Stupid Teachers Need to Realize When To Back Off and Admit They're Wrong

Let me preface this message by saying that as a teacher, I hear profanity all the time. But there is a profound difference between a kid swearing near me and a kid swearing at me. I think we'd all agree.

That being said, I've only had a kid swear at me twice in my professional career. Kids, in general, don't fly off the handle. And kids, in general, I have found don't fly off the handle and treat adults with disrespect unless

1. They feel threatened
2. They feel as though an adult is being fundamentally unfair or injust
3. They feel publically disrespected by the adult (see number 1)

I read this story Friday about a school district that suspended a kid when he defiantly refused to hang up on his mom, who was calling from Iraq. He was talking to her during his lunch break, so it wasn't like he was disrupting some kind of learning environment.

This strikes me as an example where adults are fundamentally wrong, but don't want to admit it because they believe that being bested by a teenager would be an admission of weakness that would cause their whole disciplinary house of cards to tumble down.

Rules are good, but if you can't see, as an educator, times and examples when those rules should be bent, then you're just an inflexible tyrant. Don't talk on your cell phone while at school. Good rule. When a kid's mom calls him from Iraq to talk to him during lunch, let him break the rule. If you don't, you're sending the message that school rules are so important as to nullify all other allegiances. And kids instinctively know that's wrong.

Sometimes, adults are so stupid.