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by tivert 1081 days ago
>> I went to public school as a kid and the disruptive kids were expelled. Not just kicked out of class - totally kicked out of school and told to find a new one! One reason I send my kids to private school is if you don’t want to learn they will kick you out. In public schools today you get a few bad kids and it ruins the whole class.

> The causes and solutions are not as simple as "these kids are bad, kick them out of school", but any solution needs to involve kids who aren't disruptive and WANT to learn getting an environment conducive to that.

But it might not be that much more complicated. It's been a long time since I've been in school, but in our district there was an "alternative" high school, which had a reputation among the kids as the place you'd end up if you were too much of a behavior problem.

That said, the kids at my schools were well-behaved in class and I never knew of anyone specific who was expelled.

If behavior problems are getting more widespread, maybe embracing more of an explicit containment strategy is appropriate.

1 comments

It's sad but I largely agree.

The complicated part is the "why" of their behavior, which can range from an antisocial personality disorder, to not getting enough attention at home.

Sadly many of the cause of behavior problems is from systemic issues like poverty, or poor mental health services across the country.

The bottom line is that neither the kids nor the teachers want to, or deserve to, deal with the byproduct of other failed systems.

The failed systems should be fixed, and services provided to these kids to the extent possible, but OUTSIDE of a classroom setting.

The cost of past failures can't be borne by the students and teachers in the public school system.

> The complicated part is the "why" of their behavior

You can have specialized people look at the "why" after you remove the disruptive (some times dangerously disruptive) person from forced prolonged contact with innocent ones.

It's certainly very good to look and fight the causes; as it's important to give the people chances to go back on track, and protect them at that new environment too. But forcefully submitting everybody else to them is just horrible.