Why You Must Not Ignore Bad Behavior

Relationships are the foundation of a successful school, business, family, and society. Bad behavior by default separates and divides, it never brings people together. When people are being pushed apart because of someone’s behavior (young or old) it is impossible to build or strengthen a relationship. Without a relationship, there can be no connection and without a connection everything suffers especially academics and school safety.

Why those two?

Academics is pretty straight forward. Students who are connected have stronger relationships with adults who in turn know the student better and therefore are able to give better advice and guidance as the student travels the path of learning. The old maxim that without knowledge there is no wisdom applies perfectly. If you don’t know the student then your efforts at educating and mentoring will be less effective or worse, damaging.

School safety is intertwined with academic process. If you lower or raise one, you lower or raise both. Students that are not committed or connected to the academic process will never be committed to making their schools safer and every student must play their part. Schools are made their safest when the students, teachers, parents, and staff members care about and look out for each other. The closer the connection, the safer the school.

Because every student (and adult) in the school must be committed to the academic process, we can’t ignore bad behavior because it divides and therefore by default also makes us all less safe. That of course doesn’t mean that we simply focus only on punishment. I know that it may be easier said than done but instead concentrate on intervention and management. Remember, there is something bigger at stake here and if we want to win big (in academics and safety) then we have to get everyone into the fold—connected—and that will never happen when bad behavior is accepted or ignored.

Never. 

Be Thankful For Weak-willed Students

Two kids commit the exact same bad behavior. One is remorseful and one is not. The one who displays real regret, we feel sorry for him and we want to cut him a break. We’ll even go to bat for him, pleading for leniency because after all, “He’s sorry for what he’s done.”

Both of the kid’s reactions to the bad gives us a glimpse of their current character as well as an idea of how much intervention is required (we don’t respond to kids—we intervene with kids).

The kid who is not sorry will need stronger and more focused intervention. The priority will be to instill the missing sense of what is right and wrong.

The second kid however, because he’s sorry, has demonstrated that he knows what is right and wrong but has difficulty choosing what is right and wrong. Therefore, this is less of an issue of malicious intent and more of an issue of being weak willed.

With the kid who is not remorseful, don’t waste time on anything else but teaching him to understand and to internalize what makes something right and wrong. If the kid can’t get this right, nothing will be right for him in life.

With the weak willed kids, don’t waste too much time berating them over the bad outcome, but instead teach them ways to resist making bad decisions. After all, that’s what they really need help with and that’s what their remorse has really shown us. If they had to do it all over again they would have chosen and preferred a different outcome.

In both of these scenarios both kids have demonstrated that they need positive adult intervention. As the adult, it’s important to draw a distinction between regretful and not regretful so when we help the kid we will have the appropriate intensity and focus of intervention.

I believe that most of our kids really don’t want to hurt themselves or others and if given a chance to do it over, they’d choose, as well as prefer, the good outcome. That makes them more weak willed than malicious and as crazy as this sounds, we should all be thankful for weak willed students.

Don’t lose sight that this is so much better, and easier to correct, than some other options.

Two final things

Character is not permanent and can change—for the better or the worse. Don’t write anyone off and don’t think that good will automatically become better without effort. Character can go both ways if left unattended.

No one likes being in trouble. Real regret is being sorry for the bad happening and not just sorry for being in trouble. You’ll know the difference.

The Same Year For 20 Years

When I was a young man I worked construction during my summer breaks from school.  As a teenager, the work was hard but the money was good.  I can remember once witnessing an argument take place between two men who were leaders on the site.

We were building a house and for those who are not familiar with such a demanding and complicated task, many things must happen all at once and in a specific order.  The carpenter must first frame in the walls so the electrician can then run the wires so the plumber can then rough in the pipes so the stone mason can then…you get the idea.

The argument took place after the lead carpenter called everyone to lay out the next steps.  While that argument may be thirty years old, it is still very relevant even today—especially since the New Year is still young.

