I don't mean to say that everything should be authoritarian. But to maintain a good school for the students who go to a non-authoritarian school, there still needs to be some degree of punishment, or expulsions. Just like in a non-authoritarian government, people who commit violent crimes still need to be sent to jail for the safety of others. Once away from the others, they can be reformed and reintegrated back into a normal setting, where the teachers can trust students not to get into fights more, and kids can learn in a quiet environment where others also want to be high-achievers, or at least are motivated to not become drop-outs.
I just don't think there's enough of that in schools like the one I described. Sorry, I kind of let my past color my tone more than I should have.
https://www.aclu.org/issues/juvenile-justice/juvenile-justic...
I don't think having over-authoritarian discuplinarianism is ideal. It's probably a backlash to schools not having enough funding or resources to deal with the assaults and the fighting, so they do the exact opposite of what they'd been doing, or what they think of as the opposite. Going too far the other way, overly disciplining students for minor behavior and failing to change their behavior isn't best either.
A related saying of some guy who knew this stuff: "You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long". You can force people with punishment, but they will try to revolt and get revenge once they have a chance; even a small chance, and a small revenge.
I was beaten as a kid. It just made me angry. So f*cking angry. It didn't stop me from acting up. I learned to take the beating with pride. I got smarter about when to act up. Everyone involved, literally everyone, had a worse result from this.
I would have had such a better life (and everyone around me) if the people who were supposed to be taking responsibility for me had actually stopped beating me and tried understanding me (like they were supposed to).
I am lucky in some sense because I can afford all the therapies, private tutors and teachers as necessary. I can throw money at the problem where as many kids have parents who cannot. Even then throwing money at the problem doesn't guarantee anything. You have to find the right fit for your kid and hopefully they learn the skills they need and adapt along the way.
To the rest of the commentors in the thread, you cannot segregate kids. The schools need to adapt to them and meet them where they are. In the US Federal Law guarantees this but the reality is that schools are underfunded by a huge amount so when we talk about individualized education and special education services, everything is cookie cutter.
BTW if any parent in this thread section can recommend a great public school system with appropriate Level 3 services please reply. I can literally move anywhere. A 70k a year private school would be hard to afford right now as would a $1-2 million dollar home in said school district but there is really no good information out there for parents.
Everything seems to be about forcing the kid into a standardised set of behaviour patterns: "behave like this or we will punish you".
Some kids don't work like that.
#1 is good, #2 is bad. In fact #1 never works when #2 is present.
I got expelled from 2 kindergardens, and then was sent to a Montessori school. Where I was fine, even helpful.
"the beatings will continue until behaviour improves" just doesn't work, has never worked.
Maybe we shouldn't have one school experience for all the kids. Maybe some kids work fine with an authoritarian system and like having a set of rules to follow. Other kids don't.