Youth is truly wasted on the young. Today’s children and teens seem to appreciate so little of what they have and what’s available to them it makes you wonder what we’ll be looking at in 10 to 20 years.
We acknowledge each generation looks back and shakes their collective heads at the newest crop of hormone-driven, non-thinking hedonists. You also must agree each generation has its ambitious, brilliant, high-flyers and there’s the dead wood too.
What has hurt those currently in the education system more than others of course is the pandemic. Youth have been locked up, restricted, isolated and unable to have some semblance of a teen life. We get that. It’s been tough.
However, recent abhorrent behavior on the part of what we hope are a few bad actors, is not the correct response to being cooped up and having a normal teen life taken from them, temporarily.
Let’s start with what at this point can only be described as molestation or sexual assault on the part of five Pojoaque Valley High School student athletes against an unknown number of other students. If chatter from students is to be believed, it’s sodomy.
Why when you do an internet search of hazing does “broomsticks” come up first on the search? It’s so common and there are so many lawsuits, complaints, deaths, serious injuries and psychological fallout that it warrants the top spot.
These five fine young gentlemen were suspended by the school’s superintendent after a “hazing incident.” That’s tough to define with no information coming from the school.
We will probably never know what happened to who, because the education system being what it is, protects students regardless of their terrible behavior. The legal system, not so much so, but without charges being filed, you’ll find no information there either.
Right now the entire story is five boys “hazed” some other boys and there was inappropriate touching of “private parts.” No names, no basic information.
School and sports hazing has its roots in Plato’s time (360BC) with pranks and practical jokes. It became more serious during the 17th and 18th centuries with upper class men placing freshmen into situations of servitude. So far, not a big deal.
However, the late 1800s saw an increase in serious injuries and deaths. Pre-World War II it became so severe civic leaders and college authorities started to crack down on the practice.
A little bit of fun and slightly harmless humiliation seems to be al right with most people. However, in the past 20 years, students have fallen into a tragic pattern of causing serious physical and mental harm to the person being hazed. Almost always it involves alcohol. Forcing someone to drink as much alcohol as possible in 20 minutes is not hazing. That’s borderline torture and many people have died from it.
We contend the Pojoaque students hazing their younger counterparts was done with a blind eye from those in charge, perhaps with a wink and a nod.
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Shifting to our own Española Valley High School there’s the phenomena of one-upping the next moron. The TikTok phenomena of students pushing other students to perform acts of vandalism must stop.
For those grandparents raising their grandchildren and legal guardians doing the job of an absent parent, please check your children’s cell phones for this destructive, senseless and frustrating trend.
Where are these mindless youth? In school. So where are they going to act out? Yup, our public schools, paid for by property tax-payers throughout the district, most of whom don’t have children in school.
The way it gets started is one idiot performs an act of vandalism at school and posts it on TikTok. He or she challenges someone else to do worse. Very creative. We’re not sure what bragging rights come with this.
Regular readers will recall a time four years ago when administrators, parents and teachers were up in arms because most of the bathrooms at Española Valley High School did not have toilet paper, paper towels, soap nor privacy dividers between toilets. Broken toilets were not being replaced.
It was explained to those who were upset and demanding better conditions that soap dispensers are destroyed, paper towels and toilet paper is jammed into the toilets to plug them. The partitions had been painted, sanded, painted, repaired, hardware ordered and installed and rinse and repeat, until they were so banged up, maintenance gave up and removed them.
Broken toilets? Yeah some of those too. The bathrooms resembled bus depot bathrooms for about a year.
After the whining and demands of parents, the school Board at the time, relented, ordered supplies, repaired the toilets and installed new partitions. The total costs replacing toilets, paint, soap and towel dispensers and partitions installed and painted topped $100,000.
Security and administration was tasked with keeping an eye on the bathrooms.
Here we are today with TikTok challenges and the boys bathroom at the front of the High School is pretty much back to where it was four years ago. Security is frustrated. The school Board is livid. Administrators are upset. We fear parents are again (still?) clueless. It’s their little darlings doing this damage.
We have two suggestions. One District Security Director Christian Lopez needs to work this problem almost full-time and track down those responsible for trashing the bathroom(s). Send its parents the bill. Second port-a-potties are the answer. If the children can’t take care of what they were offered, let them deal with port-a-potties for a semester and see if they don’t appreciate a real bathroom again.
As always, this is not a teacher problem, it’s not security’s fault and administrators are supposed to be educating the vandals, not guarding bathrooms. This is a parent problem.
Again, check your child’s phone and have a talk with them about taking care of public property and their role as a citizen of the world. They learn bad behavior at home. Then they bring it to school.
We hear “mi jito no hace mal.” We hear parents all the time protecting their little darlings.
But it’s somebody’s jito. It’s someone’s “star” student. But we’re all paying for it.