Head of School's Message: October 7

The fistfight in the Chandler gym was an ugly affair. Following a disputed call during a pick-up basketball game after lunch, two eighth grade boys started swinging at each other. Their classmates gathered around to cheer. One cool head enlisted faculty help, and as quickly as it started, the fight ended with a bloody nose and a black eye shared between them. Both boys were suspended from school for a day.

 

That was fifteen years ago, and it remains the only bona fide fistfight that has taken place at Chandler in the past eighteen years. One of the protagonists is now a commercial real estate broker, and the other is an investment banker. The altercation was not caught on video.

 

A retired public-school teacher I spoke with on Saturday, who is prone to the occasional grumpy rant brought up the subject of last week’s fighting between twelve-year-olds at Sunnymead Middle School in Moreno Valley that was caught on video and soon went viral. “There’s too much finger-pointing and not enough parenting,” he said, shaking his head, “Everyone needs to look in the mirror. Kids get too many things and not enough values. And what about the kids shooting the video. Why aren’t they stepping in?” He talked about the “good old days” of “paddles and punishment,” and I countered that while it’s important to seek appropriate accountability, violence of any kind, whether child against child or adult against child, never solves problems, it just creates more of them. I had the green zone in the back of my mind.

 

Last Monday, the LA Times reported on the surge of lung illnesses and deaths linked to vaping. “An entrenched habit among many youths has largely caught school authorities flat-footed, and educators are urgently mobilizing anti-vaping efforts against a dangerous teen epidemic.” A group of Glendale eighth-graders said that 15-20% of their classmates vape regularly, and one said that the flavors make it easy to smoke. The article concluded with a quote from Pia Escudero, who heads health and human services for LAUSD, “Really, a critical age is 13 years old. Thirteen-year olds start experimenting. And studies show that’s the pathway we want to intervene.” Chandler’s drug education program in middle school addresses vaping.

 

When adults are asked if they could travel back in time to their youth for a few days, most choose to return to the years between 5 and 11. Few choose the years between 12 and 16, the awkward years when adolescence is raging, and young people struggle for freedom and independence. More than at any other time in their lives, young people need teachers and parents to provide structure and core values. That’s why you chose a school like Chandler, for nurture, structure and latitude.

 

As much as Chandler strives for perfection, the world inside our bubble is not perfect, but the kids are not fighting, and they’re not vaping. We have our eyes, hearts and minds on them all the time, and we need to trust that’s enough to set them on their course.