Teacher: Can we talk about Oliver?
Principal: What has he done this time?
Teacher: Today, just a lot of the same small stuff.
Principal: Then what’s the problem?
Teacher: I know that re-enrollment contracts are going out in a couple weeks and I wanted to know if you’re planning on inviting Oliver to come back next year?
Principal: Look, Oliver is a tough student. I get it. But I’ve seen students turn things around during sophomore year and I think Oliver is capable of change.
Teacher: Is there any student at this school who isn’t capable of change?
Principal: No, I think everyone is capable of change.
Teacher: I agree, but do you ever think it is appropriate to kick a student out?
Principal: Sometimes, sure.
Teacher: Then you sometimes have to kick out students who are capable of change.
Principal: I suppose so.
Teacher: Then why offer Oliver a re-enrollment contract?
Principal: He’s had a difficult year, but I think there are extenuating circumstances.
Teacher: What do you mean by “a difficult year”?
Principal: He’s new here and he has struggled to fit in.
Teacher: He openly mocks his teachers. He cheats on tests. He has physically assaulted two other students. He has threatened to assault other boys just for speaking to his girlfriend—a girlfriend he’s not even supposed to have, according to the student handbook. He finds some way to flout school rules on a daily basis. I wouldn’t say he has “struggled to fit in.”
Principal: I know he’s done all those things, but I think we can turn Oliver around.
Teacher: You think who can turn Oliver around?
Principal: We can. This school can turn him around.
Teacher: Who at this school can turn him around?
Principal: The people who work at this school, of course.
Teacher: How often do you see Oliver?
Principal: In the hallway? How often do I see him where?
Teacher: How many minutes do you spend with him on a daily basis?
Principal: I try to say “good morning” to him every day. Other than that, I talk to him whenever he gets in trouble.
Teacher: When he gets in enough trouble that a teacher has to send him to the office, you talk with him.
Principal: Yes, that’s true.
Teacher: I have him in class for eight hours a week. Jim has in class eight hours a week. Felicity has him for four hours a week.
Principal: What’s your point?
Teacher: Oliver is a perpetual hassle to his teachers and his classmates. When he’s not assaulting others or vandalizing the bathroom, he’s showing up in class out of dress code, fidgeting with something distracting, saying something under his breath that he won’t repeat. He requires constant tending.
Principal: I’m not denying that. I don’t want to give up on him, though.
Teacher: I don’t want to give up on him either.
Principal: But you don’t want him to come back next year?
Teacher: Yes, but that’s very different from “giving up on him.”
Principal: What do you mean?
Teacher: It’s not as though Oliver’s life is going to fall apart just because he’s not at this school anymore. The fact we can’t get through to him doesn’t mean no one can.
Principal: Do you not believe that this is a good school?
Teacher: I think there are many fine teachers here, but the fact this is a good school doesn’t mean Oliver’s life will collapse just because he goes somewhere else. The fact this is a good school doesn’t mean it’s good for every student here to stay here. Oliver isn’t doing well. He’s miserable and he’s making others miserable, as well.
Principal: But if we bring him back next year, we can keep working with him.
Teacher: Kicking him out is a way of working with him, though.
Principal: No, if we kick him out, it’s the end of our work with him. If he’s not here, we can’t talk to him anymore. We can’t counsel him.
Teacher: But he can’t hear the counsel we’re giving him. If we kick him out, it might mean that he’d take someone else seriously—someone from a different school.
Principal: Kicking him out is final, though.
Teacher: No, it’s not. You can tell him that he can re-apply in a year if he wants.
Principal: He won’t want to come back if we kick him out. He’d be too embarrassed. Besides, he’s here this year, somewhere else next year, back here the year after. Switching schools that frequently would severely disrupt his life.
Teacher: He’s severely disrupting the lives of every student in his class—and he’s doing this on a daily basis. He’s disrupting my life, Jim’s life, and every other teacher’s life. The question is whether you’d rather disrupt the life of one guilty person or twenty innocent people.
Principal: Guilty… Innocent… This is a Christian school. We’re all guilty. We all need forgiveness. We all have to give grace. Christ came to save the one lost sheep. He leaves the ninety-nine in the fold to find that lost sheep. I believe that Oliver is the lost sheep. He’s the one we have to win. The other students in your class aren’t the problem. It’s Oliver who really needs help.
Teacher: When the parents of “the ninety-nine” ask, is that how you’d like me to explain it?
Principal: I don’t think that would be tactful.
Teacher: I agree that Oliver is lost. He needs help. This is a school, though. It’s not a church. Kicking a student out doesn’t mean giving up on him. You speak as though this school is his only hope in the world—and if he doesn’t stay enrolled here, he’s going to be dead in a gutter before he turns eighteen. Expelling Oliver is part of getting through to him. If we kick him out, we’re not condemning him to hell. We’re not hoping he fails out there. He’s currently failing and we’re hoping he wakes up. We’re allowing him to see the consequences of his actions, as opposed to artificially propping him up and creating the illusion that his behavior will work when he’s out there in the world.
Principal: I disagree. Christians everywhere have to show mercy. The requirement to show mercy doesn’t end just because someone turns eighteen.
Teacher: If I created as many problems for you as Oliver creates for me, would you renew my contract?
Principal: What’s that mean?
Teacher: You talk about “our” need to be merciful and patient, but Oliver doesn’t eat up much of your time. He doesn’t keep you from getting your work done. He doesn’t publicly defy and insult you in front of your peers. In truth, Oliver doesn’t require much of your patience. When you speak of “our” need to be merciful and patient, you play a very small role in the equation. You’re being very generous with other people’s virtue and goodwill.
