Being right is wrong

[skidmark]

This was in today's Richmond (VA) Times-Disgrace which is why it is all the sweeter to have read.


Quote:
Boy, 11, suspended for defending his friend
He says he pushed a bully at the bus stop

MARK HOLMBERG
POINT OF VIEW Oct 5, 2005

Mark's column appears Sun. and Wed. Contact him at (804)649-6822 or mholmberg @timesdispatch.com

Rhodes Hardy, 11, tosses a football with the good friend he defended in a scuffle at a Pocahontas Middle School bus stop. Hardy was voted the most mannerly student in his fifth-grade class last year.
EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH
Some of you older fellows will recall how Joe Hardy, the more impetuous of the Hardy Boys, would unman a foe or defend a chum with a well-delivered knuckle sandwich.

His older brother, Frank, could also let the air out of a bully or yegg with a cold cut to the chops.

But, alas, the famous sleuthing brothers of Bayport would likely have to undergo anger-management counseling in today's sissified climate of zero tolerance for any kind of hormonal expression.

Which brings us to a brand-new adventure, The Bus Stop Scuffle, and a modern-day Hardy boy who was suspended from school for defending his chum, just like Joe and Frank would've done.

Rhodes Hardy is 11, a straight-A student who never has had to be disciplined for any reason at school, according to his parents, Julie and Kerry Hardy.

This stalwart young towhead could've come straight from the pages of an original Hardy Boys mystery, complete with blue eyes, a dusting of freckles, a slightly gap-toothed smile (just like his dad's), a buzz cut and a kitten named Sam he rescued from beside a drainage pond a couple of weeks ago.

He'd like to become president of the U.S. one day (or, if that fails, he said, "the next Roger Clemens, I hope"). So he's been conducting himself accordingly.

Last year at Nuckols Farm Elementary School, he received a Presidential Academic Achievement Award and was voted "Best Manners" in his fifth-grade class.

He pitches and plays shortstop on his Little League team and believes the St. Louis Cardinals will go the distance this year.

On Thursday morning, he and some of his fellow Pocahontas Middle School students were tossing the pigskin while waiting for the school bus in their comfy Short Pump neighborhood.

Rhodes is a sizeable sixth-grader 5-foot-4 and 130 pounds. But his good friend, also a sixth-grader, is considerably smaller.

It's this friend who seems to draw the unfriendly attention of a much larger seventh-grader and his two companions, Rhodes said yesterday.

Thursday's bus-stop footballing triggered yet another such episode, and Rhodes said his chum wound up ducking punches from the seventh-graders.

Enough was enough.

"I ran at him and pushed him," Rhodes said of the ringleader, who fell partially to the ground.

A crossing guard at the bus stop noticed the activity and called out for the boys to stop, Rhodes reported.

He figured that was the end of it.

But it wasn't. Thursday was a half-day at school. Rhodes' dad picked him up so they could meet Julie Hardy for lunch.

So Rhodes' chum didn't have any back-up that afternoon.

The unfriendliness from the seventh-graders resumed, resulting in an alleged bus-stop beat-down that left Rhodes' friend with a black eye and scrapes.

That's all the evidence Kerry Hardy needs.

"The three boys decided to take it to [another] level," he said. "These are the kind of boys we're dealing with."

He's proud his son stuck up for his chum. "I wouldn't want him to do anything different."

Which is why Kerry Hardy could hardly believe it when he was called to the school Friday to discover his son was suspended for three days for assaulting another student.

"He went to the defense of a little guy who was a buddy of his," Kerry Hardy argued, to no avail. (He and his wife are appealing.)

The school's policy of punishing anyone participating in fighting or bullying -- regardless of circumstance -- flies in the face of what the Hardys have tried to teach their son.

"That's why it's so confusing for Rhodes," Julie Hardy said. "We've always taught him to be a good Samaritan . . . to help people . . . now he's being punished for it."

Mychael Dickerson, spokesman for Henrico County schools, confirmed that anyone involved in a fight, whether it's mutual shoving or an act of aggression followed by retaliation, is punished according to precise school guidelines.

No exceptions -- no fighting, bullying, hazing, cursing or threatening, Dickerson said.

School officials can't talk about this case, or say whether the other participants were punished.

But my research indicates this Hardy boy was as truthful as the originals.

And as true blue.

But we're teaching our children to be yellow, aren't we?

We're saying, in essence, let someone else deal with it.

Which is why we saw hoodlums unchallenged by able-bodied men in New Orleans.

We're seeing it more and more in our feminized society -- the weaker among us shoved aside; women treated ungallantly; decency mocked and honor trampled.

Because we're not raising enough Hardy Boys.

