An assistant principal’s view on school climate and social media

Introduction

The following interview was conducted on June 8th, 2022. The interviewee, Mr. “M”, was at the time an assistant principal at our high school (a large high school of a little under 1500 students), but is moving on to become a principal at another high school in the area. The interview was for a World History project, where the students were going to produce something for the incoming freshman on what it means to be a good member of the school community. We as the teachers felt it would be a good idea to get perspective of the administration and staff on the behavioral challenges the school has experienced throughout the year. During the interview, Mr. M was honest, and his tone was that of a passionate man with conviction. I was struck by his honesty and candor, and I believe that this information should be shared with everyone who deals with students and adolescents. Mr. M gave me permission to share with with educators and others, stating that there’s nothing he would say to me that he wouldn’t say directly to the other teachers, staff members, students, and parents. Note: some of the verbal pauses (“uh”s and “um”s) have been removed for readability purposes, since the audio won’t be made public. Otherwise, I made every attempt at accurate transcription, including misspoken words.

Interview

History in Focus: I’m Mr. [History in Focus], sitting here with Mr. [M], assistant principal … on 2:30 on Wednesday afternoon, here to talk about our world history project which centers around deciding what it means to be a good citizen of [school] after they’ve looked at it from a global perspective. What they’ve been looking at has been focused around social media and around some of the things happening at other schools lately, and one of the resources they had was an [NPR] story that just aired a couple weeks ago about the uptick in behavior in high schools around the state of including vandalism of bathrooms, bullying, violence, all around the state of ***. So I want to know Mr. [M], what have you seen happening at [school] this year in terms of that?

Mr. M:  Well, certainly the beginning of the year saw its challenges relative to attention, negative attention-seeking behavior from students around, um, certainly the bathroom vandalism piece was difficult. Some other attention-seeking behaviors, such as graffiti trended more towards a downward and troubling, I guess, troubling manner, I would say, as some of the graffiti went from just basic profanity and lacking intelligent garble to more hateful, ignorant, anti-semitic and racial overtones, which is, always sort of the lowest level of depravity and ignorance. So that was, that was frustrating. and then I think, you’re sort of, we saw, just like other schools, a lot of microaggressions, an uptick in self-medicating behaviors through the use of vape devices, THC, nicotine, but just a general sort of, this was a very challenging year from somebody in a career educator role. But I also know that it was not insular to [our school] as [NPR] said, it’s been across the state.

History in Focus: That’s, uh, thank you for that. That’s a good segway, because you have spent your career in education, so the story said that this is above and beyond the norm, or above and beyond what they had seen pre-pandemic levels. So I want to know based on your experience as a career educator and administrator, is this worse, so to speak, than the past, and what you’ve seen in the past? Or is it just different and unique with the challenges of the times?

Mr. M: It almost feels like the perfect storm, Mr. [History in Focus]. It feels like the behaviors themselves have always existed. What I sort of, when I take a step back and see, it, it appears as though everybody sort of froze in time in that March 2019 [sic] when the world sort of stopped. And everybody’s sort of development seemed to, whether it was as a human, emotionally, how we empathize with one another, how we act academically, our stamina, all of those pieces, it seemed like everything just stopped. And then when we came back to school and now we’re in, really the third affected school year based on pandemic things. It seems like everybody was sort of stunted in that first year. Our 10th graders acted like 8th graders, our 8th graders probably acted like 6th graders, and so on and so on. So would I say there was an uptick in behaviors? It’s hard to quantify. However, if I could say, you know, subjectively, it seems like the behaviors we’ve seen, we have seen, happen later in the year. Usually 6th grade behavior happens in middle school. We were seeing it in high school. So, we, when that happens, you have structural things. So a high school is typically meant to deal with high school types of behaviors in students. When we see middle school and elementary school behaviors in high school, we’re not trained or equipped necessarily to deal with them. Middle school teachers aren’t used to seeing elementary behaviors, and elementary behaviors [sic] aren’t used to seeing tantrums you see from four and five year olds. So, it’s hard for me to say if there were more or less, but they definitely happened out of sequence, in my opinion.

