Schools’ (and others’) like to tout their "zero tolerance" policies for drugs, weapons, bullying, and so forth; it’s supposed to sound strong and tough and all those good things.
In reality, though, if a school district has a zero tolerance policy, what it means is "we don’t trust our teachers and administrators."
Zero tolerance is like the beepers on McDonalds’ fry vats. It’s there because you don’t believe the people in charge are smart enough to make their own decisions.
That’s why you end up with students suspended, expelled, or arrested over stupid things — pointing a finger the wrong way, or sketching the wrong thing, or having a butter knife in your locker.
School administrators defend these decisions by pointing to Columbine or Virginia Tech and saying that zero tolerance is the only way to avoid another one. The girl with the butter knife today could be toting an AK-47 and an attitude tomorrow, you see.
Translation: We don’t trust our staff to differentiate between a real threat (e.g., the kids who post on Facebook their detailed plans of how and who they’re going to kill) and innocuous mistakes (e.g., the kid who left a Swiss Army Knife in his glove compartment.).
The thing is, anyone with an ounce of intelligence can tell the difference. So putting zero tolerance policies in place says the school districts don’t think the teachers are that smart.
And what does that tell us?
The Fray
Steve says:
The appeal of zero tolerance policies in any context are that they put a layer of blame between the punished and those who enforce the rule.
For example, the Phoenix Suns had two players come off of the bench for a few seconds in last year’s NBA playoffs. The zero tolerance policy is that they were to be suspended for a game. When the Suns cried B.S., the administration said that it wasn’t their fault – it was ‘just the rules.’ They even admitted it wasn’t the best thing to do – it was the ‘correct’ thing to do.
So the zero-tolerance policy assumes the infallibility of a rule that’s created by people, who are ultimately very fallible indeed. You can’t consider all rules perfect because they are created through imperfect bureaucracies and imperfect people.
So in my example, David Stern, the NBA commissioner, essentially said his hands were tied by a rule he helped create; it makes no sense, but they get away with it because few people will take the time to realize the faulty logic.
One last point: we as a nation don’t have a zero-tolerance policy for shooting someone in the face. You can do that in self-defense. So why do butter knives have a zero-tolerance policy?
Randy says:
I like the use of the NBA as an example of what’s wrong with zero-tolerance. I remember another case in the NBA about 8-9 years ago (forget the teams). After an on-court brawl broke out, one player on each team actually made significant effort to pull teammates out of the fight and back away from the court. In the end, those two players (the one from each team) who are credited with putting the brakes on the fight and keeping it from getting worse than it was were giving the harshest penalties because they left and entered the court multiple times. WTF?
I should no longer be amazed at the stupidity we as a country show, but still things happen the surprise jaded ol’ me.
Steve says:
So all that is to say that no, the administration doesn’t trust their teachers if they’ve implemented a zero tolerance policy. I don’t disagree with you there.
But I think it’s more useful as an offloading of responsibility.
In a way, I can’t blame them, because they think it will reduce lawsuits in the event of a violent incident. But the responsibility for the administration’s paranoia lies with parents who cannot accept that the world is mean, big and dangerous, even in schools sometimes.
So what needs to happen? I uh … I made a chart. I probably need my head examined…
http://www.impulsenine.com/homepage/pages/school-responsibilities.html
Hank Carr says:
The problem is the one size fits all response to zero tolerance policies, not the policies themselves.
No amount of violent speech should be tolerated but calling someone a name and threatening to kill them require different levels of response. A six or seven year old drawing a crude line drawing of a gun (something that they see every single day on TV in the US (though thank God they never see an exposed breast)) and someone posting plans for a gun and bomb attack on a school require different levels of response. All should be handled with zero tolerance but not all require the students to be lined up against a wall and shot.
Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the blind adherence of fools. Unfortunately, when you give an unimaginative self important egomaniacal self righteous ass coverer a rule book you’re in for some astounding stupidity.
Hank.
eskzee » Blog Archive » Zero tolerance: We think teachers are idiots says:
[...] here for full [...]