The MUS Lower School Blog

Cyber-Bullying and Parent Monitoring

This from Tara Parker Pope of The New York Times:  "Research indicates that as many as 75 percent of teens have been bullied on-line, but only one in 10 have reported the problem to parents or other adults, a new study shows."

I've seen it from our students as well, and I have tried to prove that the messages came from our campus during school hours.

No such luck.

Therefore, the attacks were written from home or a friends house. Believe it or not, such teasing/abuse/messing around out there in cyber space (Facebook, Myspace, for example) makes its way back into our school as it deals directly with our students.

While complicated to some, it's simple to us: an MUS boy is a student 24/7, regardless of where he may be at any given moment. Cyber-bullying of our boys by anyone is unacceptable, but when it is initiated by one or more of our students towards one of our students, such an act is a school discipline measure. 

The temptation for kids these days to post mean things about other kids on the web reveals is a clear and present issue. While children are in middle school, we think parents should be extra vigilant about these kinds of things, and we hope that we would be notified if anyone in our larger community had information from someone's web posting that is mean-spirited towards any peer, especially our own students. We've intervened in the past, to healthy results, and we need extra eyes on task in order to protect kids too young to understand the potentially far-reaching consequences of this unfortunate modern problem.

Varsity game tonight; remind boys to behave

While we don't expect a huge crowd this evening for the 7:00 pm game vs. Carver, we do have some big league games coming up which do attract a lot of fans. Lower Schoolers are often, understandably, some of the most excited folks at the Friday night games as they run amuck with their friends. Please remind your sons that we all want them to have fun, but we also expect them to remember who they are and whose they are. Throwing objects from the top of the stadium, messing with elementary school kids, chasing each other in packs...these things often happen and are reasons the game administrators could expell fans from the game.

Let's all encourage the boys to have a great time while monitoring how much caffine they injest. Also, remember the U-Card gets students into the game for free!

Fairness doctrine

Come next Wednesday, September 17, we will no doubt have a few lads experiencing a curriculum adjustment at 6:30 a.m. as they walk around the track for their morning constitution.

"Marchin' up and down the square," was our inspiration for getting these boys' attention with our little exercise. Sadly, our tone cannot approach the zeal of the British army as portrayed by Monty Python.

That said, we desire to be fair and reasonable in our extending of demerits just as we desire for parents to be of like mind when considering what to do with little Johnny's belongings that he accidentally left at home instead of packing for the school day. Remember, a good percentage of our parents cannot take time out of their day to run errands for their sons. Those of you who do have access to time and transportation are asked to focus your good fortune on some other societal element which could use your freedom. Your boy will learn that he should bring his own belongings the next time.

Be advised: Grace period ends as demerits become earned

"Hear ye, hear ye," we announced numerous times over the last few school days in Lower School assemblies. All boys are aware that they are encouraged to assist one another with a friendly nudge that infractions of general school rules will result in the curriculum adjustment of a Wednesday morning early school. The faculty proctor would love not to attend their exercise of walking around the track in the twilight due to an empty slate. Parents do not want to drag  themselves and their son out of bed early either. Historically, 50% of our families have never had to be bothered with this early morning opportunity.

However, just today one demerit was earned by a poor soul who decided to leave his football equipment bag in the hallway, not storing it with all the other football bags outside the building, clearly visible through the glass doors some twenty-five feet away from the accused's locker. Another demerit was earned by a lad who chose to occupy two lockers with all his stuff.

We hope you appreciate the spirit in which we operate in assigning demerits to boys who earn them. Middle-school-age boys can sometimes be forgetful, unaware of their obligations and responsibilities. Our desire is to confront them with their learning opportunity in the hopes that they remember the exercise, attempting to be more aware of their responsibilities the next time.

Reflections from Veterans Day

Years ago when I was active in the cemetery business, I spent one late November afternoon the day before a Veterans Day event (which we were hosting) putting the final touches on an advertisement banner along the then wooded corner of Hacks Cross Road and Holmes Road. The gusting, chilling wind was brutal, and the sideways blowing rain gave the eerie setting just the punch I needed to dramatize my self-pity in sacrifice for my employer, who happened to be myself. Drenched, muddy, tying the banner back two, no, three times to its hurriedly-erected poles...must...finish...task...It was all quite youthfully foolish, my twilight sojourn into the suburban wild, but I at least had the support of my gleaming fiancé who waited patiently in the warm car for her man to return from the battle.

That's about as close as I ever got to combat.

After reading Ben Stein's article in Sunday's New York Times, It's Time to Act Like Grown-Ups, I felt so conflicted, so convicted, inadequate even, that my silly sign gesture from twelve years ago came back to haunt me. I had little experience with veterans then, much less any significant platform even to begin to approach what the depth and scale of the sacrifices my grandparents and many of my parent's older friends withstood. Their legacy is the modern world, no doubt, one in which we all prosper, and as these old souls drift away from life's stage amidst their hauntingly sterile retirement homes or the graciously modest houses in which they've lived for a generation, I ask myself what can be done among our students now in honor of the Greatest Generation so that the Most Spoiled Generation can learn to withstand a similar crisis should one present itself, God forbid. At least, I wonder, "Can today's youth be educated to the extent that they exhibit some sense of gratitude and respect for all that has been done for them as they seek to make the world a better place?"

