PLN 7

Students who come into class late often miss out on important lessons. They get detention, marked down, or some other form of punishment. Coming into class late is indeed disrespectful to the teacher and to the class, but what happens when one teacher takes wild disciplinary action against one student to the point that other classmates attacked him? Rocky Mountain News’s Teacher OK'd beating of tardy student, police say talks about one Brian Havel, who after a student walked late into his class allowed about 10 or 15 others to begin beating the teen faces charges of child abuse.

This article matters to the world because although the teen boy of about 15 or 16 years old had no injuries after the incident, he was nonetheless attacked. Students should feel safe in their classrooms. They should be able to walk into class feeling comfortable. Yes, students should be punished when they come to class late, but what Havel allowed in his classroom was appalling. Though Havel is completely in the wrong for allowing such behavior, what is even more disgusting is that other students in the class asked if they were allowed to hit the student. Havel had a rule in his class that any student who was late to class had to do a certain amount of push-ups in a given amount of time. When the student (whose names is never given) either refused or was not able to complete the exercise, his fellow classmates where given permission to hit him.

This article matters to me because they boy who was attacked was about my age. He was hurt by fellow students; by people he went to class with, ate lunch with. I was horrified when I learned that they had asked to punch another student. I guess I just don’t understand how you could do something like that to another student, and then sit by them the next day in class. I am comfortable with the people in my classes. As far as I know, none of them dislike me enough to ever ask for permission to take my punishment into their own hands, but the fact that there are teens out there like that, and there are teachers who allow it startles me.

It isn’t said whether any of the students who assailed the teen are going to be pressed with charges, but just knowing that they would feel such violence towards another student is frightening. Knowing that young people could feel such hate towards another classmate shocks me, and I can’t help but wonder, what happens to teens like that later on in life, when real challenges oppose them?