Published: November 03, 2009 11:51 am      

The teacher’s always right

Many years ago now, my fellow students and I stood outside our junior high school waiting for the school bus to arrive. Final classes had let out a few minutes earlier and though by nature (and probably birth order) I was considered a good kid, I committed an apparently heinous offense.

It isn’t my nature to tell all, but here goes.

School was over, we were outside, it was hot, I was young, and I … I … pulled my shirttail out of my pants. 

It took a nanosecond for a breach of etiquette this severe to come to the attention of our school’s principal, a man who would’ve given Napoleon a run for his money not only in physical stature but in dictatorial style. Discipline was a commodity he clearly wasn’t willing to have sacrificed right before his eyes, as represented by a seventh grade rebel pulling his shirttail out at the end of a long school day.

He pulled me into his office and called my mother to report the offense to her.

I knew better than to whine about it at home because of previous complaints against school authorities. My mother’s mantra was always, “The teacher is always right.” If I persisted in my grumbling, she didn’t argue. She only repeated, “The teacher is always right.”

Only later, as an adult, did she let me know how angry she had been with the principal for making a big deal out of something so trivial. If she had revealed to me she was originally from Neptune the information wouldn’t have come as a bigger shock. 

“Why didn’t you tell me at the time?” I demanded. My hand to You Know Who, she looked me dead in the eye and said, “The teacher’s always right!”

This brings us to the episode this past week involving a local grade school child whose mother got furious with his principal for wanting him to stand in front of a wall as a disciplinary measure.

To be sure, this would not be my method of punishment.

Though it isn’t the same thing, it brings up a bad memory of the unfortunate first grade boy I knew whose crime was going over to the girls’ side of the playground during recess.

School authorities put a dress on him and made the rest of us kids march past him when we went back into the school after lunch. I thought that was over the top punishment then and still do.

To my way of thinking, humiliation should be used very sparingly as a disciplinary measure.

Still, in this recent local episode the mother admits she was already aware of "the wall" punishment. That being the case, she should have addressed it with the principal first rather than putting her child in the position of bucking the supreme authority of the school.

Whether or not the superintendent or school board nixes this kind of punishment is up to them. But questioning the principal’s authority should not have been an option.