After all, today's youth didn't create their circumstances. They were born somewhere around the time that I was combating the unseemly elements in preparation for a salute to America's finest. Just so happens that from then to now, the world is infinitely faster and smaller than we could have predicted. The stakes are higher. New competition for everything from natural resources to available college spaces confronts our students, and they need the quality of character and the weight of good, shared experiences to be in a position to lead our city, our country and our world. Stein's article exposes the sheer greed that comes with pure power, as well as the stupidity that sadly our society continually allows. Who will our boys be? How best can we prepare them for what lies ahead? I tell you what, it begins with discipline in their studies, with learned respect for self and neighbor, for authority, and it will have to be learned amidst a bevy of distractions and material access like our culture has never known. The boys will indeed need to become men...but not just any men. They will have to become men of honor and of integrity, of self-sacrifice and of a learned work ethic. For that to happen, there will have to be a lot of love and a lot of trust and repeated attempts to turn these fellas' hearts towards God and their fellow man. May He be merciful to these lads and to their families as well as to their instructors, for all of our sakes. More than a fitting memorial, their educated maturity and honorable character could possibly be the difference between a real future for all of us or a sadly dependent and declining quality of life.

Fight cyberbullies, British schools told

Link: BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Fight cyberbullies, schools told. Looks like it's an international discussion. We are aware of the potential. As a reminder, email is used inside the school for faculty and students to communicate. Email is not for use among students from the outside, nor is it appropriate for play within our school. The administration is aware of all student email and web search transmissions.

As for the world wide web of MySpace and Facebook exchanges, those happen off school hours, but there can be fertile ground there for cyberbullying as our students address one another. In the rare event that our boys get tangled up with one another or involve themselves somehow inappropriately with another student from another school, we are sure to hear about it. Our desire is that parents take responsibility for their child's actions in such a case. Unfortunately, the world of school administration has gotten a little more complicated by the online opportunity.

This would be a great week for a haircut.

Over the summer, freedom reigns and boys' hairstyles grow longer, despite the hot and humid Memphis weather.

With school only seven days away, this week is an excellent opportunity to get your son a fresh haircut to start the new year.  On convocation day (August 13th), MUS takes photographs of all students for the school's yearbook and for their U-cards, so a haircut this week will have your son looking his best.

Also, as a reminder, here are the U-Book guidelines for student hairstyles.

• Clean-shaven face
• Hair length above the collar, above  the ears, and out of the eyes.

Examples of inappropriate grooming are hair  of extreme style or color, mustaches, and ponytails.

I promise, this is the last demerit post for a while...

One of our faithful readers asked for an update on the demerit statistics for this year.

• 47% of 7th graders and 50% of 8th graders have no demerits this year.
• 66% of 7th graders and 63% of 8th graders have no more than one demerit this year.

So, if your son tells you that it is "impossible" to avoid getting demerits, there are about 100 boys in the Lower School who have managed to do the impossible so far this year.  :)

"My son doesn't know why he has a demerit."

This is a common question that I've heard in person several times, but it showed up in Blogmail for the first time this weekend.  :)

First of all, in what I would estimate to be 80% of instances, your son knows exactly why he has a demerit; he just doesn't want to tell you why he has a demerit. 

One of the funnier episodes of last year came when one of our boys received two demerits, and went to Mr. Tyler to ask why he received them.  Since Mr. Tyler is a disciplined record keeper, he told the boy who assigned each demerit, what each was for, and when they were assigned by the teacher.  The following day, Saturday, the boy came to serve his demerits, and his mother confronted Mr. Tyler wanting to know how her son was supposed to learn from demerits when he had no idea what he had done to deserve them.  Mr. Tyler calmly turned to the boy, and asked him whether he knew why he had received his demerits.  The boy, realizing that a trip to the Honor Council was on the line if he answered untruthfully, answered that he did know and told his mother the exact details of the demerit.  Needless to say, the mother retracted her criticism of the system.  :)  Don't worry, a lot of MUS faculty and administration were boys ourselves long ago, so we know what parents have to deal with.

In the other 20% of cases, I do believe that your son doesn't know why he received a demerit, but the reason for that situation is that he was a combination of forgetfulness and laziness.  When a teacher assigns a demerit, the student is told at that moment that they have received one.  I've assigned probably four demerits in the past two weeks, and each one was clearly explained (no socks, no homework, talking in class/rudeness to a fellow students, throwing a projectile in the hallway).

Now, we are all aware that some things, particularly unpleasant ones, tend to slip a boy's mind.  Each Thursday, in assembly, Coach Tyler in his stentorian voice announces that the weekly demerit list has been posted.  He also says each week, seemingly unnecessarily, that anyone with questions about their demerit should come to his office and ask for clarification.  And, each week, after the boys cluster around the demerit list to check their fate, some come to Coach Tyler for more details.  Almost Invariably, the boy leaves the office having remembered the offense and its circumstances.  Some plea for leniency, but Mr. Tyler explains that he is an administrator and cannot offer that; leniency can only come from the teacher who assigned the penalty.

Yet, there are still instances when a boy, upon being picked up from school on Friday afternoon and having to ask their parent for a ride to Saturday School the following morning, forgets why he must attend.  I've seen enough boys to know that some truly have forgotten, even if they were told only the day before or a few hours earlier.  More probably hope that temporary amnesia may shift some of their parents discontent toward the school and away from them.

Sorry, guys!  Now your parents know the whole story.

P.S.  We don't post offenses on the demerit list because we don't want to embarrass the offenders.  I guess we could, but we'd probably get more complaints had we done that.

Dress code apology

Sorry for not doing a better job at keeping you up to date on the vagaries of dress code during Homecoming week.  In know it's a challenge for parents to keep up with these variations when they occur and understand the nuances of each (on jersey day, you could wear sneakers, but you had to wear regulation pants -- even I am not sure what the sock policy was that day).

In the future, I'll try to give you more of a heads up on this.  Thank you to the parent who wrote in and reminded me of the importance of doing this.