14-year-old arrested over texting in class
It was math. It was, no doubt, more opaque than the truth about A-Rod. So a 14-year-old Wisconsin girl texted away.
Until she was taken away.
She was confronted by a school security officer at Wauwatosa High School, after she had ignored the math teacher's request to look at numbers instead of texting them.
At first, according to the police report, she denied having a phone. However, two of her class mates declared that this was not true. The phone, a Samsung Cricket, was then recovered from her person. From "the buttocks area," to be precise.
She was cited for disorderly conduct and will appear in court on April 20.
I was unaware that schools employ security officers whose job appears to consist of covering for teachers' inability to get their students interested in algebra.
But this 14-year-old appears to be, as they say in riveting crime shows, already known to the police. The police report states: "The student is known to me and the administration on the basis of prior negative contacts."
What heinous acts this 14-year-old have committed before? Twittering in the school toilets, perhaps. Or posting nasty things about her teachers on Facebook.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
The teacher attempted to enforce standard school rules about student behavior. The student refused to co-operate with the teacher.
The student was escorted to a school office where she refused to co-operate with the police officer. A second, female police officer was summoned and the student refused to co-operate with her, as well. A search turned up the phone the student had continued to deny possessing.
The first police officer then wrote her a ticket for disorderly conduct based on her disruption of class and her continued obstruction.
This does not, of course, much resemble Chris' story. No mention of a "security" officer. (They were police officers.) No mention of a physical arrest. (It was a ticket under the city ordinance, like a parking ticket.) No mention of police action for texting. (It was for refusing to co-operate with school staff and the police.)
It is, however, the story presented in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, Milwaukee's daily.
So, Chris, did you decide to re-write the story because the real one was too dull for a hip blog?
Hmm, that might be a bad example, 'cause that goofy crap is hilarious.
In any case, I can see why not being able to distinguish between news reporting and a humor column would make the world a confusing and scary place for you. My deepest sympathies, really!
Um, the link I provided above appears to be to the police report...
But, yes, we don't do entirely straight news here. We leave that to the amateurs.
Chris
That said, I think confiscation is all that's needed in this case. If she denies having a phone, that can only mean it's currently hiding and not being used. If she pulls it out, tries and confiscate it again. It's not that hard. A real problem occurs when your confiscation attempts are infringing on the other students' education.
Many teachers survive simply because they give in to the kids. Dozens of kids in seemingly every school (and often their parents) have no respect for authority. The bottom line is that calling the police is the only thing available to control these kids. A teacher has to be world-class entertainer to be effective. At a school near me, a student screamed foul language at her teacher and then her principal when they tried to restore order in a classroom. The student was warned day after day, again and again, and was still removed from the classroom screaming that she didn't do anything wrong.
The *Parents* should've been called first, and not the police--unless there was a *Very Real Threat*--to the instructor and the young girl's fellow students. The police shouldn't have been involved.
Yes, it was probably a school conduct violation, and as such, should allow for her removal via the traditional, short-term 'Suspension.' During this 'suspension time,' the parent(s)--or her guardian(s)--should be in consultation with the school. Teachers, principals--even the superintendent if necessary--could be present to assist with her behavior issues.
However, unless she was obviously yelling or threatening the instructor, there shouldn't have been any actual, literal Legal Issues about the business. Call her parents, send her home, and be done with it.
Alternatively, the teacher could have just let her text away until the end of the class period. Provided that the click sounds of the Cricket phone were turned off and there wasn't any 'real' disturbance, I would have let her sit there and do what she desired, then asked to speak with her privately after class, followed by an adroitly placed and timed phone call to her parents to let them know what was going on.
Looked to at length, it's her educational future in the long run, and unless she's willing to take it seriously, it's not the teacher's fault if her student isn't paying attention. One can only do so much to provide education to children; today's modern adolescents--at least in United States' society--are being utterly forced to become too early that which their hormonal levels and personalities are just not set up to be.
Algebra in Middle School? Calculus by the High School Froshmen (I use the old spelling) year? I've run in to these things.
Let me tell you what would work: We need to slow down a bit, let these middle-teens (tweens?) have a bit of alacrity. Violence is not the key to control. Yes, it works, but is not the key. Hitting somebody's fingers with a ruler? This can cause permanent nerve damage if the ruler strikes a nerve in just the right place. Violence--also known as 'corporal punishment,' has never been effective at keeping people in order. It just instills fear and nothing else. It definitely won't work on a fourteen-year-old, and if someone in education would ever lay a single finger on my child--unless said child were in the process of hurting themself, a fellow student, or a staff member directly--physical contact is strictly VERBOTEN!
End-Of-Discussion!
Police need to be kept out of the school experience, unless a real crime is being committed. Just do what my school did back during 1980-1984: Send the kid to a 'Study Hall.' That's what they did with the students who didn't want to learn. It provided them with a place to go that was supervised, and kept them out of the hair of the students who were really in class to learn. Simple. Direct. Straightforward.
You either died of boredom and got with the program, or just waited it out until the end of the school day, then left at last bell's ring. No angst, no overemotionalizing, no problems. Did it help those in study halls to become intelligent? Probably not. But at least it helped keep those who wanted to learn *and* their instructors be in a position where they could do so without resorting to utilizing the public police to enforce school policy.
I hope the parents of the girl-in-question take the school to court over the use of the police in this matter. (Provided the girl really didn't do anything else than just 'texting' and ignoring the instructor.) The instructor should have sent her to detention, *Immediately Called Her Parents!*, then left it at that until her parents were involved.
Involving the police was overkill, irresponsible, and probably illegal, relative to police responsibility versus actual authority of enforcement. Alternatively, if the local authorities have the authority and power to act as they did, then this level of authority needs to be taken away; the police have no place in school for such trivial matters.
Thank you for your time.
Stephen A. Brown
Missouri
Having the police involved disrupted class more than if the teacher had simply wrote a detention or a referral and handed it to the student at the end of class.
If she doesn't want to pay attention it's on her, but truthfully it's not difficult to listen and text at the same time. Who knows, she could have even been done with her work. It doesn't matter what she should have been doing; people say that she deserved it or whatever, but it was not serious enough to be handled by police.
In my opinion teachers have lost their right to even be real teachers anymore...
- by Digital65 September 26, 2009 8:22 PM PDT
- Freedom of speech includes ugly and foul speech. This should also apply to texting. There are more reasons to have people arrested these days than needed. People are taking advantage of the system! It's wrong to arrest over a text.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(19 Comments)As far as parenting and students goes, just keep giving out the school rules and keep the police out of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!