Security, Get This Elephant Out of My Classroom

A Story by MsBonn

A saticical work on the state of Education in America

SECURITY! GET THIS ELEPHANT OUT OF MY CLASSROOM!

Bonnie Davis

The elephant is in the room. No one wants to acknowledge its presence, let alone take steps to initiate its removal. Eventually, there will be so many of us standing silently in here with him, that I am afraid he will soon get tired of standing over us, and “cop a squat”, suffocating the life from my colleagues and me, and along with it, our great love for the teaching profession. My hope is that the elephant will defecate a big pile of reality and that the stench of it will act as a smelling salt to awake our tongues from their gross stupor. It is imperative that we find our voice so we can speak out before the elephant sits his fat a*s down.

The elephant has a name-Discipline, aka Dis. No doubt Dis lives up to his name. According to the Ebonical Vernacular, a dis occurs when one entity shows complete disrespect or disregard for another. There are too many Dises being given a place in school districts all across America.

Compared to my days as a high school student, today’s classroom has a new face. An extremely angry face. In the “olden days”, as some of my students would say, cursing was absent from the hallways and classrooms, and the Teacher’s Lounge was a mystical, magical place where only those who “paid their dues” were granted access. Being summoned to the principal’s office ushered in a plethora of emotions which included (but were not limited to) severe dread, trepidation, and sheer panic, not to mention, a physical and psychological nausea. By the time the tardy bell sounded, students were already in class, engaged, preparing for the day’s lesson. No one would be caught dead with sagging pants, belly buttons on display, or earphones dangling.

Today, the halls are filled with more curse words than new vocabulary words, the Teacher’s Lounge is the “hangout spot” and snack capitol for the students, and a trip to the dentist appears to dredge more fear than a principal’s “show cause”. At the ringing of the tardy bell, there are more students in the halls and in the restrooms “beaming up to Scotty” than those in the classroom attempting to become as knowledgeable as Scotty. And students seem to be as fashion- conscious as were Adam and Eve.

Administrators attempt to cover these sores with Band Aids because they are required to play the “number’s game”- Can’t suspend too many students, that would make the Power-That-Be look incompetent, making the district look weak, as well. And you know we can’t have that. In too many instances, their solution-a mere verbal reprimand to the accused and a personal escort back to class. Next, comes the blame game with teachers, being cited for poor or for non existent classroom management. Students become wise to the game as well. They know that they have the school and the “old heads” that run it on lock, which only hyperbolizes the disciple problem.

So, what is the solution? We’ll call it The Great Crackdown. A military state. This “old school” teacher is tired of seeing good teachers crying in hallways, and looking over their shoulders as they drag themselves to and from their cars every day, desperate to get home to reconcile themselves to a little peace. And those who are being made to question their callings to teach- utterly preposterous and downright shameful.

Schools need to bring back corporal punishment, ban all electronical devices from the premises, and post guards trained in hand-to-hand combat on every corner of every floor of every building. Homeland Security agents should be brought in, employing the same search tactics as the TSA agents in our nation’s airports. Zero Tolerance is the order.

What’s the problem? Has it really come to this? Our urban schools already resemble the nation’s penitentiaries more than they should. The walls are cinderblock, the restrooms reek of pine sol diluted with urine, mixed with marijuana and cigarette potpourri. Field trips are often few and far between. Lockdowns and code reds occur regularly like clockwork. Students’ individuality and legitimate ideas and concerns are stifled and eradicated. The cafeteria has literally become the “mess” hall. Student abilities are limited to how they “behave” on standardized tests, as opposed to the degree of knowledge they are able to acquire. Students are set up to fail, as the system nurses a spirit of “entitlement” until it morphs into apathy. NO CRITICAL THINKING ALLOWED HERE!

Once this problem is properly addressed, and the lack of discipline becomes a non-issue, real teachers can get back to the business of teaching. Currently, nineteen of the United States continue to recognize corporal punishment as a legal form of discipline in the school system. I say BRING BACK CORPORAL PUNISHMENT! (Incidentally, it may be a necessary evil to deliver a dose of the paddle to some teachers and administrators as well. Get Dis out of our classrooms, and let the learning begin again.