in 126 words or less:
Two parents I spoke to were particularly agitated about a Grade 9 boy who was reportedly designated a safe schools transfer. In his middle school, he'd beaten up his teacher so badly the teacher was hopitalized and had to take a leave of absence. The board suspended the child, then moved him to a second school, where he again punched out a teacher. This time, it took several cops to restrain him. He was suspended again, and when he resurfaced at C.W. Jeffreys he was escorted by a TDSB youth worker. "Teachers were terrified of him," says Jacqueline Mitcheel, who daughter has been in a class with this student for two years. "I had one teacher calling me at home, telling me how scared they were."
(Taken from "Deadly Lesson", by John Lorinc, Toronto Life, December 2007, pp. 37-54 at 49-52). What's absolutely hilarious about the article is the tone of complete bewilderment heard from the reporter, the teachers, the union, the parents, everyone. No one seems able to connect the dots between a near-total lack of disciplinary action and, you know, a near-total lack of discipline. Even the union, sniffed at by Lorinc and hinted at as wanting to bring to bear some kind of hardline corporal punishment, only wants to sequester perpetually violent students in their own separate school (brilliant idea, I say: keep all the really aggressive ones together - maybe they could hire ninjas to watch over the classes and protect the teachers).
By the end of the piece, about the only thing Lorinc is willing to concede is that "maybe kids who continually abuse the public education system shouldn't have unfettered access to it" [emphasis added].
Not that he's prepared to jump to such a radical conclusion, mind you.
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