A good ol' fashioned public stoning.

I had Justin in my office because a teacher reported to me that he had been screwing around in the locker room, snapping towels at kids (one in particular), messing around to the point that he broke the other kid's glasses. Essentially, he was acting like a fourteen year old boy. The other kid is definitely an easy target - which certainly doesn't mean he deserves what he was getting... The thing is, I had never met this kid before, so that means he flew under the radar for an entire semester!

I always look at a kid's discipline record before I talk to him or her to try to gauge "character." It's not that a kid can't change, but change is somewhat rare. I turned my monitor toward Justin and asked him what was going on in middle school that would create 60 (that's SIX-ZERO) discipline entries in two years of middle school. To put it in perspective, a "troubled" kid might have 15 a year... but 30?? And now a whole semester of nothing?? Maybe change CAN happen!

He kind of slumped down and said, "I was really a screw up. I just did dumb shit all the time. At the end of 8th grade, I got in big trouble and they told me to go home and not come back for the last day. I missed the last day of middle school. That really hurt. I told myself right then, that I was going to walk in to high school and put all that behind me." My question for him, then, was - "So why now? Why are you bugging this kid?" He didn't have a good answer, but my message to him was - "You need to figure it out. You have to turn it around, you have put those behaviors behind you or you are going to be in the same awful place you were the last day of 8th grade"

I think the conversation went well and I hope he follows through on his agreement to stay away from the other kid. I always want to give a student the chance to turn things around. Many times I get burned and it happens again... I want to believe Justin will get back on track.

The teacher was ticked that I didn't crucify him. I think she probably wanted a public stoning or something... For now we will do it my way. If he doesn't hold up his end of the deal, I'll pass out some rocks.