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CNN Talkback Live

How Far Should Teachers Go to Control Bullies?

Aired May 08, 2001 - 15:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: How far can a teacher go to keep bullies at bay? Chicago elementary school teacher Allen Hill was reprimanded for harassing a group of boy students know as the "posse."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALLAN HILL, REPRIMANDED TEACHER: I want the board to remove that from my record because it's on lie. If any of you know anything about due process, I was absolutely skunked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: The school board says Hill went too far to prevent the boys from allegedly picking on a disabled student, exposing themselves to girls, and calling them whores.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARILYN JOHNSON, CHICAGO BOARD OF EDUCATION: He intervened in ways such as getting in his car, following the boys home from school, standing outside their home in the car, confronting them when they were off school property, and ostensibly not engaged in any inappropriate conduct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID SCHIPPERS, ATTORNEY FOR ALAN HILL: In my opinion that's political correctness gone nuts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: Hill has filed a civil rights complaint against the Chicago school system and he has a lot of support.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Their calling us sluts and whores and skanks and he tries to stop that, and he gets in trouble. I mean, that hurts me to see that a man who tries to defend us gets in trouble, and he gets what the boys should be getting.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BATTISTA: Did Alan Hill do the right thing?

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to this rather abbreviated version of TALKBACK LIVE. How far should a teacher go to confront bullies? Is it enough to just warn parents that their children are tough customers? What if it's an ongoing thing? Alan Hill is getting a lot of support in Chicago where parents are fed up with bullying, and Nancy Skinner is a radio to talk-show host at WLS-AM in Chicago.

She joins us along with Curtis Sliwa, a radio talk show host on WABC in New York. Curtis has just been appointed to Mayor Giuliani's decency commission to judge the morality of publicly funded art in the city.

Welcome, you guys. We will get into it right away as we let several of our guests go do to the brevity of our show. So, I think that package there, Nancy, pretty much summed up what happened in the case Alan Hill. We should also say that he's a 40-year veteran of the school system up there, and a very popular teacher.

NANCY SKINNER, WLS RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, then, Bobbie, he really should know better. The problem here is that his motivations were good. We understand he wanted to stand up to bullies and stop the behavior from happening, but he should have known better that you don't tell a kid that they should not be a bully by bullying them. In fact, what he did is he put the rest of the school at risk.

He started calling them names like idiots and gang bangers, and he followed them, and he intimidated them. What good does that do? Does that stop them from this behavior? Does it reason with these kids? Does it get to the core of issue or does it make them more vindictive and therefore there might be repercussions. These kids might go against the teacher or other classmates.

BATTISTA: Curtis, you have programs like this in New York that deal with that. What good does that do?

CURTIS SLIWA, WABC RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, as the Guardian Angels we actually teach programs during the school day and after school for those, quote, "youth in crisis," the bully boys, the bully girls. And you have to confront them. You have to show them, particularly from a male role model's point of view, that you're not going to take it, you're not going to mind your own business, and this man deserves a medal.

I mean, imagine, he didn't just take his paycheck and run to the suburbs. He followed these scallywags home. He watched their intimidating moves and then he confronted them and called them what they really are: Gang-bangers, thugs, and want-to-be's.

And I'm telling you, that gives them attitudinal readjustment, makes them think twice, and I remember when I was going to school, God forbid if you behaved in that (UNINTELLIGIBLE). The gym teacher would get you when all the classes were assembled, and that's when sometimes you'd get a therapeutic back massage, be sucking concrete, and you would learn the wrong of your ways.

BATTISTA: You know what, Nancy, it seems to me that this was an ongoing problem with this particular group of students up there, so obviously, pulling the parents into the conversation, having the parents talk to their kids and this sort of thing wasn't working.

SKINNER: Well, you know, he took it upon himself act immediately. As soon as the events happened last October, the kids were brought in with their parents and they were given detention on Saturday. There's protocols. There's rules for dealing with troubled kids, and he acted immediately to try to retaliate, and that's what he doing.

Curtis, would you say to a kid that if they steal, the lesson is, I'm going to steal from you and that will teach you not to steal. You know...

BATTISTA: I don't think he was bullying them, though. I'm not sure he was bullying them. I saw more what he did as chastising them. Maybe he chose the wrong words, but I think there's a difference in the sort of bullying that they were engaged in with other kids and what this teacher did to them.

SKINNER: What is bullying? Name-calling? He followed them? That's what these had done.

BATTISTA: I think he was, you know, calling the situation the way he saw it, and the way it had been going for quite awhile.

SLIWA: Well, I think you have to understand that when these monsters of mayhem get on a role they know no boundaries. And for all of a sudden, a positive male role model, of which there are few in our urban inner areas today, confronts them and then calls them what they are, it's basically sort of like, taking time at that moment and letting them know they've got two way does go.

They can continue to role as thugs, or maybe, just maybe, a lightening bolt will hit them and they'll recognize that there is somebody standing in their way. This man did not mind his own business. If he had gone to the administration he would have had to fill out pounds of paperwork. They would have chained and shackled him. The American Civil Liberties Union would have threatened him with a lawsuit. They would have completely emasculated him.

