End Totalitarian Teaching (Part 2 of 7)

This article is the second in a seven-part series that implores teachers to abandon their attachment to outdated, oppressive, and arbitrary control issues, in the name of harboring a more positive, fostering learning environment.  Each part of the series focuses on a different aspect of control.  Part 2 focuses on the aspect of prohibiting and confiscating non-violent toys.

Imperative #2:  Let Them Have Their Toys

We all know the proverbial image of the teacher who opens her side desk drawer to reveal a venerable treasure trove of sling shots, joy buzzers, fake poops and vomit, and all variety of other confiscated practical jokes and toys.  While this makes for a great sight gag, and while it has its basis in reality, the truth of the matter is that confiscating toys in real life is almost a complete waste of energy.  If an environment of mutual respect is properly established, as articulated in Part 1, the need to confiscate non-violent, prohibited items such as cell phones and iPods becomes extremely rare.  The very need to prohibit such items becomes obsolete.  In such an environment, beyond those rare infractions, teachers who devote their efforts to policing student toys are fighting a losing battle, wasting precious educational time, and usually creating an adversarial relationship between themselves and students, which undermines the learning process.

Last year I had the unfortunate experience of sitting in on my first IEP meeting. This is an important component of our failing special education program.  In it, certain interested staff and service providers meet with a student and his guardian(s) to establish and articulate his individual learning goals and any modifications or methodological adjustments to which he might be entitled on account of his learning disability.  The myriad problems with this system will have to be reserved for a future article, but suffice to say that most of the meeting proceeded as if the student wasn’t even there, though he certainly heard all the deprecating things that were read and said of him.  His mother was one of the most unpleasant women I’ve ever met (a fact which only shed more light onto why the boy was in such social and economic arrears).  My main contribution to the meeting was to inform her that her son was sometimes distracted by his iPod and lost focus in class.  I was appalled when she demanded to know why we don’t confiscate “those things.”  I could not understand why her son never had basic school supplies like pencils and paper, why his clothes were moth-ridden and unkempt, and why he had so many stories of sleeping on the living room couch or in the car in the garage, yet he was in possession of a $400 iPod.  Mom didn’t seem at all surprised that he had this, so I felt fairly certain it wasn’t stolen, but I was doubtful he had saved up his lunch money and allowance for three months to make the purchase on his own.  She had demanded, “Why don’t y’all take those things away?”  It was below my paygrade and station to demand in return: “Why don’t you take it away?” or even: “Why did you buy it for him in the first place?  He needs shoes.”

Instead, the concept I tried (and failed) to get her to understand, and what I’m trying to make plain here, is that confiscating property does not equal learning.

First of all, it’s a losing battle.  There is scarcely a youth in our society who is not readily equipped with the latest in digital toys, be it music players, cell phones, gaming devices, personal computers, and every combination thereof.  These are the Swiss Army Knives of “Generation Z,” and, as evinced by the foregoing anecdote, a student from a low socio-economic demographic is more likely to have a state-of-the-art-electronic gizmo that does nothing practical and everything entertaining than he is to have new clothes and lunch money.  Every moment a teacher wastes confiscating property is a moment taken away from learning, and neither the teacher nor the students can afford to lose all the cumulative time that will be wasted if our entire day is spent attempting to eradicate the virus that is digital toys.  These things are here to stay.

When items are confiscated, it creates further problems.  The policy at our school (as it is with many others), is for teachers to relegate confiscated items to the administrative office.  Students are then required to bring their parents in to reclaim their property.  The first problem here is that the teacher is responsible for the care and handling of the item until it is delivered to the office.  Whatever damage, loss, or theft might take place during that time is the teacher’s responsibility.  Assuming the item makes it all the way to the holding cell, we are still left with burdening the parents to make arrangements to get to campus in the middle of their work day for something so trivial.  One might think this would encourage their intervention, and they would prevent their children from brining these things to school.  Perhaps that’s the theory, but that’s not what actually happens.  What does happen is that administrators and teachers get an earful of why they are interrupting someone in the middle of his or her workday for something so trivial, and still more hours are wasted wherein the student could be studying, doing homework, tending to responsibilities at home, or simply being allowed to enjoy life on Earth.

The most important consequence of policing toys is that it fosters an adversarial relationship between the students and the teacher.  This goes against the first and most important imperative of Anti-Totalitarian Teaching: maintain an atmosphere of respect.  An adversarial environment is not a learning environment.  Instead, it is a place where the students and the teacher are engaged in a constant struggle to outwit each other at some imagined contest, where the most important goal is to prove one’s cunning and superiority.  In this contest, learning cannot take place, first because the belligerents become consumed by the contest itself and cannot focus on the learning process, and second because the pupils have lost all respect for the master as a source of knowledge, leadership, and trust.

At the secondary level, we claim that we are preparing students for college and for adult life.  However, too many of us continue to treat the students as infants.  In college, the professors do not confiscate toys.  In the adult world, employers do not confiscate toys.  What happens when people spend too much time with their toys, is they suffer the appropriate, logical consequences.  They learn responsibility, sometimes the hard way, but that’s how college and adult life operate.  It means dismissal from class.  It means dismissal from one’s job.  And in high school, it usually means poor grades, if the student cannot manage to multi-task.  But let this be stated when it comes to multi-tasking: these kids can do it.  Perhaps better than any previous generation.  The toys are not an illness; they are a symptom.  If the student isn’t doing well in class, it isn’t the toys.  Look for something else.

I cannot say that I’ve never confiscated toys.  That would be absurd.  But the times I have are few and far between, and they occur only when the toys have become such a distraction as to disrupt the learning process that would otherwise exist.  Even then, I only hold the item until the end of class.  I don’t belittle the students.  I don’t trouble them or their parents with a trip to the office.  I teach them respect, courtesy, and responsibility, and I am realistic, by which I mean I cannot think of a day in school or a job I ever held where I did not goof off.  That’s what human beings do.  We make fun of things that are sometimes boring and sometimes hard.  It makes the drudgery more bearable, and it makes life worth living.  Since we were students ourselves we’ve seen scores of posters, television ads, and other mild propaganda trying to convince us that “learning is fun!”  It’s time we started practicing what we preach.  Let them have their toys.  Let school be a fun place to be, not a place they dread.