Suspension. What does it mean? Is it something that can be hanging? As in, the hammock was suspended from the ceiling. Or maybe it means something has been temporarily taken away or removed. Your subscription has been suspended. We have suspended your service. OR maybe it means your kid got into a fight at school and got suspended! So is he hanging from the ceiling like the hammock? Is he going to be temporarily taken away? Will he be removed? He has been temporarily removed from school. I wish he was hanging from the ceiling though.
As a parent I hate suspensions. As a teacher I hate suspensions. Why is this an appropriate punishment or disciplinary measure? Why is removing a kid from school a way to teach him or her a lesson? It is more of punishment for the parent or the teacher. The kid gets to stay home. The kid gets to take time off from school. OK. Yeah, there are consequences that come with that being out of the class thing. The grade will suffer. There will be all this catching up on work to do. The kid misses out on that social part of school. But, let’s take a look. If a kid is the kind of kid that is going to get suspended, then this kid probably doesn’t care too much about the grades or the work. School is likely a low priority for the kid. But school is not a low priority for the adults involved.
As a parent I haven’ really had to deal with this. Until recently. My 7th-grade son has been suspended twice in one week for fighting. This is a problem for everyone, but very much a problem for me. I have to take time off to deal with this. I have had my class interrupted by a phone call from the principal telling me to get my kid. Not so easy to do. I don’t have that kind of job where I can just get up and go. It is a process getting out the door. I hate that my class gets interrupted by the phone and I have to stop my job to deal with a suspension. As a parent, I do not feel right about leaving this suspended kid home alone, if only he were a hammock. If I leave him, he is going to enjoy this time away from school playing on his computer not doing school work. If I take time off from work to make sure he is not enjoying his suspended state of being then I have about 160 kids that will suffer. OK they won’t suffer, but I will suffer because sub plans take a long time then I have to clean up the aftermath of the sub and just believe me..it is a lot of extra work. The other thing that bothers me is that my son needs to be in school. Why is he being pulled out of school? Isn’t the goal to educate? How does this form of punishment educate? What does it tell him? If I punch a kid, I get to hang out at home? Here’s the other part that gets me- he got into a fight because a bunch of kids was picking on him. It wasn’t like he went outside and started beating people up. He was feeling threatened or frustrated. He is a 12-year-old boy; he doesn’t yet have the mental and emotional skills to deal with this stuff. He told me kids had been teasing him all week. We talked about ways to handle it, but let’s be realistic…is a middle school boy going to be able to handle this maturely? He was pushed to his limits. I know, it sounds like I am making excuses for his behavior. And I am. He is a kid. He was getting picked on. He reached his limit. He hit someone. He got in trouble. Now I suffer the consequences. If his intent had been mean, if his intent had been to deliberatley hurt someone, I could see the need for firm consequences. But, not this time. I want my kid in school. I want there to be another way.
As a teacher, I hate suspension too. I hate it when I have a kid missing from class. I get these emails that ask me to send work for the suspended kid. This takes me time. This is a lot of extra effort on my part. Because a lot of times I have to create something that the kid will be able to do without assistance or without having been in class to have learned the content. It is ridiculous to me. I want the kid in class. The kid has a problem with school. The kid has broken a rule and is in trouble. So the kid is pulled out school. As the teacher of said kid I get frustrated. These suspended kids are often repeat-offenders and often among my lower performing students. If anyone needs to be in class, it is them. Is it possible that the acts that cause suspension are somehow linked to the low performance in school? Or could it be that the low performance is due to too many suspensions? Or some combination of the two. No matter what, it is not good for anyone. Whenever I get the notice of a suspended student, my heart drops. My heart drops for the kid that is going to miss so much instruction then come to class and feel lost. And then probably miss class because they feel lost, then get into trouble because they are missing class…all because they feel lost.
Why can’t we find another way to deal with broken rules? Why can’t we, as educators, keep educating the kids? As the mom of the suspended kid, I am wondering why he can’t just but kept in at lunch time? How is pulling him out of school going to teach him how to control those strong emotions of anger when being teased? How is my kid staying at home going to help him build the character needed to deal with negative parts of life? How is the kid missing my class and all his or her classes going to help him or her get the education needed? How is this idea of suspension working out anyways? Is there any data or anything at all that says this form of discipline has proven to have a large success rate of getting kids to behave and not break the rules?
It is time to take a look at the kid and take a look at the system. I am on both sides- a mom and a teacher. I want what is best for all the kids- mine and my students. I want them in class. I want them in school. Whatever they did, there has to be another way to address it. Suspension is not it. Suspending a kid is not helping them solve their problem. So, how do we do it? How do we help the kids we care about? How do we keep them in school and teach them a lesson? How do we really intervene and help those kids that get into trouble stay out of troble? I don’
Educational Rant 
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