The following appeared originally on Audacious Ideas.
The Maryland State Department of Education recently released its data [download pdf] on suspensions, expulsions, and health-related exclusions for the 2009–2010 school year. As I was preparing an Open Society Institute–Baltimore factsheet using the numbers, an alarming data point arose: 75 pre-K students in Maryland received an out-of-school suspension or were expelled during the school year. The punished incidents include: disrespect (3), classroom disruption (12), refusal to obey school policies (7), and inciting/participating in disturbance (4).
Of course, the details of each incident remain unknown but it seems as if some of these children are being punished for simply being four years old. Medline Plus, a service of the National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health, states that the typical four-year-old:
- Lacks moral concepts of right and wrong
- Is rebellious if expectations are excessive
- Will ask the most questions of any age
- May use words that aren’t fully understood
- May begin using vulgar terms, depending on their exposure
- Tries to be very independent
- May show increased aggressive behavior
Without knowing the facts of each case, one might say that some of the disruptive behaviors leading to the out-of-school suspension can be directly connected to age-appropriate actions by the four-year-old child. As a former special education teacher of four-year-olds, I can tell you that not a day went by when a student did not aggress. We did not chalk this up to only a manifestation of the disability, however; we also connected it to the fact that four-year-old children cannot self-regulate their behavior to fit what we adults think is appropriate. We have a responsibility to teach our children the right way to behave, not punish them and expect them to connect the dots on their own.
I propose a policy change in which pre-K students cannot be suspended or expelled. Preschool children will not (dare I say, cannot) make the connection that being sent home was for “disrespect.” If we continue to punish our children by blocking them from an education because their age-appropriate attempts at independence are viewed as “refusals to obey school policy,” we are doing them and society a great injustice.
Posted in: Education & Youth, United States
Topics: Baltimore, Maryland, Megan Kenny, school discipline, school expulsion, suspensions
Stay Informed
You have a great point and it shocks me that Pre-K students could even be suspended/expelled. It is upsetting to think that this is something a school may consider a "necessary tool" to discipline the students. It does sound like the teachers/administrators are incapable of dealing with the students. Throwing them out should never be an option, to give up on a child will only force them into a part of society that few can return from.
This is another example of the "zero tolerance" policies that are used by schools and other institutions to demonstrate that they are taking steps to protect there charges.
Male high school students are "paper arrested" for getting into fights. If they are lying in wait with weapons, that's appropriate. If they are scuffling in the halls in response to taunting, that's a grave over-reaction. As another commontator said, "...will only force them into a part of society that few can return from." The label of criminal never goes away in the computer age.
That kind of response to home-learned and parent-reinforced behavior in an education-based environment is akin to publicly guillotining a lamb for feeding from an unenclosed garden of its innately desired life-sustaining plants. People are a most manipulative breed of creature; hence expect that someone had ulterior motives for directing children toward the negative side of educational pursuits so early. The schools' administration errored grossly by relieving the children in question from class; the teachers and staff who signed-off on the authorization to extricate students at that age ought to have been sent to skill enhancing classes like early childhood behavior remediation workshops; without pay.
Basic early childhood development theories suggest that most kids prefer to stay home when familiarity and comfort there is high; as opposed to being whisked off to a place replete with strangers, unfamiliar sounds, untouchable objects, and restrictions about everything from when one can eat to when one can relieve one's self. Absurdity is an understatenment when referring to treatment this extreme for behavior that is 99% fostered by innocence as well as familial dysfunction; neither of which warrants a child under adolescent age, 11 years old, being held culpable. Even at 11-12 years old, suspension and/or expulsion has to be the absolute last resort for behavior modification as well as be based on pathological behaviors that endanger the health and safety of other students, school staff, and faculty.
I pray the children are placed in behavior modifying programs that facilitate resilience and strong coping skill development lest they be scarred for life and cycled toward a less than honorable path. For these blessings I pray; amen.
Where was the parent in all of these? As one mentioned most of those actions are learned at home and not reprimanded as needed by parent BEFORE the child goes to school--pre-K or later. A 4-year old may or may not have some concept of right and wrong but usually only from the vantage point of home and neighborhood. The child is being taught--directly or incidentally--by what he/she sees, hears, and does and how and who reprimands when the action is out of order. Foul language came from home or neighborhood. All of the above actions if done by the child need to be discussed with the parent(s). The child is there to learn HOW to get along and go along with all those around and the other children will be doing the same. Going home is seldom a punishment for a small child that knows mostly home life anyway. His misbehavior could be so he can go home. If he doesn't like something there at school or prefers playing at home in his mind that's a quick way of getting what he/she wants.
Any of these reprimands or disciplinary actions need to be left off the child's record. Teachers in the primary grades do not have to see what he/she did wrong in preschool. The teacher may drawn false conclusions long before the child enters his/her classroom because of some misbehavior done 2-3 years before and never done since. Mostly make sure the parents are involved in what the child must do and say and the parent must continue to train "correctly" at home so it sinks in or the child could be a manipulator before he/she enters first grade.
It has been said that, it takes a village to raise a child." The members of the villiage are in turmoil. Parents are sleeping giants, confronted with life's challenges. Wounded healers are stressed out. Many are asked to do so much more with disappearing resources. Members of the village have to put ideological differences aside and we must "Save Our Children through Academic and Cultural Excellence". Once we know who we are and whose we are, only then can we provide nurturing, love and care for our babies. Families are in crisis and children suffer on so many levels. Through the dumping down of America our children are the new fodder to fill up prisons. Suspended preschoolers lead to negative outcomes. We must break the Cradle to Prison Pipeline that are children are victims. Let's sound the drum to address the Crisis our community is in. If not us then who, if not now then when. Save the babies they are our future.