posted by Joe Polk at 2:33 PM /
A soft-spoken young man stood before 950 or so other male students at Mt. Lebanon High School on Jan. 24 to tell them a skit that just had been acted out about a student being excluded from groups was reality, not fiction.
"About that guy, it's usually me," the student said into a microphone as he stood in front of the auditorium full of his classmates. "It's not a very good feeling."
His poignant testimony came in the midst of a rowdy session with speaker Cheryl Dellasega, a Penn State University professor and author who has written and lectured extensively on female aggression.
Link: www.post-gazette.com/pg/07032/758386-55.stm
Labels: high school
10 Comments:
Mt. Lebanon graduate here. I can recall after finishing high school years ago, having a reflexive defensiveness being from Mt. Lebanon. Whenever someone asked where I was from, it was always "the south hills," as being from our little town came with so much baggage. Obviously the purpose of this blog was to highlight issues pertinant to the Mt. Lebanon resident. It has degenerated, however, into a punching bag for the town, school district, and its residents. And you know what? It is completely warranted. I read a copy of the top 25 list last year. It was an example on the complete failure of this community's parents, teachers and coaches to teach those kids, and they are kids, about fundamental issues of self-respect and respecting others. This is not something that can be achieved in a small group during fourth period. Your can't obtain it by dragging your kid to a nursing home for "volunteer" work so she can wear a pretty white ball gown at the end of the year. And no, your kids aren't going to learn these lessons by copying their parents' behavior-obsessing about status, what travel team their kid is on, etc. These problems have been here for a long time. But they are exascerbated by changes in our culture; the bar for acceptable behavior continually gets lower and lower each year. And frankly, I don't think it is solvable problem. In this town, there is a perfect storm right now; parents who think they are still twenty-five and want to be friends with their kids; teenagers who think they are thirty and can act any way they want without consequences; teachers who rightly regard the students with a combination of deference and disgust; and everyone comes back to start the whole cycle over after their education is over.
With regard to this most recent embarrasment, they only way to get to these kids is to threaten that which they want the most; advancement. Contact the schools they have early decision applications pending and inform they of changes in the school's assesment of their personal character. Send addendums to the dean's letters. Walk the walk. Unfortunatly, only by having a student body that is fearful of the consequences of bad behavior will this pattern ever change.
I find the whole incident disgusting. I put complete responsibility on the parents. These kids didn't learn this behavior overnight. With parents who have a sense of entitlement that is only dwarfed by their own egos, it is no wonder that the school district and teachers hesitate to employ heavier handed discipline. How many people want to go to court and have their livelihoods threatened (as I would suspect many parents have done to our district's staff)?
I, too, find this situation repugnant. We settled here years ago with the desire to provide our children with a quality education. I have noticed questionable behavior for years and rarely has it been dealt with effectively by parents. I should know better by now, but I am still amazed at the lack of interest many of these kids have in doing volunteer work or anything much that doesn't promote their social agendas. I agree with "Mt. Lebanon graduate", that many parents assume the role of "friend" and provide little character development at home because they are social climbers who live vicariously through their children. When their kids get into trouble, they run to the closest attorney (never needing to walk very far in Mt. Lebanon) and threaten legal action. Whatever happened to valuable lessons learned by kids who get off track having to accept responsibility for their mistakes? I have noticed many times where rules have been broken and there were no consequences. Why? Are teachers, administrators and coaches choosing the path of least resistance to avoid the threats to their livelihoods? You bet they are. I hope that no more time is invested to try and teach our high school aged students the concept of respect toward others or how to behave like a decent human being. Certainly, if they don't know it by high school the only hope can be that maybe they will learn from the school of hard knocks after graduation. One last thought...I grew up in a much less affluent area of the South Hills. A boy I knew in our neighborhood was real handful with a vulgar mouth at age 9 or 10. When the family was moving away, his father took him to every house in the neighborhood, including mine, and made sure that the boy apologized to each and every family for having behaved so badly. That took real courage. Parents - wake up!
After daily exposure to last years out of control 8th Graders at Mellon Middle School, it comes as no surprise that they would behave as they do. Remember there was principal change this year, the previous guy had no control over those brats.
The parents are the number one reason for the decline in student behavior. They neglect the kids and let them do anything they want.
Isn't that exactly what Rodella threatened to do in the USC incident!
Just a thought about parents always being the 1st target of blame when children get out of control and btw, I do advocate good, adult authority...
