Day 3

Today, I did much of what I did last week and sat with Emma and Taylor, the same two girls as before. The teacher lectured and again, the two girls at my table were the only ones out of the entire class who took notes. During Mr. Maudsley's lecture, I noticed a big of commotion at the table behind me with two African American students sitting at it, one boy and one girl. I knew what my duties were as a tutor and was not about to ask them to be quiet and respectful during his lecture. I could tell Mr. Maudsley was getting irritated because multiple times, he looked at the students chatting loudly trying to make eye contact with them in order to signal to them to be quiet. They continued to chat and instead of asking them to quit talking, Mr. Maudsley finally said, "Hey guys, can you keep it down back there? Some of us up front are trying to pay attention." This was unlike anything I had ever heard from a teacher before because he basically told these students that it was okay to talk during his lecture, but to just "keep it down." They weren't working on any project or assignment that would require them to disregard his lecture for the day so I was a bit confused. After thinking on it for a while I began to think that he just simply does not have much control over these students. I think he has learned over time that they are going to do what they want to do and telling them to stop talking would take a lot more effort than you think and cause so many more issues than needed and he just doesn't want to deal with that.
This one instance really upset me because Mr. Maudsley is such a sweet, genuine man and he doesn't deserve to be disrespected like that. But did he even consider these students as being "disrespectful" if they followed his instructions and just lowered their voices during his lecture? Throughout the class today, he had to ask them two more times to "lower their voices." For some reason, this irritated me that Mr. Maudsley didn't put his foot down and either tell them to stop talking or send them outside if they wanted to continue their conversation. I think it is because I have grown up in such a sheltered childhood and in school, it was a followed rule by all students to keep your mouth shut when someone else, especially a teacher was talking.
I was immediately reminded of the book The Bully Society that we read in our book club. Jessie Klein says, "The punitive tendency to suspend and expel students ‘fails to diagnose or address the real problem.’ This discipline-and-punish approach fails to mitigate the violence in our schools and in the worst cases actually nurtures it." (239). I began to consider that Mr. Maudsley had probably taught at Classic City for a while now and had learned that punishment and negative reactions aren't the best route to take with these kids. Klein explains that it actually makes it worse. When you are dealing with students in an alternative school, they most likely don't deal well with the traditional school and rules so maybe Mr. Maudsley does take the most effective approach by not punishing them.