Plum Grove Junior High School

Ten minutes ago I got a phone call from the Assistant Principal at my youngest son's school (I swear, this guy is so young that his voice hasn't changed yet.)

Apparently at lunch, "some kid" chucked some food at my son. No biggie. This happens throughout the cafeteria whenever the little twits can get away with it. So my "little" boy hurls some food back at "the kid." They get caught by the police officer who patrols the school halls, and he removes them to a separate table. (Why, to the same table,  I'll never know.) I guess the two little food tossers then started giggling and it pissed off Officer Friendly enough that he hauled them down to the pokey (the principal). Upshot is that my son was given two detentions and a severe tongue-lashing. And I just got "the call" from the AP.
He told me twice that my son is not a "bad kid" (a parent wouldn't know that?) and that he hasn't ever been referred to him before (knew that too, seeing as though they call the mother each and every time there's anything amiss (sickness, missed homework, this kind of stuff).

Junior High school is all about keeping order amid chaos and raging hormones.

Twelve and thirteen year-old boys are going to throw food and giggle. For fucks sake, I wish school wasn't so regimented. I'm not saying they should allow food-throwing, but their tactics to address "the situation" have not worked. (I know this since I put my first son through there a decade ago, I substitute-taught at that Junior High for three years, and I volunteer at the school when I can--fully observing the same old methods of "handling" kids.)

Tossing food in the cafeteria when authority figures aren't present is what immature, fidgety kids do. And there are no mature junior high school boys. Not a one of them.

The entire roomful of kids are already made to pick up everything off the floors/tables and wipe down their own tables before they can leave.
I'm not trying to minimize this but honestly, there's got to be some more important way for both Officer Friendly and the AP to spend their time besides fussing over food.

Oh, the AP's solution for my son, the "disrespectful" giggler?
Next time (that would be Monday) someone throws food, go and get an adult to diffuse the situation.
Is he fecking serious?
Does he remember nothing of the culture of teenagers?
He would be harassed way beyond getting food chucked at him if he "told on" the original perpetrator.

My suggestion would be to allow the children (almost all boys--the girls are content to sit at their tables not eating, sipping Diet Coke, and chatting) to walk directly across the hall to the gym and shoot some hoops.
This solution will never be implemented though, because it would mean a change in the way things are done and rarely does anything change in the public school system's "way of doing things." It smacks too much of common-sense that they'd offer the kids who had a 40-minutes recess last year, some time this year to get off their derrieres and move around a bit after they've finished eating and cleaned up.
Public school's priorities are NOT about what's practical, sensible, or good for the kids. It's about keeping order and keeping the guards and teachers happy.

Comments

[Sean]

cyn--you're hitting on some important stuff in your post about middle schools. there is a lot that we teach our kids in public schools. much of it has very little to do with academics too. i think your suggestion for allowing the kids to burn off after-lunch energy by shooting hoops is a great idea. will it happen? maybe in a smaller school somewhere, but yes, it would take a lot of motivation for a change like that to take place. i hope it goes o.k. for chris. stay involved as much as you can is all i can say. -sean