Instead of Jimmying/Kicking/Hitting Our Toilet We Need to Hire A Plumber

After reading the “Locating the School-To-Prison Pipeline” article it is clear that there is complete disregard for the well-being of children in America. I completely disagree with zero-tolerance policies. Under such policies students are punished severely without looking at the circumstances.

Shakespeare (playwright) viewed the world as a stage and a constant theme seen in his plays is appearance versus reality. The characters in his play seem to be one way but in reality they are another, most times they’re the complete opposite. For example in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth (who was next in line to the throne) and his wife Lady Macbeth planned to kill King Duncan to gain rights to become King. Duncan, upon arriving to Macbeth’s castle, viewed both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as welcoming hosts. The irony in the scene is that they had every intention to kill him and eventually did. To Duncan, the Macbeths appeared to be friendly and hospitable but in reality they are not. Another example is this student (top left) appears to be studying but he's actually texting. My point is we should not automatically make conclusions about people based on limited amounts of information. But we should instead actually investigate what is going on.

One of the major problems that I think comes up when thinking of this school-to-prison pipeline is a term called ‘labeling theory.’ In my criminal justice class I took last semester we talked about the role labeling plays in the criminal justice system. Basically, if you constantly tell a child negative things like, “You will never amount to anything. You’re going to end up in jail. You’re not smart. You’re going to fail,” they will be more likely to exhibit such behavior. If teachers are labeling students with negative roles, there is a great chance that they will be a fulfillment of those roles. I believe that labeling goes beyond the verbal; it is also done through the way you treat people. If a school hires police officers as enforces of punishment, then that would say to a student that they are a criminal. So we MUST be careful about what we say to each other especially to children.

This school-to-prison pipeline is a major problem. I think that having zero tolerance policies and police officers just shows that no one actually cares about students in schools. I think it is just a way to get out of actually working to help individuals. There needs to be empathy and concern for students. We should never handle things by temporarily taking care of the issue. I think it should be our duty as humans to figure out what the problem actually is. When issues are handled on the surface they will never disappear. Let’s say for instance there your toilet isn’t flushing properly. You notice that if you jimmy the handle, kick the bottom of it twice, and hit the back of three times it will flush. Temporarily it solves the problem but eventually you will have to call a plumber to fix the toilet. It is the same thing with this school-to-prison pipeline situation. Imposing zero-tolerance policies and hiring security workers is similar to jimmying/kicking/hitting our toilet. We don’t truly solve the problem we just do something to get it out of the way. I honestly think that we all know that we need to call the plumber―have empathy and care for our students. But in today’s society a majority of us lack compassion and understanding.

To change that I hope to impact some of the students who will be visiting the STARS leaders this Friday. I just want to let them know that they can be successful in life and let them know that all it takes is hard work and persistence. I also want explain to them the importance of building others up when they do reach the pinnacles of their success. I am looking forward to meeting the students from Tilden High School!

Lauren L. Adams