History in Focus: That’s a really interesting point you bring up. And that makes it challenging for you guys, like you said, not being equipped to, to deal with, with the specific behaviors you’re seeing that are typically dealt with at a different age level, or earlier on. What role do you think social media plays in all of this?

Mr. M: So, I know that, just based on, again, I don’t have any hard fast data other than my own professional opinion. I feel like social media has sort of taken on the role of the entertainer, the babysitter, and, and, sort of any other positive or negative way to spend your time for kids. For a while, people were isolated and all they could do was use social media to communicate. And we know kids need to communicate. They need to touch, and play, and wrestle, and do all those things. And they’re physical beings. And they weren’t able to do that for such a long period of time, that all of the, the positive interactions they got or the daily affirmations they needed, came from social media, or what the influencer’s doing on TikTok or Snapchat or whatever platform you talk about. And those platforms aren’t required to only post things that are positive. So you know, like they say, idle hands are the tools of the devil. I would use the same argument for, for um, the uninformed and the lack of parental oversight when it comes to the use of social media.

History in Focus: Alright, so that’s some interesting points you bring up there. Especially, as far as social media being the entertainer there. Now I’m curious, cause again you’ve been around in this profession a lot longer than I have. So, prior to social media, what do you think took that role of entertainer?

Mr. M: So, I mean, I can remember the last year and a half, purposefully driving by ball fields and basketball courts and you know fields, kids in the woods, kids riding bikes, all the things they used to do as social animals, to have fun and go play. I can remember being a kid myself and we were never not on our bikes and we were gone from dusk till dawn and even at school we were on our bikes or playing something or riding skateboards, whatever it was, hinking. You couldn’t do those group activities for a long period of time. So, there was that piece. The other piece is, you know, when I was a kid, I’m not, I like to think I’m not that old, but you might have lived in a neighborhood, or at least, you know, there was a row of houses or an apartment building where you know if I was hanging out with [History in Focus] during the day and we got into a fight or an argument, my mom would call your mom or one of my parents would call your parents and say “Hey, I heard the boys might’ve had a scrap today, do we want to talk about it?” Or if we wanted to do a sleepover, my mom would’ve called your mom and said “Hey, we haven’t met yet, but my son’s asking for a sleepover, I think we should meet.” We seem to have forgotten as parents and as society we still have to oversee our kids, and we’re still responsible for their care and upbringing, even if they have a device in front of them. So now the kids’ “neighborhoods” for lack of better term, have become electronic and digital. And we’re not parenting the same way we were. But in some cases, we have forgotten how to parent, and we don’t know how to navigate what we should be doing when everybody’s communicating just through social media.

History in Focus: Right, and you think that the, the expansiveness of that, I like the analogy of the “neighborhood” and now the “digital neighborhood” which is, um, for all intents and purposes, it’s endless. Does that pose a new challenge on, on parents and their ability to parent given that now they don’t have that control over who they’re quote-unquote “seeing,” because now they’re in this endless digital neighborhood?

Mr. M: Well I, again this, this is my opinion. Um, but I think it’s a cop out. I think that you don’t forfeit your responsibilities as a parent because the student’s neighborhood has changed. The platform has changed. I’m still responsible to know when my kids are on, who they’re on with, who they’re talking to, what they’re accessing. I’m supposed to be evaluating what they’re doing and checking in and making sure they’re telling me the truth. We seem to have empowered our kids to thinking the device that’s in their hand, even though it belongs to me, I bought it, and I pay the bill, and I will take it away because I’m your parent. They don’t have a right to privacy. Kids don’t have a right on the things that I bought them, to hide things from me. And if I make that clear. Look, I love my kids, but I’m not my kids’ friend. If my kids want a friend, they can get a dog. I’m their parent. And if we treat our kids like our friends, this is what will continue to happen. 

History in Focus: That’s a very interesting point. Um, and, so with, with some of these behaviors, Mr. [principal] mentioned that a lot of this originated outside of school and then makes its way in and then has to be dealt with by you guys as the assistant principals. So does, when things are starting outside of school and making their way in here, does that make you feel “helpless” to solve the problem, or is there things that you as, you guys as the administration can do, even though it’s orginigating outside of school walls?