Principal: This is a Christian school, though. Christian ethics are the rule. Christian virtue is required of everyone who works here. Any Christian is within his rights to demand virtue of other Christians. For Christians, patience isn’t a choice. It’s a requirement.
Teacher: Do you believe that I’m in a position to require patience of you, as well?
Principal: I do.
Teacher: Can I require generosity of you, too?
Principal: What do you mean?
Teacher: If Oliver is going to re-enroll next year, I’d like a much more generous compensation package.
Principal: You know that I would love to raise the salary of every teacher at this school, but—
Teacher: You don’t have to do that. Just raise mine. I’m the one who is asking.
Principal: Are you serious?
Teacher: As serious as you are about giving Oliver a re-enrollment contract.
Principal: We have a fixed budget. I can’t snap my fingers and make money appear.
Teacher: You’re making $174,000 per year. Just tell accounting you want $14,000 of your salary moved over to my salary. You’d still be making three times what I make.
Principal: I know you, though, and I don’t think this is really about money. It’s not, is it? You didn’t come in here planning to use Oliver’s re-enrollment contract as leverage to ask for a wage, did you?
Teacher: What if I did?
Principal: This whole thing was about money?
Teacher: Doesn’t money play a role in why you’re going to offer Oliver a re-enrollment contract? Who stands to benefit more from enrollment at this school staying up—you or me? If six families were going to bail next year because Oliver was coming back, would that change things?
Principal: I think you know that a school is both a ministry and a business, but it’s also clear there are some things you don’t understand about business. There are rules that govern the financial health of an institution this size and I can’t throw those rules aside simply because someone asks nicely.
Teacher: Of course. There are also rules that govern the spiritual health of an institution this size.
Principal: What’s that mean?
Teacher: You’re right. This isn’t about money—at least, not for me. I don’t want you to give me $14,000. But I also don’t want you to give Oliver a re-enrollment contract. I want a little consistency. When it comes to student discipline issues, your understanding of mercy isn’t all that different from anarchy. Mercy means not enforcing the rules, which means we really don’t have rules. Grace means treating every trespass, no matter how destructive or demoralizing, as “a heart issue” that can be satisfied with a little sermon. As I said, though, student discipline issues are largely the concerns of others. A badly behaved, ungovernable student is a constant vexation to teachers, but such students play little role in your day. It’s easy for you to be dogmatic and profligate with mercy—as you understand mercy, at least—because it costs you very little. But as soon as mercy might personally cost you $14,000, there are rules and budgets and “you can’t just snap your fingers and make money appear.” The patience of others rides on theological fantasy, whereas your own patience is subject to the constraints of reality. The spiritual governance of the student body can be idealized. The material governance of this school must conform to numbers, math, facts, and sound economics that are objectively acknowledged by all. Grace and mercy end where finances begin.
Principal: In a sense, that’s true. It’s easier to be lenient with spiritual requirements than with economic requirements. You can’t make a dollar out of sixty-two cents because it’s not a heart issue. I wish it was.
Teacher: I disagree. You can suspend whatever rules you like provided you’re willing to live with the consequences. You seem to be okay living with the consequences of suspending behavioral rules but not with the consequences of suspending economic rules. At present, the spiritual health of this school is similar to what the economic health would be if you quadrupled teacher pay and cut tuition in half.
Principal: How can you say that? How do you know what the spiritual health of the student body is?
Teacher: I spend all day in the student body. I hear how student talk. I’ve never heard one of them say, “This is a school where the teachers are merciful and patient.” Instead, they all laugh at how little the dress code is enforced.
Principal: That’s on you, then. It’s not my responsibility to enforce the dress code.
Teacher: True, but you’re the one who empowers teachers to enforce the dress code. What are my tools for enforcing the dress code? Or basic rules of decorum in my classroom?
Principal: What do you want?
Teacher: How about detention?
Principal: You want to punish, in other words. You want this school to be run like a jail.
Teacher: Inasmuch as a jail is subject to basic economic principles, it seems you’re the one who wants this school run like a jail. On the business end of things, aren’t there certain aspects of a well-run jail that you’ve implemented here at this school?
Principal: What are you talking about?
Teacher: The warden of a jail can’t overspend his food budget, and given his funding, he can only pay guards so much. That might be beside the point. Do you even believe jails should exist?
Principal: Of course.
Teacher: Shouldn’t we give criminals mercy?
Principal: No, but neither do I want a Christian school run like the American criminal justice system.
Teacher: You’re outraged when you hear that someone who was high on meth and ran over a kindergartner is getting six months of probation and a little community service?
Principal: Again, of course.
Teacher: Isn’t that meth addict a lost sheep, though? Aren’t we all guilty? Don’t we all need grace?
Principal: This conversation is over. Actually, I’m sending you home for the day. I want you to spend some time thinking about what exactly you’re arguing for and how deeply uncharitable it is. The fact of the matter is you can’t make basic distinctions between mercy and common sense. You have a difficult student, sure, but I can see now that you absolutely despise him. You refuse to empathize with him. You refuse to see things from his point of view—or from my point of view. You’ve come into my office and subtly accused me of being greedy and incompetent. I won’t allow that sort of thing at my school. You would send Oliver away for having a difficult year. He’s a child. You’re an adult—a Christian adult—who has become obsessed with punishing and belittling children…for what? Because they forget to tuck in their shirts? I won’t have it. In fact, unless I see some kind of change on your part before the end of the year, I think you might need to find a new place to work.
1 thought on “Mercy and Anarchy: Are We Giving Up On Students We Expel?”
It would be interesting to see what Principal would say to Teacher if Teacher cited 1 Cor 5, and asked for this divisive student to be delivered over to the world which he so loves and imitates.