It started with the lead carpenter and went something like this (of course minus the terrible language that is common on a construction site but unfit for polite society):

“The drywall needs to be hung first and no later than 9:30 so the plumber can…”
“No, that’s the wrong order,” interrupted the stone mason who then went on to lay out a different order of events.
The lead carpenter disagreed sharply and stated, “I’ve been doing this for twenty years and this is how it gets done.”
The stone mason shot back, “No, I’m telling you how it gets done.”

The rest of us circled around and watched as the two men escalated quickly from a discussion to a full blown argument bursting with technical details of why each was right. While I can honestly say I had no idea which way may be better, I was just happy for the break.

The one constant in the exchange, was that the lead carpenter started off each reply with, “I’ve been doing this for twenty years.”
After hearing this no fewer than eight times, the stone mason snapped, “Just because you’ve been doing this for twenty years doesn’t mean you’ve been doing it right!”

Everyone went quiet, including the lead carpenter who looked as if he had just been slapped.  The man muttered, “Whatever—do it your way,” and stormed off.

With the ‘discussion’ apparently settled, everyone went back to work after the stone mason explained the new order of tasks. Me, I stood there staring, trying to understand what had happened.

The stone mason saw me staring and asked, “What?”
“Shouldn’t we do what the lead carpenter said?  He’s been doing it for twenty…”

The stone mason cut me off and said, “He hasn’t been doing this for twenty years.  He’s just been repeating the same year for twenty years and that doesn’t make him automatically right.  In fact, it’s what makes him wrong.”

The moral behind the stone mason’s reply to me was that the lead carpenter had stopped growing and had come to believe the fatal mistake that experience automatically equals knowledge. It doesn’t—especially if that experience is the same experience every year.

What a great point and one that is important for us to remember as we start this new year.

Last year, good or bad, was last year.  If we repeat it, good or bad, it’s still only last year. It’s not a new year, it’s not a new chance to grow, it’s not a new year to learn, it’s not a new year of experience—it’s just last year repeated.  If we are not careful, and take concrete steps to ensure it doesn’t happen, we may find ourselves repeating each year over and over and over again…

Here is one way to ensure that last year is not repeated.

Invest at least thirty minutes each day in personal growth.

While it may not sound like a lot, if you do this every day for one year it will equal out to one full month that you have spent on improving yourself.  Imagine if for 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday, for an entire month you did nothing but read, learn, grow.

Don’t allow the conversation to take place in your head in which you say that you’re too tired or you’re too busy.  That’s the wrong conversation.

Just do it.

Get up a little earlier or stay up a little later, find a quiet space where you can focus, time it on your phone or watch—and just do it.  The more you do, the more you’ll want to do it, and the more time you’ll find yourself giving to yourself.  Soon, instead of thirty minutes it will be forty-five or sixty minutes and longer.

It’s not too late, the year has only just started and the only right order to having a new year is growing or ‘building’ a new you.

The Choice Suddenly Becomes Easier

There are two different degrees of trust – loyalty and allegiance.

Loyalty is a lesser form and implies faithfulness, respect, and dependability. Loyalties can change because loyalty is typically expected to be reciprocal – I’m loyal to you so you be loyal to me.

Allegiance is a higher form of trust and implies a greater sense of obligation, duty, and a finality.  Once given, your allegiance typically remains forever – for good or bad – and can be one sided.  My country right or wrong.

Loyalty is a great good.
Allegiance is a supreme good.

Because both are intrinsically good, one cannot give their loyalty or allegiance to something bad.  Strictly speaking, loyalty and allegiance stops being loyalty and allegiance if not used towards a worthy cause.  Gang members can never really be loyal to each other and terrorists can never really give their allegiance.  Their loyalty is really stubbornness to do evil and their allegiance is a selfish effort for personal preservation.  They don’t really choose to be loyal or to give their allegiance—they must give it or personally suffer.

Okay, so having said that let’s move on.

