Being a teacher I feel very confidant in the following statement. There is no group of people on earth meaner than children. I mean vile, malicious, cruelty. Can you imagine! I teach ninth graders. Normally I adore them, as much as anyone can anyway. This week, I loath them.
One of my students decided it would be "funny" to urinate in a team-mate's water bottle and watch him drink it. Sufficed to say one really delightful child spent a day in tears and was mortified and the other was given the maximum suspension allowed by county policy and has most likely been black balled (with good reason) from team sports at our school for some time.
The victim of this crime (and crime is the correct word, if I were his parents I'd press criminal charges) is an all around good kid. I mean no one is perfect, but this kid is sweet, smart, hard working and polite and not in the annoying, cloying, Eddie Haskell way either. Just a genuine good kid. The perpetrator in this admits that his behavior was completely unprovoked. He did it simply because he thought it would be "funny." He is a teacher's kid by the way. The celebrated son at the tale end of five (count 'em) adorable daughters. His parents must be so proud. His suspension guarantees that he will fail this semester as he only passed 75% of his classes last semester and that was just barely. He only managed that much so he could play sports, which as I just said have been removed as an option for some time.
Here's the thing. Originally we thought someone else had done this awful thing. A really cocky, down-right narsassitic kid none of us cares for much. I was discussing the incident with the coach after the correct criminal had been caught and I commented that I could have at least understood why the cocky kid would have been targeted, but not the kid that ended up being hurt. The coach laughed (and I chuckled myself) and said, "yeah if this had happened to him, it would still be wrong, but it would be funny." He walked off to finish the suspension proceedings and I stood there in the echo of our "joke."
That kind of behavior should never be funny. No one ever deserves it. There is no explanation or excuse for that kind of thing. How can I classify that as wrong, teach it as wrong and then find a way that it is funny? Should I teach my students that beating, rape and murder are wrong, but if it happens to a convicted felon, most specifically a child molester, it's poetic justice, okay or even just a bit funny?
Maybe kids are cruel because they simply haven't learned the qualifiers that we adults apply.
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That's a valid point. I was a bit frustrated, but I was refering to myself, actually. In this case, the qualifier was that in one case the situation hapeened to a kid I liked and is a nice person. The other kid is still a work in progress and picks on other kids and so the idea of this awfulness happening to him seemed funny to me, even though I still thought it was wrong. When bad stuff happens to people we don't like it's funny (ier) than when it happens to people we like or admire. So I was wondering if I would think of the kid that commited the crime as less cruel if he had done this horrible thing to a less likable kid. For the record I was just as if not more upset with myself than my students. That was my point.
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