Contact Mark Holmberg at (804) 649-6822 or mholmberg@timesdispatch.com
:Quote


I've sent Mr. Holmburg a link to this thread. I'm betting he will see more support than opposition. There's also a thread on this at THR.

stay safe.

skidmark

 

[MicroBalrog]

The cracking noise you hear is the noise a culture makes when it begins to desintegrate.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Unbelievable when the only hope for a real life education comes in the form of Home Schooling.
Rich

 

[BlueTrain]

Wait, there's more!

But first, I loved the Hardy Boys. Never did understand why they got mixed up with Nancy what's-her-name in a few stories, but I won't hold it against them. Anyway, it would be nice to be rich like them, boat, motorcycles, old jalopy, gym in the barn, etc. They even got .22 rifles before they went to Cabin Island.

But back to our subject:

These days I get the impression that anyone obeying the law is a assumed to be a fool! You cannot drive the speed limit without being run over, almost, traffic lights are optional, and I can go on. In the big picture, it seems no politician can get elected without the backing of big buck supporters and not without buying off a lot of people. Money and power.

I don't know about the feminization thing. Practically all female heads of state, especially monarchs, have been pretty tough. Some have displayed either masculine traits or assumed masculine norms, like Catherine the Great. I also wonder about other things written about women, since all the women I knew when I was growing up worked all the time, sometimes on the farm and sometimes in a store. I just don't see any obvious connection between weakness and being female. Or maybe I just don't recognize any. Now, there were some fathers that I knew who had some weaknesses but that's another thread.

I don't know where it started. It may have had something to do with "no child left behind" or something like that, but at some point all the blame for failure has been dumped on other people. Nothing else is any different but now other people are to blame.

I guess I don't know what gallant behavior is. That must have something going on on the other side of town.

Oh, I don't know. Let's have a drink.

 

[JR47]

If the school were actually serious about the rules thay want to enforce, the attackers of the younger child would have been expelled, and the police involved for assault and battery, malicious wounding, and so on. It appears that the easiest way to avoud punishment in all too many school systems is to do something that would normally be eligible for Police attention. At that point, the school officials will attempt to hush it up, to avoid a bad rep in the District.

What a miserable system. We need to strip a few layers of school management out of the system, and use the money to actually teach. PC teaching also needs to be given the burial it all too much deserves.

 

[joecski]

IMO, the whole bullying issue is ridiculous. It is our society that allows bullies to operate without fear of reprisal. When I was a kid, I got my butt whipped by a boy three years older than me. He picked on me everyday at the same spot on my way home from school. When my neighbor, also three years older than me found out, he walked home from school with me the next day. When we came upon the fellow, he asked me "Is that him?" and proceeded to lay a butt whipping on him. Now, is all this violence the right way to handle ourselves? All I can say is he never bullied me or anyone I knew after that. If this happened today, I imagine we'd all be suspended from school, arrested, and sent to special schools for violent kids - oh wait - only if we didn't complete anger management classes. This is just silly. If you let kids work out their own problems without adult interference - guess what - you empower them to make adult decisions. However, and here is the part that is lacking - the kids have to have VALUES and MORALS before they can make good decisions. It sounds like this Hardy kid has the right stuff, and I doubt even this current issue with the school district will change his values or actions. I say "GREAT JOB" to his parents!!!

 

[Te Anau]

The American school system is broken and being run by complete idiots these days.

 

[tyme]

Home schooling combined with numerous extra-curricular social activities seems to be the best option these days. Maybe even find some other parents who home school and try to sync lessons so the kids can study together.

 

[Marko Kloos]

Home schooling combined with numerous extra-curricular social activities seems to be the best option these days. Maybe even find some other parents who home school and try to sync lessons so the kids can study together.

That's precisely the plan for our kids, and that's why I am back in school for a degree in education and teacher certification. Between my wife's teaching experience, my own degree, and whatever local home schooling alliance we'll find (or start if necessary), I am pretty confident that I can spare my kids having to be "educated" in the public school system.

Every time I hear another one of those "zero tolerance" stories, I feel more than comfortable with that choice.

 

[joecski]

Home schooling is definitely the way to go, much better than any public or private school. This way, your child learns the values of your family. It also eliminates what I perceive is a major social problem in our society, that children do not spend enough time with the parents. Forget quality time, whatever that means, just spending time with your kids and listening/talking to them makes all the difference.

Please do not neglect the social impacts of home schooling - keep your kids involved with youth groups, either church groups, sports, whatever. Let them play and give them space.

For the parent, there is not that much to know in home schooling. Each state has a mandate for home schooling that you follow. They will give you the guidelines to let you know what your kid should be learning. If your kids wants take a music lesson or be on a sports team with the local school, my state (PA) let's home schooled children in. They have to, you pay taxes after all. I don't know if every state does this though. Also, make sure you get everything you can from the state, be it materials, books, whatever. As I said before, you pay for it, so use it.

 

[Mike Irwin]

It's called the *****fication of America, and it's getting worse.