Loyalty and allegiance are not in competition with each other.  They simply denote the level of personal commitment on your part to another person or an organization.

Some examples:

Your loyalty may be to your friends, but your allegiance is to your spouse.
Your loyalty may be to a political party, but your allegiance is to all people.
Your loyalty may be to the military, but your allegiance is to your country.

Your loyalty may be to your school district, but…your allegiance is to the students and their parents.

The other principals, teachers, and staff members are your co-workers and therefore they deserve your respect, faithfulness, and loyalty.  They’ve earned it, give it to them.

Because school personnel are standing in place of the parents, the students are therefore by default standing in place as your children and your children deserve your allegiance – a higher degree of trust, duty, and obligation.  That means we have an obligation to our children to provide them with a solid education, a loving atmosphere, and a safe environment.

If at any time you must choose between the good of the student or the ease of going with the flow and not ruffling feathers or raising standards or adding extra but necessary requirements to your staff that you know would benefit your students, just remember…

your loyalty is to your school district but your allegiance is to the students—your children.

The choice suddenly becomes easier.

3 Ways to Immediately Improve Your School

A fight, harassment, act of disrespect, intimidation, threat of violence, or some other similar and unwanted behavior is more than just a disciplinary problem. It’s also an academic problem because it prevents or delays learning on the part of the students involved as well as drains the time and energy of the adults who must deal with the problem instead of investing that time towards some worthy goal.

We have to stop seeing disciplinary problems, violence, and the threat of violence as a standalone issue. It’s not. We may think that we can contain it in the space where it occurred or solve it in the main office where the problem is officially addressed, but that’s not how violence works. Those who deal with this kind of stuff every day know that violence is by its very nature disruptive and is not restricted by any boundaries. It seeps into every part of the school day and continues to cause problems and issues long after we think, and hope, that it is over.

Unfortunately, we can’t stop violence from ever happening again. Violence has been with us since the beginning and will be with us until the end of time, but we can prevent or minimize many violent acts. In fact, I think we can stop the vast majority of unwanted behaviors if we’re willing to do the hardest thing of all, which is to change ourselves.

Here are three things that we can change today about how we think and respond to violence that will have an immediate and positive impact in our schools.

Adopt Zero Tolerance.  
This doesn’t mean that you have to put the hammer down on every kid that does something wrong. Zero tolerance doesn’t mean zero discretion. The kind of zero tolerance I’m talking about is an interior shift in how one sees violence. Violence is not a normal part of the school day and it’s not normal that kids act violently and it’s not normal that we spend hours every day dealing with violence. Violence has no place, zero place, in a public school and we can never tolerate kids hurting kids or themselves.

We must stop seeing violent and other unwanted behaviors as normal kid behavior and instead, implement zero tolerance. Don’t accept anyone hurting someone else for any reason. Period. Zero tolerance.

Be Honest. 
Violence is not prevented with intentions, it’s only prevented with actions. Saying you’re against violence doesn’t get the job done. You must intervene—do something—to stop it from happening. If you don’t then you’re not preventing violence, but managing violence and therefore allowing it to control your day as well as hinder your students’ ability to learn.

Now, be honest—which one have you been doing? Preventing or managing violence?

Whole School    
In my experience, the best schools with the greatest climates and the safest environments have a ‘whole school’ mentality.

Don’t let your school safety efforts become a stream. Don’t let it wither and trickle out. Make it a part of your day and build it into your academic process, which is your river. The addition of the safety efforts will only help to enhance your academic achievements because it will not distract from it, but be a part of it.

But rivers with defined banks and no streams become deeper and faster. And that constant flow of water all going in the same direction creates an unstoppable force of momentum.

Streams that branch off from the river are never as deep or as great as the river. Separated from the main body of water, the stream will slow down in intensity and often trickle out to nothing. With too many streams, the river will diminish and suffer.

Think of a river.

When it comes to school safety, one of the biggest mistakes that school leaders make is that they make safety a standalone function or a responsibility of a few people, instead of blending it into the day and making it a part of the entire school.

