Zero Tolerance.
They're words we hear fairly often these days. "Zero tolerance ondrugs." "Zero tolerance on guns and knives at school." "Zerotolerance on seat belts and child seats."
The intentions behind zero tolerance policies seem good, in theabstract: people are prone to make up excuses when we try to bustthem for things they shouldn't be doing -- to try and take advantage ofthe better natures of whomever it is that's busting them for whateverthey shouldn't have been doing. ZT policies are an attempt to counterthat; to make sure that "people get what they deserve".
Well, I think that as a society, if we continue to encourage, andindeed, to permit, ZT policies, we're going to get what we deserve,alright. It just won't be what we expect.
Or what we want.
It goes back to school, really. School-age children, and especiallyelementary age ones, are given rules to follow, and very little -- ifany -- leeway in following them, because the younger you are, the lesscapable you are (and are considered to be, though they're not always insync) to exercise good judgement.
That's the goal, right? Teaching kids good judgement.
So how, exactly, does not ever allowing them to break the rules to seeif they've figured out what constitutes good judgement contribute tothat? That's how you grew up, right? You decided you were "oldenough" to break the "don't ever touch the stove" rule, or the "onlycross at lights" rule, or the "don't have sex" rule, and you lived totell about it, and the costs, if any, weren't too high.
But in a ZT environment, you can't do that. In fact "You Can't Do That" is the slogan of the zero tolerance movement.
But it's even worse than this.
Completely ignoring for a moment those ZT rules that apply to adults,the ones that apply to (let us say) high school age kids have theirown problems -- you know, high school age kids like the valedictorianwho was suspended, blew her perfect attendance record, wasn't allowedto walk at commencement, and lost her scholarship to college from thestate because her Bright Future was tarnished by... a left overbutter knife on the floor of her car (from a weekend move to her ownfirst apartment).
She was almost arrested on felony weapons charges in the bargain.
And there's nothing the administrators can do about any of it, becausethey have Zero tolerance rules about weapons on campus.
Weapons.
A butter knife. Not even a sharp edge, there, folks.
What do these zero tolerance rules actually tell these kids?
Well, I think they tell them that their Adult Supervision...needs adult supervision. When we tell the kids we're trying to teachthat we don't trust their teachers, administrators, and even thepolice and judicial system to exercise mature judgement, why should webe surprised when so many of them seem not only not to aspire to thethings we aspired to as children... but not even to care much at allabout anything in life.
We're getting exactly what we asked for. It's just not what we wanted.
Guess we exercised bad judgement, eh?
Probably the leading proponent against ZT is Randy Cassingham of This is True fame, who makes, or relays, the best counter-suggestion I've ever heard: If principals are so highly paid because we're compensating them for ... judgement that ZT requires them not to exercise, cut their salaries.
UPDATE: I note that they finally made butter knives legal. Five years later.
This was some original coverage of the Lindsay Brown incident.