(CROSSTALK)

SKINNER: That's not true. In fact, there's -- disciplinary actions were taken. What would you say, Curtis, if these kids, after his actions, came back and blew away members of the class because the teacher took it upon himself to break the rules and retaliate on his own and then the kids came back and killed classmates. What would you say to that?

Then, you would say the teacher was responsible.

SLIWA: So, you mean every time that a disciplinary measure is taken in school, every time someone is suspended, every time someone is expelled, that teacher, administrator, guidance counselor, dean has to fear in the back of their mind that all this (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with all the furniture upstairs and rearranged in the wrong rooms might come back with an Uzi and gun down the entire school? Then they've rendered themselves ineffective. They might as well close the school, and seek a new job opportunity because we will have abandoned our schools to the thugs and the enemy, which is the criminal element.

SKINNER: The difference is between what is defined protocol in schools -- suspension, expulsion -- and vigilante discipline, which this teacher engaged in. You know, if everyone knows the rules of game, then the kids are going to be subject to them. But when teachers have the ability to start making up the rules of game and acting outside or over the line...

BATTISTA: Well, sometimes I question the rules of the game. I realize we don't have our Chicago Board of Education folks here to help us out with this, but for example, these boys were exposing themselves to girls. I mean, if you're an adult and did that -- they're 13, 14 years old. If you're an adult, you go to jail for that. They got detention. I mean...

SKINNER: Well, Paul Vallas has said that the teacher had exaggerated these kids' actions. So what they did exactly is still in dispute.

BATTISTA: The girls -- we heard soundbites from the girls there in the package saying that they were tired of these boys doing this kind stuff to them all the time.

SKINNER: We just don't know what they did. We really don't know.

BATTISTA: It doesn't seem like the punishment is working too well, though, is what I'm saying.

SLIWA: Well, it's not just the punishment, where are the parents? Clearly, if the parents had been able to control their children, this teacher would not have to have taken it upon himself to follow them to question them and confront them. But when parents abandon their responsibility, at least there should be the alternative school; the reform school, as we used to call it.

But today's modern-day, progressive education says we don't want these kids to develop a concept, so you mix the bad kids in with the good kids, and they become the wild bunch, like cast characters in "Animal House," out of control, disrupt the class, intimidate the children, the teachers and won't allow for education to continue and for the good kids to progress and make a better life for themselves.

BATTISTA: You know, let me go to the audience here quickly. We don't have too much time. Go ahead, Tom.

TOM: I feel that part of problem is that the parents are not teaching the values at home anymore. Kids are going to school, and the teachers are no longer educators. They're expected by the parents to teach values and morals and I think part of problem starts at home.

BATTISTA: Well, and how often is it that parents are told about their child being guilty of this kind of stuff and they refuse to believe that? I think that happens -- don't you think that is true these days? So many parents just, oh, my kid wouldn't do that or they threaten the school with a lawsuit if they the punishment is too much. I mean, what are teachers supposed to do?

SKINNER: You know, the teachers cannot -- the have to lead by example. No matter what the situation is out there, we can't have teachers descending in this position where they are engaging in same sort of bad behavior as the students. They always need to be role models, no matter what situation is.

Yes, we need to get parents involved. These parents were involve. These parents went to the school. There were detentions. At the same time -- in fact, a counselor told Alan Hill that he must cease because she was trying to work with these kids in detention, and he refused to listen to order of the counselor and he kept going. That's why he got his reprimand. And what's a reprimand? It was the mildest form of punishment they could give this teacher.

BATTISTA: Let me just get some e-mails here quickly and take a phone call. Robin in California says: "My child was harassed from elementary to high school, and the officials are all afraid to stand up to these punks. Do we wait until those who have been bullied have finally had enough and turn to revenge?"

Jacob in Missouri says: "I believe this teacher should be commended for his actions. I'm in ninth grade and the term bully is way too nice. I see and hear bullying and verbal abuse on a regular basis that needs to stop."

Stephanie in California: "Teachers should follow the school policy and not act like vigilantes. Maybe he should get the bullies on video next time."

Lee in Nevada, go ahead.

LEE: Yes, hi, Bobbie. Thanks. I'm the parent of a 8 1/2-year- old son myself. When I was growing up, I got cracked across the knuckles in kindergarten and got paddled on the behind in fourth grade, and I remember those two things vividly because I basically wasn't repeat offender after that. But I think generationally, we can't get away with that nowadays.

I believe nowadays the teachers, really, they have no teeth. The bullies know they can bully and the parents of those bullies aren't going to do anything. I think another thing, you know, through the Clinton administration, you seen, you know, these liberals ho rise up and it's like no matter what we do, no matter how wrong we are, we'll never be punished. So you have liberals like this lady here that want to take a cause and just say well, you can't punish.

BATTISTA: We've got to wrap it. We're running out of time. Thanks, Lee. Quickly, Nancy. You have about five seconds. SKINNER: How far are you going to go with this? Do you want the kids to pack heat? Is that the answer to this? I don't think so.

BATTISTA: Curtis.

SLIWA: You hit them so hard that their mother will feel the vibrations. They'll get the message.

BATTISTA: Curtis Sliwa, Nancy Skinner, thank you both for hanging around and staying with us. We appreciate it. We'll see you again tomorrow for more TALKBACK LIVE.

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