An Interesting Week 3

I'll add more later about the actual teaching experiences from this past week, but first I need to vent about something else that is more important . There was a theft from a teacher's purse on Wednesday - someone went into an unlocked auxiliary classroom and took $75 intended for child care. The amount and the intended use for the money is inconsequential, the violation was in the act itself.

The theft was announced in Thursday's staff meeting, and the reaction of Dan and the staff was interesting. It was clear that things like this are a rare event at SWW, and there was universal disappointment that a SWW student would commit such an act. Dan suggested that all of the extended class teachers bring this incident up on Friday and get student reaction. And that is where the real story begins.

This incident was brought up in Friday's class, and my personal reaction to the students' response was nothing short of shock. Here's why:

• Let's call the victim Mrs. N. Some of the initial comments were "since it was Mrs. N, she didn't deserve it, but if it was Mrs. C, well then that would be different, I wouldn't care at all." The difference here is that an unpopular teacher deserved it.
• What if it was a larger amount of money, say $750 instead of $75? Students indicated then it would have been a bigger deal, and they would have considered it more of a crime.
• When polled about whether they would report any information about this crime if they had it, the nearly unanimous (maybe unanimous, hard to tell) was that they WOULD NOT! Let me repeat - ALL or almost all students stated they would NOT REPORT ANY INFORMATION ABOUT A THEFT IN THEIR SCHOOL!

A short discussion followed, centered around "snitching", the famously urban characterization of providing information about a crime or criminal behavior. Most students apparently truly believe that being a snitch is a bad thing, and whatever moral code they are following or have been taught apparently ignores any moral absolutes in their behavior for this case.

Factors like peer pressure were not accounted for in this fully open poll, as students were asked to raise their hand if they would provide information about this incident if they had any. Perhaps a private, anonymous vote would have different results - I hope so. I briefly mentioned to the class that what we just saw was a perfect example fo moral relativism - changing your morals based on the particular circumstances. We then went on to other class business for the day. I have been thinking abaout this since that class, and it needs to be revisited.