 

Last point.

People who deal with violence on a daily basis are impacted by it. The degree that they are affected will vary depending on several factors. Besides the person’s natural disposition and the intensity and frequency of the violence, the two other factors that most affect a person’s response to violence is support and control. Those who have a high degree of support (family, faith, staff, friends, supervisor, etc.) will be less emotionally and personally impacted by it. This has been well researched and documented.

However, control is one factor that does not get enough attention. If you spend all day being surprised by violence, having bad things dumped in your lap, never knowing what will happen next, and fearing that something terrible is going to happen any minute—it can make for an anxious and unhappy life.

Superintendents, principals, SRO supervisors, and other school leaders – continue to give your support but also give them control. If you are reactive, you are not in control. If you are proactive and preventative, then you are in control because you’re taking concrete steps to prevent it. You are doing something.

The greatest control you can give your people is to create an environment (policy, training, and materials) that naturally keeps your people proactive. By doing this they will by default maintain greater control which will make them more resistant to the long term and negative effects of violence.

What Do You See Wednesday (17 December 2014)

Check out the comments to read what others have seen!

Being able to spot what is safe and unsafe takes practice. And experience is invaluable. We’re going to post a new picture each Wednesday and after everyone has had a chance to comment, we’ll review and discuss the findings.

This week’s picture was taken early in the morning and the yellow glow is from the parking lot light.  This is a mobile classroom.

What do you see and how can we make it safer?  Are there any special safety measures we need to consider?

 

It’s Like Vietnam All Over Again.

My mother was just a little girl in 1940 when war engulfed the world. I have always been profoundly grateful to the men who answered the call during those terrible times. Those men were willing to sacrifice everything including their own lives so a little girl (my mom) in rural Pennsylvania would be safe. Their example of selflessness would contribute greatly to why I joined the Marines.

We rightly call the men who fought in WWII the Greatest Generation even though there was institutionalized racism in American and in particular the military. Black men were officially deemed incapable of leading white men or themselves, they were housed in separate barracks, forced to eat separately, and relegated to the most menial and degrading jobs all because of the color of their skin.

Racism thrived not in spite of the system but because it was part of the system and yet, we are able to say and rightly so, “The system may have been bad, but surely not all of the men inside of the system were bad. Let’s judge them by the good and the bad as well as their individual actions.”

The enemy in 1940 was the system and not the American soldier.

Jump forward to 1967 and returning veterans from Vietnam were spit on, called murderers, and had feces thrown at them because they wore the uniform. The only difference between these men and the men of the Greatest Generation was twenty years. But unlike the men of World War II, Vietnam veterans were judged not by their individual actions but by their association with a group, the US military, and therefore they were treated horribly. Instead of saying that the war was bad but surely not every man was bad, it became, “Every man must be bad because they are a part of a system that is bad.”

So, the enemy in 1967 wasn’t the Viet Cong or even the system, it was the American soldier.

Clearly it is a form of prejudice to judge the individual by external elements that are out of their control instead of the internal worth of their character. Thankfully, America would apologize to our Vietnam veterans, albeit way too late, for this horrible treatment and give them the praise that was long over due. More importantly, America promised that this type of wrong would never occur again. We had learned, or so it has been declared over and over again, that it is okay to hate the system, to hate the violence, to hate the war, but support our troops—always support our troops.

Now, flash forward to 2014.

The enemy isn’t the justice system, but the cop. If you’re a cop you’re automatically guilty of racism, excessive force, and unfairly targeting blacks even if you’ve never done any of these—even if you find these things repugnant. You’re guilty because you’re a cop.

It’s like Vietnam all over again.

If you are a cop in America you are not simply part of a bad system, you are the bad in the system. Officers are not being judged by their individual actions or the worth of their character but viciously condemned because of the real or perceived injustices of the group.

It’s like Vietnam all over again.