If you have no idea how your child behaves when they are away from your watchful eye, how can you respond? Every child needs to interact independently with the world eventually. The child will certainly make mistakes, overstep boundaries, and misbehave. If a parent is fortunate, they will learn about the mistakes and intervene appropriately, but most likely there will be alot of behavior that the parent will never know about. I think about my own teen years. I was a first class goody two shoes, but did a few things my parents would not have approved of and never learned about.
My experience is that our schools do not appropriately report behavior to parents and if they don't report the behavior, how will we ever know what has happened?
This is first-hand experience, as my kids have come home a few times over the years and reported their own misbehavior; usually an inappropriate comment that was offensive enough that my kids have been pulled out or after school to speak with the teacher. I heard nothing from the school staff. In fact, I needed to initiate the contact with the teacher to verify the events, so I could know what discipline to administer, especially when there is no disciplinary action forthcoming from the school. The teachers, if you're wondering, have said "they handled it internally" or "didn't find it reportable". When I've asked my kids how the event was handled, they say "she talked to me about it."
I think it is incumbent on adults, especially teachers, to intervene when they see evidence of poor behavior and not just intervene, but report the offending behavior to parents. Our teachers and Principals hesitate to do this. Is it because of the 360 degree evaluations? Don't know, but I'd like them to take a more proactive stance. Anonymous Mom of 3
I recently learned that Middle School parents do not meet with the teachers for school conferences. I think this would be one step in the right direction. My first question at my elementary child's conference is: Is my child respectful to the teachers, staff, and other students?
Does anyone know when Middle School conferences were eliminated?
I don't ever remember middle school conferences here. I taught in a middle school a good number of years ago and we didn't do routine conferences, but we did write short, descriptive narratives that accompanied the report card home at mid-year and year end. Lebo's report cards have short comments chosen from a list: "Is a pleasure to have in class," "Participates regularly." Not informative.
I agree with conferencing at the MS level but if that's time prohibitive, then provide a brief phone call or short teacher narrative mid-year. You completely lose touch with your student as a learner when they enter middle school. Anonymous Mom of 3
In response to the quite lengthy post, ok yeah, these kids are acting like assholes, but trying to ruin their college career...oh yeah that's a great idea, while we're at it, let's chop off their hands, that'll teach them a lesson. All you can hope is that when they go further in life they will learn from their mistakes because that kind of behavior doesn't cut it in real life. Now, we have you, Mr. these kids think they are better then they are, and the parents aren't doing a good job...First of all, in your tone, you are acting like your are some sort of expert on psychology, knowing where the problem is (hmm kind of ironic coming from the person saying the kids think they are older then they are), so yeah, if you have some sort of degree that warrants you to make these assumptions, post here again i will give you my email address and you can send me a copy of your diploma, then i will believe you.
Further more, the top 25 list being a complete failure of the parents...ok let's play a game, you go have kids, allow them to have friends, and pay attention to all the media that is out there today, and see if you can prevent them from laughing that that list. Failure of the parents...
Listen buddy, things change, yeah things that are happening right now, right here are happening everywhere, this is just how high schoolers choose to act today.
And yeah, i really can't wait till you have kids and chose not to be friends with them...i can hear Cat's in the Cradle playing in the background right now...
As a resident of Mt. Lebanon I atteneded both assembly's at the highschool for the students and the adults. They way the boys acted was innapropreate at times, but what did the admisitration do? Nothing. They didn't step in at any time and give out the punishments necessary for their actions. They let random kids go up there and say things about her presentaion. Yes it was wrong, but the fact the admistration just sat there and watched and didn't step shows they have no control over the students. And yes maybe the students have been in trouble recently after the whole USC-Lebo game back in Janurary but the admistration needs to take control and show they have athority. The thing which I'm a little unclear about is the fact that the students who went up there and sai her presentaion was nothing but a "watered down elemantry presentaion" and that it "sucked". This woman was a world renowned speaker from Penn State University, but her presentaion was not well planned for the students because, she first said if we behaved they would get chocalate. Then her hour and half long presentaion was a power point on female behaviors. To me her presentaion should have been more thought out because students now-a-days sit through class all day with nothing b ut power points. Another point is that when you put 1000 boys between 14-18 years old your going to have some issues with immaturity. To me nobody was more right or wrong than the other. Yes the students acted irresponsibly, but the administration needs to show some control over their kids. Mt. Lebanon is just like any onther upper middle class community in America and I think everyone just needs to sit down and be quiet and put this behind them.
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