Friday, March 26, 1999
Sixth-graders' loyalties tested by suspension
Lesson blurred, psychologists say
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Sixth-grade students at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic School in Greenhills faced a difficult decision: whether to tell teachers about a classmate who had marijuana or keep quiet.
Not one child told a teacher or administrator. Two told their mothers, who reported the information to school officials. The student was confronted and found to have marijuana.
The students' 30 classmates, recent graduates of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program, received one-day suspensions from Principal Judy Grubb. They will serve the punishment today with their parents at an anti-drug program or face four-day suspensions from school.
The case illustrates a tough dilemma for children, psychologists say: balancing loyalty to authority figures against loyalty to peers.
“There is a great deal of moral tension for students in a decision like that,” said Susan Mosley-Howard, associate professor of educational psychology at Miami University. “They're wanting to maintain the approv al of their peers, but they still want the approval of parents and teachers.”
The importance of peer acceptance becomes most important at 12, Dr. Mosley-Howard said, the age of the typical sixth-grader.
“Sometimes kids are confused about exactly what to do,” said James Brush, a psychologist who provides therapy to Tristate children and teens. His office is in Monfort Heights.
“There's a loyalty to friends,” Dr. Brush said. “They might be concerned about the kid, but they don't want the kid to get zapped.”
Besides, he and other child development experts said, the kid who tattles is one of the most unpopular. Children are taught at a young age to not tell on other children.
There are no positive words for a kid who tells on another kid: tattletale, nark, snitch, fink, stool pigeon, rat. Children who develop that reputation are children who find themselves alone on the playground.
Suspending the one student caught with the marijuana but not the others could have sent an equally strong message, Dr. Brush said. He suggested that administrators could have held a meeting with the other students and told them the stu dent's suspension shows that drug possession is a serious matter that will not be tolerated.
Blanket punishments concern him. He sees a worrisome trend.
He said administrators should take it as a positive sign that at least two children told their mothers that the student had marijuana. He said they did themselves no favors by suspending the whole class.
“That's nuts,” he said. “They (the students) probably felt like they couldn't trust the school in the first place. Now you've taught them they can't trust the school. Two kids entrusted this information to their parents, and they were suspended. The school may inadvertently be promoting secrecy and lying.”
Efforts to reach Principal Judy Grubb Thursday night were unsuccessful. She has said previously that all were suspended because most, if not all, were aware of the marijuana.
Norman Barry Jr. is a psychology professor at Xavier University. He said the students at Our Lady of the Rosary face the same decisions that adults face but may not be equipped to make them.
Society, he said, sends mixed messages to young people.
“Snitches are looked down on. Linda Tripp is an example,” he said. “Yet there is an honor code that grows out of the military that says justice is more important than friendship.”
Children will tell on another child if they believe the child is going to hurt himself, “like if he's going to run away,” Dr. Barry said. “The kids make a value judgment about what's really dangerous.”
But he also understands the principal's decision.
“She is saying, "This is important. We just heard it, and we're going to hear it again,'” he said. “It comes down to this: Do kids buy the values adults are presenting?”
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