Outrage

People are outraged again, as is the fashion these days. This time the outrage is over a school resource officer who arrested a female high school student. The student was disruptive and refused to leave the class when asked to do so, so the officer was called to make the student leave. The officer asked the student to leave several times, but the student refused. So the officer tackled the student to the floor, handcuffed her, and took her away.

When I was a kid, that kind of thing wouldn’t happen. Every student knew that “acting-out” would result in a phone call from the teacher or principal to the student’s parents, and that phone call would result in the student being punished by a parent. Back then, punishment didn’t involve time-outs or being grounded. Punishment was corporeal and usually involved a leather belt or a switch.

But we live in more enlightened times and corporeal punishment is frowned upon. So what should the officer and/or teacher have done? It’s simple: make the student want to leave the room. Give her motivation. There are so many ways. A few that come to mind, from least to most unpleasant, are:

Encourage her to leave by giving her a wet willy. In both ears, if necessary.

Tell her, “If you want to stay, you can stay until your parents come and pick you up. They’ll love that.”

Threaten her with summer school.

Threaten her with a cream pie in the face. Show her the pie.

Put a tarantula on her desk.

Make her watch reruns of Hee Haw and The Brady Bunch until she begs for euthanasia.

With a little thought, anyone should be able to come up with a long list of effective motivations. When a teacher asks a student to stop misbehaving and the student says, “No,” – what the student is really saying is, “What’s my motivation?”

And if these motivations fail, well … did you know a cattle prod can be had for as little as 25 bucks? Batteries not included.