-> Reminds me of the segment I saw on the TV news the other night.
-> Several kids were in court with their parents on some sort of
-> disorderly conduct type charges (don't recall what exactly). The
-> adult relatives didn't like the sentence the judge handed down (fines
-> and community service?) or the way he talked to the kids, so they
-> started to dismantle the courtroom and bailiffs. It took additional
-> police and bailiffs to quell the disturbance. My knee jerk reaction
-> to the piece (which also applies to the one quoted above) was "Gee, I
-> know exactly where the kids learned the behaviour that got them INTO
-> court in the first place".
Kinda makes you wonder, don't it?
I assume these parents were held in contempt of court and given further
fines?
Reminds me of the time I had a kid in my class who, as I placed
corrected student tests face down on their desks during the passing
period before class started, went around nosily turning them over and
surveying the grades of all the students who sat near him. When I talked
to him about respecting privacy and wrote him a referral and required
him to write an essay adressing this issue to be signed by his parents,
I told him I would call home to let his parents know about this
situation.
The parents seemed completely disinterested in what he had done, or the
importance of the situation. They tried to bring up issues about things
in my class that they were not happy about. After about 15 minutes of
trying to get them back to the privacy and respect for other people's
things, I finally said, "Are you going to support me on this issue? Do
you plan to require the student to wite this essay?" They grudgingly
agreed, but I could clearly see it was not important to them and it was
obviously where the kid got his attitude from.
Sheila King
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