Cops Doing Teachers' Jobs

Marcus Hook kids are getting a lesson in how to deal with bullies and bullying.

Does anyone else find it odd that an elementary school needs the police to explain bullying to kids, why it's wrong and how to deal with it?

You'd think teachers would be able to handle that. I mean, we are talking about 10, 11, and 12-year-olds here.

Nothing wrong with having cops come to your school to talk about whatever. It's good for kids to see cops as friendly, helpful adults and authority figures.

But when it comes to a standard of behavior at a school, teachers, administrators and other staff should be able to mold and enforce it without much help from local law enforcement.

These anti-bullying programs are generally for the birds. They are a one or two shot response to a media event. For a school to maintain a culture of civility, bullying and disrespectful behavior has to be confronted daily. This has to be implemented from the top down and it has to be a major priority of the adult professionals at the school. It requires effort and constant vigilance. It is very easy to let disrespectful behavior slide, especially when it is directed at others. Too many adults in schools and eslewhere take a "it's not my job" approach to policing the interactions of students, even when some kid is obviously being picked on.

It shouldn't be up to kids to ask an adult to intervene on their behalf when they are being disrespected in plain sight. Running to a teacher just makes the kid a "tattle tale" and a "snitch." Teachers should be trained to confront negative behavior as a daily part of their job. Such a confrontation, often should only take seconds. As in, "Yo, Johnny! You know that's not how we treat each other around here."

Cops should be enforcing the law. Teachers should be in charge of monitoring and enforcing a positive culture in their schools. And they should be required to do so by their principal who should lead by example.

And if teachers and administrators can't muster the energy to do that, they should find another profession.

UPDATE: Then there's this. Sounds like the school got it right. The cops zero-toleranced themselves into a stupid arrest.