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Comment by avodonosov | Hacker News Reader

> If she asked to see a hall pass from a freshman, they’d give her the finger. They swore at her and were generally rude. The behavior was so out of line that seniors would step in and tell them not to talk to her like that.

Shouldn't such students be expelled from school immediately?

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When the phenomenon is widespread, that becomes politically untenable and the bar for unacceptable deviancy has to be adjusted, as with anything else. This is a cousin of the idea that "they can't arrest us all" that one sees in acts of collective disobedience--some of which, as we know, have been quite constructive in history and are laudably described as part of "social movements", while others are just hooliganism and criminality. Drawing the line is always messy.

From what I had heard from my teacher acquaintances (most of whom are my former teachers) anecdotally, it sounds like behaviour trends were going sharply negative before Covid, and that Covid just provides a legitimate-sounding clinical cover, along with "mental health" and the rest. Of course, everyone says that all the time about everything any year, so it can be hard to separate noise from signal sometimes. But they had me pretty convinced.

> it sounds like behaviour trends were going sharply negative before Covid

This is believable; "Online" culture, which has increasingly been occupied by young kids, has been on a worrying trajectory for a while now.

We got called into school by our son's English teacher. During the poetry module, my son had gotten a bit frustrated and said, "Who the heck is ever going to use fucking poetry in real life?"

"While I felt he had raised an excellent question", his English teacher said, "I didn't agree with the way the point was expressed. I'm sure you see my difficulty."

We did. And we appreciated his good humor.

We had a carefully considered discussion with our son about respect, and appropriate language.

Expulsion is a very blunt tool.

Scott Galloway puts it best (and that he often fails at it himself) - do you want to be right or effective?

Funny on the downvotes, so I'll add some context. The kid in this case may have been right, but their delivery made them ineffective and got them in trouble.

Being right and sticking it in someone's face often feels great at the time, but it rarely leads to a persuasive argument.

There once was a boy named Danny Day, he always maintained his right of way, he was right, dead right, as he drove along, but he's just as dead, as if he were wrong.

Hall passes aren't about socialization; they're about dominance, submission, and domestication. And I can't honestly think of a purpose that they legitimately serve. It's just not that hard to tell the difference between the kids who are legitimately going to the restroom, and those that are wandering around aimlessly.

They seem to me like a leftover from a Victorian age in which the purpose of an education was to grind children into submission instead of nurturing them. I am genuinely surprised that such barbarisms are still used in American schools.

I'm with the finger-givers on this one.

That’s not a good approach.

Suspension and expulsion are somewhat extreme disciplinary measures. They’re not particularly effective at changing student behavior, they primarily serve to remove students from school so that school can continue without their disruption. A student who is insubordinate to a teacher in the hallway isn’t disrupting school or endangering anyone.

How will that help? Sounds like a behavioral issue that requires correction, not a punitive response. If every rude student got expelled, there wouldn't be many left in school.

> if every rude student got expelled, there wouldn't be many left in school

Anecdotally, in my experience, probably about 90% would've been left in school.

Yes, they should at least be reprimanded, if not outright expelled. However, I think the reason for this is not as much about lack of conversation skills but because the students believe there are no repurcussion for such behavior.

> Shouldn't such students be expelled from school immediately?

Very strong "get off my lawn" energy here.

Yes, students (and people as a whole) should be respectful to those around them who're working to help them progress in life, but expelling a student for expelling student from school for giving the middle finger or being rude is extremely disproportionate to their action and doesn't address the issue at all.

This very post sets up the premise that adolescents have been missing out on valuable social interactions due to the pandemic - Do you really believe that ostracising them further will help that in any way?

No? Doesn’t that seem a bit disproportionate?

Expelling a student doesn't cause them to no longer exist. They may not be the school's problem anymore, but they're still society's problem.

I had the exact opposite thought. Perhaps she shouldn't be trying to police people's bathroom habits.

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