How Misusing Peer Pressure Can Backfire Into The New Stupid

Peer Pressure happens, especially, almost exclusively, at school. That’s where the “other kids” start to wield their all-powerful and unmistakable influence on fellow students. From kindergarten to grade 12, Peer Pressure can influence students to conform and behave in ways they never would have even considered before.

Parents will always ask their children, “If everybody jumped in the lake would you jump in, too?”

Their children will rarely — if ever — answer, “Well, yeah, of course I would. I’m under a lot of Peer Pressure these days.”

But at school, Peer Pressure could indeed make any student not only jump in said lake but do so with an enthusiastic backflip. Such is the inevitable force of the “other kids.” Individualism might be cool, but only if the other kids think so. In my case, I’ve seen both the bright and dark side of this herd mentality.

I first became acquainted with the concept of Peer Pressure — and its manipulation by adults — while attending Hiawatha Elementary in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. That’s where the grown-ups in charge operated under the mistaken notion that they could influence students by unduly influencing their influential peer groups. They actually thought they could control the kids on their collective watch through devious mismanagement.

The teachers there ( with the blessings of the school administration) operated under the one kid/entire class rule. All. The. Time.

So if Gary Kriggenbrink — just one kid — ate the paste from the supply cabinet, all the other students — the entire class — had to stay inside during recess.

In other words, if one student did something “bad,” all the students got punished.

The strategy behind this fascist control was simple: indirectly encourage the well-behaved children to gang up on the actual offender by unjustly punishing them.

They really thought the innocents would make life so unbearable for the guilty one that the offender would be forced to change. Foolish grown-ups! Little did they realize how much Gary Kriggenbrink loved paste. And how much he loved any attention, even if it was the negative kind.

Despite Hiawatha Elementary’s flawed assumptions, the school continued with this ineffective behavioral paradigm. (And no, Gary Kriggenbrink never did stop eating paste from the supply cabinet.) The teachers there continued to misunderstand and mismanage Peer Pressure. They did it so much that the good kids who weren’t troublemakers began to seriously weigh their own options when it came to obedience, courtesy, and punctuality.

Nevertheless, this fascist tactic of punishing the whole orchard because of one bad apple continued at Hiawatha and other schools I attended until I ultimately graduated from Richfield Senior High.

Now that we’ve entered the 21st Century, though, you’d think things might have changed a little in our schools. They haven’t. Leave it to RHS to go retro on a really bad idea.

Recently some students at Richfield Senior High began “abusing” the “privilege” of getting hall passes. Hall passes? In 2016? Another oldie but goodie for the grown-ups marches on.

Here’s a little description about the archaic custom for you high-tech-wonders. Whenever a student needs to use the restroom while class is in session — or leave the classroom for any other valid reason — the teacher at RHS still writes out a hall pass and gives it to the student. It’s an old-fashioned way to keep track of students and monitor their comings and goings. Kind of like a GPS device made from papyrus. Also, if any restrooms get trashed during the day, the school conveniently has a list of suspects to interrogate.

Sure, this practice does involve safety and security, but it’s done primarily for the convenience of teachers and staff — not the students.

Think back on how impossibly awkward and painfully difficult high school was and still can be for so many young people. Then add in all the bullying, arbitrary discrimination, and mindless cliques. Think about all the mean girls and clueless jocks. Now compound all that angst with legitimate fears in 2016 of having an accident in class. Oh, the humanity! Can you imagine the humiliation and harassment if one of these students couldn’t make it to the bathroom in time?

Wet pants, exploding tampons, monster dumps gone rogue — the stuff teen nightmares are made of!

Only now, these nightmares could be reality at RHS. Unless of course, that featured article in The Richfield-Sun-Current was a fake news story for the April Fool Edition…it wasn’t, though.

In fact, this story falls under the “Sad But True” category. Apparently, the principal at RHS retaliated against the bad kids who kept “abusing” the “privilege” of hall passes by refusing to issue them to ALL STUDENTS — and by locking bathrooms while classes were in session. I kind of get the moratorium on the hall passes…but a total bathroom lockdown? Wow. No wonder so many parents think Ph.D. stands for “Pretty hopelessly Dumb.”

*How will these locked bathroom doors be unlocked in time for the onslaught of students (in-between classes) who will be fighting to use the facilities?

*Will an automated, fail-safe system to lock and unlock these doors be in use? Or will gatekeeping be left to a posse of janitors trusted to carry the right keys at all times?

*And what of the students who will get inevitably trapped inside crowded restrooms that now will be operating at full capacity in-between classes? If they can’t pee or poo in time for their next class, will they get locked in? Or just written up as being tardy for the next class?

These questions were not sufficiently discussed or answered in the published news story — and they should have been,

According to our Urban Hometown newspaper, about 30 kids walked out in protest. And none of them had a hall pass! GASP! How unfortunate that the school put them in such an absurd position in the first place.

In the name of commonsense humanity, I offer these viable solutions to RHS, not for the Administration but for the sake of Richfield’s future:

*1. If things have gotten so dangerous at RHS that the adults in charge cannot adequately manage the teenagers on their watch, then the current principal and staff should resign. Either that or send a letter to parents informing them of the problem and giving them the opportunity to respectively transfer their children to different schools (or to home school them.)

*2. If the administration insists on this bathroom lockdown, however, each student should be issued a catheter and a year’s supply of DEPENDS. After all, it’s unreasonable to expect the class schedules to be in sync with adolescent bladders and colons.

*3. Better yet, start making sense for once. Punish the students who are doing bad things and help them change their behavior. AND LET THE GOOD LAW-ABIDING KIDS PEE AND POO OR TAKE CARE OF THEIR MONTHLY BUSINESS WITHOUT FEAR OR EMBARRASSMENT!

Start leaving Peer Pressure up to the real peers.