There is an issue among schools today that is often overlooked and ignored. There are many many things I could talk about. This is one I never see happening. And it’s one of the most simple things around. Apologizing.

Simply put; kids don’t apologize. For anything. Ever. Their parents never make them apologize. Administrators in schools never make them apologize. They are never made to face and acknowledge those whom they have wronged. The result of this is much like the result of living on social media. There is a sense of entitlement and invincibility that develops. It gets to the point where kids don’t just believe, but know that they can do whatever they want without any meaningful consequences.

I recently read an article about the abuse teachers must endure if they want to keep their job. Physical. Verbal. Emotional. It’s a daily thing. This has happened to me constantly in teaching. Death threats abound. Countless cuts and bruises. Permanent disabilities (yes, plural). And do want to know who is never held responsible?¿ The kids who cause all this damage.

I remember one day a couple years ago. I was working in a horrible school. Honestly, it was horrible. Fights were so common they no longer had consequences. You’d get sent home for the rest of that day if you drew blood. Unless the parents refused to come. Which happened almost every time. Well a friend of mine taught in a particularly nasty 4th grade room. Several kids had known feuds between families but they never adjusted the classes. I was in my room with the door closed, trying to enjoy my first plan time in weeks, when I heard the screaming. I had a radio on me but hadn’t heard any calls go out, so I peaked in the hall to see what was happening just in time to see my friend stumble out her own door (which a child had just thrown her through) and another kid in the hall shove past her and back into the room to go after some other kid. I started to run down the hall while calling for help on the radio. My friend was visibly exhausted. Whatever this was had been happening inside her room for a while. She said she’s been calling the office for 10 minutes but no one would come. So I called again saying we needed help NOW. The reply? Everyone is busy. Do what you can. I stepped in to try to keep the fighting kids apart. In the process I got shoved into the door and my arm was slammed and scraped across the door jamb. At that point I screamed into the radio that if they didn’t want me to throw all my training out the window and handle this in my own way that they would get someone there immediately. One person slowly made their way down the hall, clearly annoyed. By the time they got there the two of us had gotten the fighting kids apart and things had started to calm down. So I got scolded for “being rude on the radio” because “they had things to deal with” and I was “out of line” to make such a big fuss about something so small.

My friend collapsed to the floor. I stayed with her until the end of the day. No one ever talked to us about what happened and those kids were back in there the next day.

So what emergency had kept our administrators and counselors from helping us? A military parent had returned from duty and surprised her daughter on the other side of the building and all the people who were supposed to be helping us didn’t want to miss their chance to be on the news. Yep. Apathy is not restricted to the kids.

This is far from my worst encounter. So why bring it up? Because it was closest I’ve ever come in my entire career to getting an apology. But it didn’t happen that day. Or for several after. About a week later the kid who had slammed my arm was mouthing off to his teacher as I was walking by. I stepped in and gave him a piece of my mind. I didn’t yell or do anything inappropriate, but I told him no uncertain terms that for him to take out his anger on other people was not ok. I then showed him my arm. At this point I was sporting a nice 6 inch long deep purple bruise. I told him that this is what he does when he gets mad. He had no idea he had done it to me. He was shocked, but said nothing. I told him he had done that to his teacher as well but I was willing to bet he would never take responsibility for his actions. I then made him apologize for mouthing off in that moment and told my friend to not hesitate to call me if he needed to come to my room for a while. (Students were often sent to me because they would return to their class ready to apologize).

Two weeks later the whole school had a “positive post it” event in which teachers and students would write kind things and put it on doors or give it to someone. On my door appeared kind words and notes of me being a favorite teacher. Then there was one that simply said “sorry I bruised your arm. It was the only unsigned note, but the writer was obvious. I later found out his teacher told him to write it. But still, he never had to face me.

This is our problem. We’re so worried about making kids feel ashamed that we just let it all go. Or worse, we dish out unrelated consequences that the kids sometimes enjoy. Sleep all day in ISS for yelling at someone or flipping off a teacher? I’ll do that ALL THE TIME!

Apologizing is a lost art. Seriously. Looking someone one the eye and bringing yourself to their level while admitting that you did something you knew you shouldn’t have is a hard thing to do. It can be mortifying. But to avoid a kid growing up believing they are above everyone and everything is to make them stand in those situations and acknowledge that they are not. And it has to start young and it has to be handled consistently and with high expectations. And they have to deal with the fact that not all apologies will be accepted. Some people will remain mad at them for however long they decide to be mad. In some cases they won’t be able to repair the relationship. That’s part of life and if they don’t start learning it young, they will never learn.

When I was teaching third grade, I made a poster and hung it on my wall. It was a starting point on learning to apologize, and I made my students follow it every time something went wrong. “Im sorry for_____ It was wrong because________ Next time I will________” And I was strict with this structure too. They were not allowed to scoff or roll their eyes or they would start over. They weren’t allowed to say “because it was wrong”. They had to think harder than that. They weren’t allowed to say “next time I will not (insert shown behavior)”. They had to think of at least one appropriate way to handle the situation. Later in the year I required them to ask if the person accepted their apology and they were required to accept whatever answer they got with grace. If at any time in the entire process they showed attitude they were start from the beginning because I refused to let them continue their disrespectful behavior. Longest apology I ever had lasted a full hour. The rest of my students did their independent work during that time (I always had a lot of that prepared just in case), but even if they just sat there and watched what I was doing they were learning what I saw as a very valuable lesson.

My own three year old has to apologize for things big and small. This boy will go to school knowing that we admit our wrongs and we own up to them.

Maybe if all kids were raised with that ideal again our teachers would stop getting abused. Maybe kids would start to see the value in their own education. Maybe they would take responsibility in other areas of life (chores, schoolwork, grades?). And this new age crap of publicly shaming your kid online for something? It’s bullshit. It makes you look like a bad parent. Saw one the other day where a mom recorded her son dancing and crying because he had danced on a table at school. The whole time she was berating him and making fun of him. That won’t change his behavior. It’ll just make him more sneaky. She should have made him write out an apology letter and read it to every single person he had disrupted that day. He should have been made to go to the principal with a sincere apology and ask for forgiveness. Instead, there’s now a video of him online forever to shame him. For dancing. How ridiculous.

It’s ok for a kid to feel bad about their actions. It’s not ok for them to never have to look at themselves in a critical manner. It’s not ok for them to be shamed without ever actually making amends. Can we please end this era of no consequences? And can administrators stop making empty promises about it? Like the principal who told me I would get to sit down with the kid who told me he hoped my unborn baby would die and tried to get a bunch of kids to jump me. Or the asst. principal who told me I was “being ridiculous” for locking out a student who threatened to stab two of my students and rape me. Both of these were recorded and no consequences followed.

Suspending a kid is easy. Making them face themselves is important.