Mr. M: I wouldn’t say it’s helpless, but it’s certainly challenging. So, I, the way the law is written, is that if an incident that takes place on social media substantially impacts a student’s day, and they report it in school, um, then we’re required to intervene, interview, and figure out what it was. What becomes frustrating, and I don’t feel helpless, is five or six years ago, they took away our ability to access student phones. So I can’t ask a student if I can search their phone. They can offer it, and the parents can give me permission, but I can’t ask anymore. So I can’t conduct an investigation that’s two-sided without the tools at my disposal to do it. Um, so there’s that piece that’s made things more challenging. The other piece is, and I’ve pushed this back and parents are responsible for their kids’ actions, and for their kids, what they do on their phones. Parents buy the phones, and the phone is either a tool or a toy. When you’re using as a toy, you should be held accountable, not by the school, but by your parents. And the parents are too afraid to take their kids phone away or say no. Here’s what doesn’t pass the straight-face test with me: there’s a phone in every classroom in this building and every … office. When a parent or kid says “I need to be able to get in touch with my mother,” they can get in touch with their mother. It’s easy to do. When we were kids, we had to put 35 cents under the sole of our sneaker, and if we needed to call home, we found a way to call home. We’ll get to parents if it’s an emergency. The biggest problem I have, is parents texting their kids during their day, and asking what time they’ll be home and all these questions and I go and talk to a kid and say “Why are you texting in class?” and they go “Oh it was my mom” or “It was my dad.” That is not acceptable, and parents are not helping us.

History in Focus: Yea, I, I –

Mr. M: When they do that.

History in Focus: I agree with that. I’ve seen that too with, with um, in, in a lot of my classes and I wonder the same thing. You know, your student’s in class, you shouldn’t be texting them. Now with that said, with all of this screen time, there was a survey that came out in 2019, so three years old at this point, and it’s probably, I would imagine, it’s probably worse now. This survey was from Common Sense Media, found that teenagers, 13-18 age range spend on average 7-9 hours on screen media per day. So I’m just wondering, what do you think the long-term, we’re thinking 10, 20, 30 years from now, effects of all of this screen time on this generation will be?

Mr. M: So there’s actually some fascinating brain-based research that I was able to access a few years back, where um, they are studying the development of the human brain in people born since 1979, and they are finding subtle differences in the development and chemistry of the brain. Based on each of those generations’ access to screen time. And they’re finding that, now it took us hundreds of thousands of years to fully evolve as humans, screens are actually, based on some of this research, screens are actually speeding up how our brains evolve. Which is a pretty fascinating thought when you think that man-made devices that are in our hands are literally changing the brain chemistry and how we develop as human beings. It’s excellent research and it would be well-worth sharing with kids.

History in Focus: Yea uh, do you have that that you can…

Mr. M: I’ll, I’ll find, I’ll find it.

History in Focus: Ok thank you, that’d be great.

Mr. M: It’s really good stuff.

History in Focus: What do you think, so as far as all these behaviors and everything that’s been happening, and I know just from walking around at the end of the day, and seeing you guys running around and it just seems like it’s happening so often. So I want to start with, from an administration standpoint, I know you guys have been trying really hard, and doing everything you can. But what do you think needs to happen, or needs to change, or what do you guys need to do to mitigate these behaviors?

Mr. M: So, you know, it’d be great to have a one-size-fits-all answer, but with an organization this large and with this many moving parts that’s just not feasible. So what you have to do is sort of start off as a community, bringing all stakeholders – the kids, the teachers, the families, the administrative team – and we have to design and decide what are the norms that we expect of civility in our school, and, and in our town and in society as a whole. We have to start off with these are non-negotiable items, consistency across … offices, consistency across classrooms, across all parts of the building, where all behaviors are handled in the same manner. They’re recognized the same way. Um, that everybody is as comfortable addressing a student who is out of dress code as they are a student who is non-compliant. And when people don’t feel like they’re empowered to do that, or if they feel like their efforts are not, um, not worth the time and effort, then we as administrators haven’t done our job to support people to feel safe and comfortable. And when people feel safe and comfortable, kids and staff, they’re, they’re going to do their best work. So I would always say we can always as a school, as any school I’ve ever been in, do your best to make people feel physically and emotionally safe, and everything else will be really easy. It sounds simple, but it works.


