like merely walking
into his classroom. Now
I’m not trying to imply that we should not be sympathetic towards an
adolescent with a broken limb, but clearly, his own actions were a
catalyst for the chaos that followed.
Luckily, the investigation was decided in our favor.
Yet, it should be remembered that staff are incapable of acting
like perfect automatons in every situation.
There has to be an understanding within the system that
students have some responsibility over what occurs in their lives.
When they attack service personnel, it is irrational to expect
us to comport ourselves like clerics. One
of my favorite politically incorrect memories came after the
aforementioned principal tenured her letter of resignation and a
committee of four female department heads was appointed to find a
successor. I mention their
sex because that was what made the story humorous.
I walked into the conference room in which they were
interviewing applicants and asked them at the end of the day, “Well?
Who are we hiring?” They
shook their heads. An
old-timer said, “All the interviewees are women and we don’t want
to work for a female boss.” None
of the others disputed her opinion.
I laughed out loud. I
couldn’t believe it. If
I had my wits about me, I would have asked for their reasons.
“That’s
hilarious.” I said.
“Can I tell people that you said that?”
They didn’t answer me, but such a story illustrates that real
people do not always speak correctly and are not the pawns of
diversity counselors. Speaking
of gender, I can testify that the contemporary workplace is far from
accommodating for more traditional males like me.
My job is made up of meetings and then followed by more
meetings. That’s my role
and I accept it. The
meetings that concern students and parents are generally productive
and enjoyable. However,
what I cannot tolerate are the staff meetings.
They usually take up four hours of my Tuesday, and I view them
as a Kolyma-esque form of punishment. It
seems that the “viva la difference” approach has been consigned to
the ash heap of history. Our
meetings often contain a “Story to Share” segment, in which we are
supposed to tell each other about the wild and wooly things that
happen to us during the week. The
boss likes the stories to be sappy and kissy-huggy.
It is by far my least favorite moment at work.
I usually begrudgingly tell some story that is actually
nobody’s business, but then, on one occasion, I protested by
standing up and telling everyone about a bat I had to kill in my
apartment over the weekend. My
co-workers liked it more than one of my manufactured “heart on my
sleeve” stories. What
I’d like to say about all of this is that taking eight staff members
out from servicing children and placing them into a conference room
defeats the purpose of having specialists within your behavior
modification program. However,
my input on this point is not welcome.
What I do input to others is that I’m blessed to be where I
am at because reality is an intrinsic part of our school day.
I could not assume that working elsewhere.
Bernard Chapin works as a school psychologist full-time, a college instructor part-time and writes whenever possible.
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