Dangerous Crossroads

Today I sat in on a meeting in which the likely fate of a boy hung in the balance. The vice principal asked my teacher's team whether or not he should put through the paperwork to send the boy to a special school for children with severe behavior problems.

The vice principal was in a very sticky situation. On one side of the coin, most of the students, who are sent to this school, end up dropping out, and a majority of those dropouts end up in jail. Yet, the vice principal had to keep in mind the fates of the other students in his care. This particular boy is huge, probably 6'3" and about 300, and he's only 13. He's been using this size to bully and beat up many of the smaller middle schoolers.

I found this discussion troubling, yet it gave me some insight into the tough decisions that administrators and team members must face. I coupled what I learned from this meeting, with what I've learned from one of my professors that taught in a prison, and the sum of the two gave a pretty dim potential future for a boy this young. Dr. Faulkner said that when he spoke to many of the inmates, they gave middle school as the point their lives took the wrong path.

The teachers on my teacher's team knew all of this, so they were very reluctant to essentially condemn this young man. Yet, they really had no other recourse. The safety of their other students hung in the balance. The tension in the room was palpable.

Sitting in on team meetings has really helped me to see how many non-teaching, yet tough, tasks that middle school teachers do. So I recommend that if any preservice teachers have a chance to sit in on such meeting, they should.