There are few things more depressing than going to your weekly meeting with your Little Brother and finding out you can’t see him because he’s been suspended from school. Particularly when he’s teetering near the failure point in several of his classes and a day’s missed work can really hurt him.
The reason: he’d accumulated seven tardies this year, and that generates an automatic one-day suspension. What genius came up with the idea of suspension from school as a punishment? It’s a day off — what sort of incentive for good behavior is that? “Gee, I better shape up — if I screw up one more time, I get a day off from school.”
I can understand if a kid’s bringing a knife to school or something that you might want him out of the school environment for a while. But his punishment for not showing up to school on time — is not showing up to school at all? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Comments
24 April | 11:16 | christy
How bigtime counter-productive. Can't you contact him outside of school at all?
24 April | 11:26 | josh
There's a strict ban on that sort of thing. I did, however, score his home phone number through illicit means today, so it's at least an option. But I'd rather not get in trouble -- plus I doubt we'd have a great chat over the phone, since it usually takes half an hour or so every week for him to warm up to chatting. I guess I'll just see him next week.
24 April | 12:41 | Ron
Perhaps the rule should be "for every five tardies you are required to go to Saturday School" or spend more time with your big brother.
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Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)
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