I don't know how many of you saw the YouTube video of the seven-year-old boy being pushed into the bus window by the bus monitor. It happened in a small town not far from where I live and has aroused nationwide controversy.
Now I only caught bits and pieces of the very blurry video but from what I understand there had been continuing disciplinary problems on this particular bus. The kid that got shoved into the window had a reputation as a repeat offender.
I remember an incident when I was riding the bus when we were waiting for some more students to board. This was back in the 1960's before they had bus monitors or cameras. The driver got out of his seat and went to the back to break up a verbal argument that had broken out between two students. The kid next to me slid out of his seat and into the driver's seat (he had left the bus running) and put the bus into reverse! BAM! Right into the school! The driver, I believe his name was Mr. Cox, got up from where he had fallen, grabbed the kid by his arm and gave him a little disciplinary action right on his rear right in front of everyone. Then he called the kid's parents. And that was the last time he rode on Mr. Cox's or anyone else's school bus for the rest of the year. We heard that his parents had to send him to school by taxi.
That little boy learned--and so did the rest of us--that you behaved while you were on the school bus or else. There were no repeat offenders. In contrast, what did the kid who was shoved into the window learn? That if you can provoke an adult into acting inappropriately, the only one who will have to suffer the consequences is the adult. That's pretty heady power. Man, if I had had that kind of power at that age, there's quite a few adults I would have LOVED to bring down. But I didn't.
Yes, the bus monitor probably acted inappropriately. Yesterday I saw on MSN news about a 13-year-old Florida boy with autism who was choked by his bus monitor. Apparently the kid wet his pants and then put his hands in the pee and was trying to touch the bus monitor with his pee-soaked hands. This kid was in restraints and the bus monitor pulled on the restraint, choking him. Again, big controversy.
In both cases, inadequate training of bus monitors was given as a reason that these incidents happened. And I agree in part. However, I would say it is the nature of the job itself that is the problem. And that if parents do not want these kinds of things to be happening they need to start being proactive and start riding the buses themselves as monitors instead of abdicating the responsibility to poorly-trained. poorly-paid workers who are there mainly because they "need a job."
Why aren't any of these parents bus monitors? For the same reason I am not a bus monitor. Or flipping burgers. Or working as a health aide or at any other low-paying unskilled position. It is because I have skills that make it unnecessary for me to have to choose any of those jobs. I can use a computer and I know complex medical terminology. Yes, I could choose to ride school buses and keep an eye on unruly children--but why should I? Society has told me my skills are more valuable in the preclinical research field where I am currently employed. The same with many of my friends who are unemployed. They are not looking for dead-end jobs where they can't make use of their skills and training. The only way they would become a bus monitor, for example, is if they could not find anything else and their options were running out.
Hence the problem. We delegate this job to people who are basically just as unmotivated to do it as we are ourselves but the difference is we have choices and they don't. Then we don't bother to pay them well or train them well but expect them to keep order without giving them any real authority to do so. Is it any wonder some of them resort to abuse?
Now I only caught bits and pieces of the very blurry video but from what I understand there had been continuing disciplinary problems on this particular bus. The kid that got shoved into the window had a reputation as a repeat offender.
I remember an incident when I was riding the bus when we were waiting for some more students to board. This was back in the 1960's before they had bus monitors or cameras. The driver got out of his seat and went to the back to break up a verbal argument that had broken out between two students. The kid next to me slid out of his seat and into the driver's seat (he had left the bus running) and put the bus into reverse! BAM! Right into the school! The driver, I believe his name was Mr. Cox, got up from where he had fallen, grabbed the kid by his arm and gave him a little disciplinary action right on his rear right in front of everyone. Then he called the kid's parents. And that was the last time he rode on Mr. Cox's or anyone else's school bus for the rest of the year. We heard that his parents had to send him to school by taxi.
That little boy learned--and so did the rest of us--that you behaved while you were on the school bus or else. There were no repeat offenders. In contrast, what did the kid who was shoved into the window learn? That if you can provoke an adult into acting inappropriately, the only one who will have to suffer the consequences is the adult. That's pretty heady power. Man, if I had had that kind of power at that age, there's quite a few adults I would have LOVED to bring down. But I didn't.
Yes, the bus monitor probably acted inappropriately. Yesterday I saw on MSN news about a 13-year-old Florida boy with autism who was choked by his bus monitor. Apparently the kid wet his pants and then put his hands in the pee and was trying to touch the bus monitor with his pee-soaked hands. This kid was in restraints and the bus monitor pulled on the restraint, choking him. Again, big controversy.
In both cases, inadequate training of bus monitors was given as a reason that these incidents happened. And I agree in part. However, I would say it is the nature of the job itself that is the problem. And that if parents do not want these kinds of things to be happening they need to start being proactive and start riding the buses themselves as monitors instead of abdicating the responsibility to poorly-trained. poorly-paid workers who are there mainly because they "need a job."
Why aren't any of these parents bus monitors? For the same reason I am not a bus monitor. Or flipping burgers. Or working as a health aide or at any other low-paying unskilled position. It is because I have skills that make it unnecessary for me to have to choose any of those jobs. I can use a computer and I know complex medical terminology. Yes, I could choose to ride school buses and keep an eye on unruly children--but why should I? Society has told me my skills are more valuable in the preclinical research field where I am currently employed. The same with many of my friends who are unemployed. They are not looking for dead-end jobs where they can't make use of their skills and training. The only way they would become a bus monitor, for example, is if they could not find anything else and their options were running out.
Hence the problem. We delegate this job to people who are basically just as unmotivated to do it as we are ourselves but the difference is we have choices and they don't. Then we don't bother to pay them well or train them well but expect them to keep order without giving them any real authority to do so. Is it any wonder some of them resort to abuse?