The only way it will get better is if people stand up to it and take an active part in their school boards.

 

[Danzig]

Yep, that's why my wife and I pulled our eldest out of the system years ago. Our two younger children will never see the inside of a government indoctrination camp.

 

[pax]

Home schooling combined with numerous extra-curricular social activities seems to be the best option these days. Maybe even find some other parents who home school and try to sync lessons so the kids can study together.

We did that -- my kids currently spend four hours a day, four days a week, at a local homeschool co-op. I join them for two of those days, and have the other two mornings to myself. The lead person for the co-op is a certified teacher, enabling us to dodge a lot of annoying legal paperwork.

The students are all ages, preschool through high school, and the adults range from barely out of high school up through grandparents several times over. This makes sure the children are really socialized in how to deal with people of all ages and not just kids the exact same ages they are. (Which is, by the way, one of the very biggest and best benefits of homeschooling; it cracks me up to hear people fret about homeschool socialization when in fact traditionally-schooled kids are getting the short end of that stick!)

However. As much as I support homeschooling, and as bad as I think most of the public schools have become, I have to say that homeschooling isn't the only answer. The Hardy boy in the newspaper article is obviously turning out to be a fine young man, because his parents have done a good job so far and it sounds as though they will continue to do so.

It's too bad that their efforts are, in this one area at least, being undone by the school.

The thing that is so often forgotten is that the teachers and administrators are the parents' employees -- not the other way around. The parents are ultimately responsible for what their child learns or does not learn.

To my way of thinking, parents should be able to walk into the school and say, "We don't want our child to learn ____ from you," and that should be the end of it. Parents should have veto power over everything their children are taught at school, should be able to pull their children out of school for a day or a week or a month for any reason or no reason at all, should be able to prevent punishment to their child if, in the parents' view, punishment is unwarranted.

The reason fights like this happen between administrators and parents is because each side believes that they should be the boss and should be the one in charge of what the child learns.

But who pays whom?

pax

There is an idea floating around that public schools are deliberately designed to turn out brainless conformists. I don't believe this. I think public schools are just what you get by default. If you build a giant building out in the suburbs and lock the kids in it during weekdays in the care of a few overworked and mostly uninspired adults, you'll get brainless conformists. You don't need to posit a conspiracy. -– Paul Graham

 

[Cowled_Wolfe]

To my way of thinking, parents should be able to walk into the school and say, "We don't want our child to learn ____ from you," and that should be the end of it. Parents should have veto power over everything their children are taught at school, should be able to pull their children out of school for a day or a week or a month for any reason or no reason at all, should be able to prevent punishment to their child if, in the parents' view, punishment is unwarranted.

+1

---

That Hardy kid did the right thing. He saw a problem, he took action, and he fixed it. If the pompus arses in charge don't agree with standing up for another student, they loose ALL credability as educators for a successful future in my book. How can anyone succeed through life if they're trained from early on to be a pushover to evil?

Wolfe.

 

[Ingram]

+10 pax.

Sometimes they forget who they are really working for. And they have so much damn protection you cant to anything to a teacher unless they have committed some sort of henious crime.

 

[joecski]

PAX...

To my way of thinking, parents should be able to walk into the school and say, "We don't want our child to learn ____ from you," and that should be the end of it. Parents should have veto power over everything their children are taught at school, should be able to pull their children out of school for a day or a week or a month for any reason or no reason at all, should be able to prevent punishment to their child if, in the parents' view, punishment is unwarranted.

First, your post was excellent. Still, the quoted section got me thinking a little. Going to your child's school and making demands is fine theoretically, but when you are a teacher in a class with 30 students and all their parents have different values, it is impossible to fulfill every request, even if you wanted to.

As far as punishment, there should be no black and white application of punishment. However, leaving punishment up to parents is foolhardy as well. You and I may properly discipline our children, but how about the 12 year old boy who writes graffiti on the bathroom walls to impress his classmates. Then his dad comes into the school and says "boys will be boys, cut the kid some slack, I did worse when I was kid and I turned out fine." Do we really leave punishment up to this fool? How about parents who think it is fine for their teenagers to drink, as long as they don't drive or do drugs? So, they sneak away at lunch for a beer. Do you want your kids to have to deal with this because the school can't and the parents won't? Schools would only get more out of control if this was the case. Remember, a lot of kids in school have no real parents, they live with aunts or grandma's who already feel sorry for the kids because they were basically abandoned.

Unfortunately, I feel the only way to ensure your values are being taught is to find a private school that matches your needs, and where you can be actively involved, or home schooling.

 

[Cowled_Wolfe]

If interested:

Henrico County Schools,
Pocahontas Middle School:

12000 Three Chopt Rd.
Richmond, VA 23233

Principal Raymond E. Honeycutt (rehoneyc@henrico.k12.va.us)
Ass. Principal Jacquelyn B. Hunt

---

Copy this letter, use it as a guide, whatever... As long as ya do something more than making a post online that none of the school staff will ever see.