It doesn’t matter what good the individual officer has done or that he or she has answered the call and is willing to sacrifice everything including their own lives for the benefit of someone else—they must be dirty simply because they’re a cop just like the soldier was guilty just for being a soldier in 1967.

It’s like Vietnam all over again.

AFP/Getty/AFP

If you’re a black man in America the greatest threat to you is another black man (96% of blacks are killed by another black), but if you listen to the media and our elected leaders they want others to believe that the greatest threat is really the police.  They are the enemy and you must hate and fear them.

It’s like Vietnam all over again.

This reminds me so much of the hatred unfairly levied against the American soldier returning from Vietnam that I’m waiting for a picture of Jane Fonda in a hoodie among the looters to pop up.

So many in America claim to support our troops and yet these same people won’t make the connection or refuse to see the necessity of also supporting our police. There is no difference. You don’t judge the individual by the color of their skin or the soldier by the war or the police officer by the real or perceived injustice of the system. And you never condemn one person (soldier or officer) for the actions of another person (soldier or officer).

It is always unfair to purposefully ignore the courage, selflessness, and good of the individual in order to shape a wrong or harmful image of the group with the bad deeds of a few. That is what happened during Vietnam to the soldier and that is what’s happening now to the police officer. The vast majority of police officers are outstanding individuals fully justified to be included as equals in the ranks of the men and women of the Greatest Generation instead of demonized like the men and women of Vietnam.

I don’t believe that the attack against law enforcement is a search for justice or a sincere effort to make a better America. If it were, the media and our elected officials would show the good and the bad in order that together we could celebrate our strengths and mitigate our mistakes. But they can’t broadcast the good because it would drown out the bad.

It’s like Vietnam all over again.

This little boy was found wandering the streets of Kansas City MO around midnight with just a diaper on. While the police searched for his family, the little boy slept in the officer’s arms until he was reunited with his family around three in the morning. The picture was taken by reporter Sarah Hollenbeck of 41 Action News – KSHB-TV.

Does this look like the enemy?

Helen was caught shoplifting food to feed her family and instead of arresting her, the officer bought her a dozen eggs and released her on the promise to never steal again. The officer then delivered bags of food to her family ensuring that they would not go hungry. http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2014/12/tarrant_police_officer_deliver.html

Does this look like the enemy?

If in the process of trying to right a real or perceived wrong we destroy the good of the individual then what have we really accomplished other than to perpetrate a greater injustice?

It’s like Vietnam all over again.

 

The Real Story of The Hobbit

Yesterday, I watched the Hobbit Marathon at my local movie theater. That’s right, all three movies in a row. It started at 3:00 in the afternoon and ended at midnight. Not an easy day, but well worth it. Like so many others, I really like the Hobbit.

To me, what I find most appealing about the Hobbit isn’t the exotic setting of Middle Earth. It’s not the orcs, dwarves, elves, Gandalf, Gollum, The Lonely Mountain, Bilbo, or even the ring. It’s something much more profound than anything we see or experience on the screen or read in the book.

It’s the story behind the story.

The real story of the Hobbit is the story about a friendship and not the ones between the characters in the book, but the one between its author, J.R.R. Tolkien, and his friend C.S. Lewis.

It took Tolkien at least seven years to write the Hobbit, probably longer. As he was writing it, he shared chapters with his friend, Lewis. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, loved it and encouraged Tolkien to keep writing and above all to complete it even though Tolkien had doubts. In 1937, after nearly a decade of struggle and great effort, the Hobbit was completed and went to print. This story may seem like nothing out of the ordinary, until Tolkien stated publically that had it not been for Lewis’ friendship and encouragement he never would have completed the Hobbit.

Can you imagine?

All credit must go to Tolkien for an incredible story. After all, he created the world of Middle Earth, spent decades of his life writing something that millions have enjoyed, yet we only have it because his friend encouraged him.

Isn’t it funny how the big things in life often hinge on the little actions of others?

