SMASH THE SCHOOLS:
Zero Tolerance for Teens

From AlterNet:

"On November 22, students at the APW High School were surprised when several police squads and their drug-sniffing canine units entered the building for a thorough search of students' lockers," says the story. "It was an investigation that took place upon the principal's request, and resulted in only one major finding, a small amount of marijuana and a marijuana pipe in a student's pocket."

But since the institution of strict zero tolerance policies at schools around the country over the past decade, students are regularly suspended or even expelled for offenses that range from the relatively minor like minimal marijuana possession to the truly ridiculous – like possession of a dull table knife to cut a grapefruit at lunch, or taking Tylenol for a headache.

Among many "Zero Tolerance Nightmares" posted on a website of the same name, students described being suspended or expelled for things such as asking too many questions about Sept. 11 or possessing a pocket knife used to fix a car mirror. In many states, schools are also extending zero tolerance policies to off-campus behavior, including minor drug possession or under-age drinking.

For the straight dope on US public schools, click here.

American public schools, as institutions, are not about learning, contrary to the conventional wisdom. Rather, the public schools serve purposes that are not widely recognized for what they actually are. First, the public schools exist to warehouse children so that they do not cause trouble. As societal and familial structures continue to erode due to over two decades of neo-liberal economic reforms, the schools increasingly become part of our nation's overall security apparatus, which includes the prisons, the police, and the military.

Second, the public schools exist to indoctrinate children into the culture of obedience and authority. Every aspect of the student's life is regulated; some elite students are given limited privileges and command powers--jocks bullying the weak without consequence comes to mind here. This notion of obedience/authority indoctrination is not so outlandish: the American public school system is structurally modeled on nineteenth century Prussian schools which quite consciously created a militaristic atmosphere in order to produce militaristic citizens. An essay by Thom Hartmann on American educational history in terms of attention deficit disorder makes this observation:

[Horace] Mann believed the Prussian public school system was the solution to the growing social problems of America: it would create a more homogenous population of compliant workers who shared similar opinions and values. It would tame the wild west and settle a restive population. He began proselytizing for compulsory public education, particularly among the leaders of industry, suggesting that if they could bring their political influence to bear they could help solve societies problems while at the same time getting better workers for their factories.

Hartmann concludes:

And so today we have a public school system which has as its primary goal the socialization of our children. A willingness to comply, to go along, to submit to the authority of the system and the teacher is more important than intelligence or curiosity or creativity. Those kids who go along are rewarded with good grades. Those who don’t naturally submit their will to the authority figures, the teachers, are often crushed.

In American schools, learning is happenstance. It's what may or may not happen when the opportunity occasionally arises. Most of a school's energies are directed toward enforced conformity and routine. The holy grail of education, "critical thinking," is hopelessly at odds with what schools are really about. Free thought and criticism, as concepts, are diametrically opposed to discipline and order, as concepts.

The notion that schools are actually working to facilitate learning is so strongly embedded that most educators cannot see the contradiction. Nevertheless, the irrationality of the situation wears them down: the majority of teachers leave the profession after an average of five years.

I know. I'm a teacher. The value compromises I make daily, the judgments, the commands, the self-censoring to which, for survival's sake, I must constantly resort have made me increasingly disgusted, angry, and scared. This sordid scenario has been my work life for five years now: I am the computer to whom Captain Kirk poses a logical paradox--unable to reconcile his mutually exclusive propositions, I have no choice but to shut down, a morass of smoking, melted wires and tubes.

The schools are unsalvageable. I quit. This fall will mark the beginning of my final year as a public school teacher--I'm getting out; waiting tables, telemarketing, anything is better than this hell. A pox on them all. We must smash the schools, pave over their sites, and start all over.

Because what we have now is a sick joke.

UPDATE: Here is an audio file of Captain Kirk destroying a computer with a logical paradox.

Thanks to Star Trek in Sound and Vision for the sound.

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