---

Mr. Honeycutt and Mrs Hunt,

It's disturbing that you'd suspend a student (Rhodes Hardy) for any period of time, let alone three days, simply because he chose to defend the rights of his friend. Would you stand idly by if one of YOUR friends were being assaulted by a larger or stronger person?

Non-violence policies are a good thing, but when they bar a right to self defence, they go too far. Sometimes, it only makes sence to stand up for what you believe in. In this case, Hardy did. Now those 7th grade bullies understand that their prey isn't helpless. Which is more intimidating to a bully? Threat of mild punishment by school staff (if caught), or the threat of physical harm?

According to your school Vision Statement, you are "... devoted to the development of the whole child. Respect, Integrity, Commitment, and Community represent the cornerstone principles of this school's philosophy."

Do you believe that any Respectless bully deserves to be Respected by his prey? Do you believe that "Integrity" is allowing your friend to be beat up? Given a black eye? How does helping a friend in need discourage any sense of Community?

You school's Mission Statement says you "... believe that successful students are the shared responsability of the school, the families, the community, and the children themselves. The learning experience will prepare students for living successfully and responsably in the 21st century."

The child is right: He created a deterrent more powerful than any school rule; a threat of physical force in response to aggression.
The family is right: They support their child standing up for a friend.
The school is wrong: You're teaching tomorrow's children to be pushovers to those without respect for rules.

The 21st century isn't an entirely friendly place, not everyone is going to welcome your students with open arms. When they reach adulthood, are your students going to be self-sufficient in that world? If they encounter conflict, will they be able to solve problems themselves, or will they wait for someone else to solve it for them (as you would have them do)?

To continue your Mission Statement, you further say:

"At Pocahontas Middle School, each child will
- Experience a varied, engaging, and challenging course of study;
- Receive instruction in an environment fostering individual learning styles that promote achievement and success;
- Utilize state of the art technology tools and software;
- Think critically and apply problem-solving strategies;
- Learn to appreciate individual talents and abilities;
- Receive experiences designed to foster respect, dignity, and a sense of fairness for all;
- Develop a sense of balance within the social, emotional, physical, and intellectual self; and,
- Learn in a safe environment characterized by a commitment from all participants to respect individual differences, to act with integrity, and to care for and support their community with honor and service."

I'm sure you accomplish most of those fairly well, but there are a few that stand out:

" - Think critically and apply problem solving strategies;"
Hardy did exaclty that. He saw a problem, and he solved it in a far more effective way than any suspension or detention could ever have done. The bullies involved WERE faced with a several-day-long break from school. Now they're faced with a threat of injury.

" - Learn to appreciate individual talents and abilities;"
This one strikes me as funny. Hardy made his oppressors well aware of his abilities.

" - Recieve experiences designed to foster respect, dignity, and a sense of fairness for all;"
This is perhaps the mission you've most failed to uphold. You're forcing Hardy to respect bullies who have no respect for him. You're reenforcing the notion that dignity means surrenduring to a bully, or letting an offense happen before school staff can do anything. Where's the sense of fairness in letting a student be beaten up? It takes a sick sense of justice to say a black eye is equal to a few days out of school (a few days which could easily be seen as a break to the bully).

" - Develop a sense of balance within the social, physical, and intellectual self;"
It would seem Rhodes Hardy has this balance quite well tuned. There's no 'intellectual' answer to a bully, but bullies are a problem in society. So, when that threat manifested itself, he took physical action. Sometimes brawn speaks louder than brains (or rules) ever will.

" - Learn in a safe environment characterized by a commitment from all participants to respect individual differences, to act with integrity, and to care for and support their community with honor and service."
Most noble words indeed. I'm surprised how easily they're ignored in the course of "justice". Does refusing to defend yourself mean "acting with integrity"? How does staying by the wayside help a boy to "care for and support his community"? He stood up for that friend, for that member of his community. He stood up for him by defending another's honor, by serving for the greater good by defending against a bully.

It's a shame you use a black and white system of justice. Self defence has no meaning, apparently. You, your staff, your district, even your community should all be ashamed that something as simple as a boy defending against a bully is something to be punished.

Sincerely,
Name.

---

I know it's just a rant, but if it makes them have to second guess themselves, I'll consider it worthwhile.

Now... To mail it, or not... Hmm... :-\

 

[skidmark]

^^^^^ + a whole lot.

Your letter is much better than the one I sent. Wish I had waited to see what you were going to do so I could cut&paste/copy off my neighbor. But I'll get over it.

But at least there are two letters to the school. Who knows - maybe more.

I just hope Rhodes Hardy see this.

stay safe.

skidmark