History in Focus: Always easy to say, but it’s putting it into practice. So take it from that, cause that’s a good segway, talking about the administration and the staff, now focusing on the students, cause ultimately their project right now is that they’re going to create something that they would like to show the incoming freshman about how to be a better member of the [school] community. So I want to know from you, first of all, what does it mean to be a good [student of the school] and then what are some simple things that the students themselves can do on a daily basis on an individual level to make [our school] a better community?

Mr. M: So, I think that we have our portrait of a graduate, I think we get back to basics on that and we’re all speaking from the same script and we’re all operating under the same auspices. I think the [student creed] is already there and developed and needs to become part of the fabric of who we are and what we do and guides everything that we do and why we do it. Um, and then things the kids can do, and I put this on adults too, because I think we as adults sometimes think our behavior should be different than the kids’ and that’s not, in fact, it should be, it should be a higher level. But simple things, like when you walk by someone in the hall, say “good morning,” “good afternoon.” I would get rid of phones. Keep your phones in the pockets. There should be no phones during passing time. Hold the door for somebody. Say “good morning.” I’ve seen this a lot when kids drop their books, stop and help them pick them up. You know, when someone trips and falls, don’t laugh. They’re really simple things. But just, say “good morning,” say “hello,” get the earbuds out, make eye contact, let’s back to the human interactions. If, if 80% of communication is non-verbal, and our face is buried in our, in our phone, and our ears are shut off to anything but what we want to listen to, are we really seeing and hearing the things we need to hear and see? 

History in Focus: Yea, I completely agree with that. Um, Mr. [M], I want to thank you for taking the time to sit down and do this interview, and I want to thank you for your answers and your honesty here. I learned a lot, it’s a pleasure.

Mr. M: Thank you.

Afterthoughts

As stated in my post about Why I Teach, this school year has been tough on all involved. But while the pandemic affects may wane over time, technology is here to stay. This is not to say that we are the first generation of teachers to deal with challenges of technological development, but the complete invasion of personal devices is something new in the last two decades, and it’s causing myriad problems.

While there are educators who welcome devices in the classroom, both on the grounds that they can be used for learning and as an opportunity to teach them how to live with them productively (ie, when to put them down). After what I saw this year, I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. M that phones need to be away. Phone addiction is rampant, to the point where some students chose to fail classes because they’d rather scroll social media during work time than do their work. (It is important to note that I rarely assign homework and I make every attempt to keep all formative and summative work in the classroom. I also put a premium on work completion and effort, so the only reason a student would fail my class is if they’re not doing their work.) During the assembly where the Sandy Hook victim’s mother spoke, the students only put down their phones for about three minutes when she identified who she was, before one by one picking them back up and retreating into their digital worlds.

Some detractors (mainly non-teachers) claim that educators need to have more engaging lessons, and that would solve all problems. To that I would point out that while every so often, we have an amazing lesson that would engage students more than their phones, that is a rare scenario and is almost impossible to expect on an everyday basis. No matter how good our lessons are, the students are rarely more interested in learning (especially if it’s a subject they don’t like) than being on their phones, where they can do whatever they want and get the gratification they crave.

Another important note that Mr. M brings up relative to the classroom is the social emotional piece of the loss of human interaction. Even without the pandemic’s effects, phones limit these human interactions. I think it is paramount for educators at all levels to incorporate social emotional learning into their instruction, along with activities that are done without devices. For the future of society, I believe the teaching of empathy and human connection will reduce divisiveness and violence, as we will teach adolescents to understand one-another, versus retreating into their divisive, disconnected, digital landscape.

If you enjoyed reading this, please view some of my other recent posts.

(Main image credit: Small Business Trends)

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