Knowing this, it doesn’t surprise me that, when asked to name the most important character in the Lord of The Rings – the follow up books to the Hobbit, Tolkien would surprise everyone by saying that of course it was Sam, Frodo’s hobbit companion.

Most would have said that it was Aragon, Gandalf, Legolas, or some other powerful and great warrior. But Tolkien explained that had it not been for Sam the quest would have failed. In fact, had Sam not stayed with and encouraged Frodo to push on, to not give up, to even physically carry him when Frodo was unable to go any further, that Middle Earth would have been lost.

In the end it was friendship that saved the day.

Sound familiar?

We can be lots of things in this world such as a parent, teacher, police officer, principal, and so on. But we should also be a friend and never forget that the simple gift of friendship has the ability to transform the world.

Normal Kid Behavior

“That’s just normal kid behavior?”

After hearing this a million times, I’ve learned three things about this phrase.

1. It never truly helps the situation.
2. Kids never say it—just adults.
3. It’s only said when a kid has done something wrong

I’m dying to hear the conversation that goes something like this…

“Did you hear about Johnny?”
“No, what happened?”
“He was so polite and attentive, listened the first time I told him to get his books out, and he gave his absolute best effort on the class assignment.”
“So what, that’s just normal kid behavior.”

As adults we’ve made a big mistake. We’ve normalized bad behavior and not good behavior. Can you imagine how productive, happy, and successful our children would be if we, the adults, refused to accept bad as normal and only considered ‘good’ to be the normal behavior?

Can you imagine?

For the record, being rude, anti-social, lazy, sloppy, rebellious, fighting, experimenting with harmful and dangerous drugs, talking back, threatening others…is not normal. Yes, kids do these things—lots of kids—too many kids—but that doesn’t make it normal…and we should never accept it as normal.

The moment we do then wrong will become normal and everyone will lose especially our kids.

Why will the kid lose?

Because we’ve accepted their lowest effort and deemed it normal and by doing so we’ve removed any reason for the kid to change or to strive for better behavior.

We’ve handicapped and not helped them and we should all strive to not let this become “normal adult behavior.”

 

Review & Discussion (What Do You See Wednesday Dec 11, 2014)

Let’s review and discuss the last, ‘What Do You See Wednesday’

First, here’s the picture.

 

Here’s what Officer Diana Back had to say…

It is SUPER clean which shows that it is taken care of and staff care about their school. It is also well lit, nice line of vision, no real hiding spots…..door is open so people can hear/see anything unusual from inside the classroom and there seems to be a color-code scheme thing going on.

Here’s what I have to add.

First of all, outstanding job to Diana. Absolutely, the school is well taken care of and super clean. That tells us a lot about the leadership, staff, and students. It looks like they care and having spent the day in the school—I can say unequivocally that they do!

I want to add to the color-code scheme that Diana mentioned, which was really the purpose of this picture. The color coding is a CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) technique. It’s made to influence behavior. Along with the lights directly over the colored squares, it helps to create a ‘desire’ in the person walking down the hall to follow a particular path. After all, ask yourself if you were walking down the hall where would you choose to walk. Would it be on the colored squares and under the lights or along the sides?

I’m guessing down the middle of the hall which is good and bad.

Good, because we want to influence behaviors and guide people to walk where we want them to. This helps to control access, enhance surveillance, and give order to the space.

Bad, because it’s in the middle of the hall. When students are changing class, we don’t want 100 students walking in the center of the hall. It is better to keep people separated by space and distance which reduces conflict and the possibility of random violence.

How would we fix this?

When you build new schools or renovate existing buildings in your district, really think about each space and add in every control feature that you possibly can. In this hall, we would put the colored squares on the outside, near the walls and put a string of wall lights directly over them. That way, when the students walk down the hall they will be close to the walls and separated in two columns instead of one directly down the middle.

This will give us greater control and allow for one adult to stand in the middle and better supervise the passing students.

It may seem like a little thing, but creating safer schools is a process and everything that helps, even if only a little, will add up to make a big difference.