By Mary Akers
Buffalo, NY – A recent incident, broadcast in the local news, has been bothering me for weeks. Here is a brief summary: A bus driver taking a busload of kids home from school, finds that he has a pair of exceptionally rowdy students on board. (Habitual offenders, as it turns out.) When he attempts to stop their fist-fight, they turn on him, cursing and creating extreme havoc. In response, the harried bus driver kicks them off the bus, leaving them to walk home through the snow, roughly a mile. The weather is quite cold, and the children are aged 11 and 12.
As you may have guessed, the parents of the children were incensed. They called the school. The principal then officially reprimanded the bus driver. The parents called the television news. After the story aired, the bus driver was fired. Within a week, the firing was not enough, and criminal charges of child endangerment were brought against the bus driver. He now faces time in court and up to a year in jail if convicted.
Since this story aired, I have been struggling to make sense of it. And in the interests of full-disclosure, I should tell you that I am a mother myself, with three school-aged children--two who ride the bus to school, one who walks. But my reaction to this story may surprise you. My sympathies rest squarely with the bus driver. Yes, he should have been officially reprimanded, since his actions were contrary to school policy--that policy being to pull over and radio for assistance if needed. But criminal charges of child endangerment? Come on. He didn't strip them naked and make them walk home through a blizzard. They had coats. Plenty of children in my neighborhood walk a mile to school and back every day. And these kids were behaving in a wretched manner--fighting and cursing, using extremely foul language, even threatening the bus driver. They are eleven and twelve years old. Where is their accountability?
I would like you imagine, for a moment, yourself as the bus driver. You are in charge of a bus full of kids and you must get them home safely every single day, being hyper alert to potential hazards--both inside and outside the bus--at all times. However, bear in mind that the children you transport turn into wild little beasties on the bus, far away from teachers, restless after a long day of sitting and learning, all-too-aware of the one, lone adult (otherwise occupied) who is in charge of keeping control of 50+ kids--kids who often spit and curse and fight, yell at the top of their lungs, write graffiti on the seats, rip holes in them, press their used gum into them. (And if you are the driver, you are solely responsible for the condition of both the kids and the bus.)
One of the most important considerations for our children, when we send them to school, is what they learn. And I'm left wondering what these two rowdy children have learned. I think they've learned that they can fight and swear and be disrespectful, and if anyone tries to rein them in or make them accountable, they will get their story put on television, they will get excessive sympathy that negates the issue of their own bad behavior, they will get a grown man fired (such power!), possibly even put in jail, and their parents will defend them and pick up the pieces, no matter how badly they have behaved.
What will these kids do with this knowledge five years from now? Ten? I wonder. I have an ongoing struggle with our current society's attempts to foster a feel-good attitude among our nation's children. Posters throughout the schools promise: "YOU'RE SPECIAL! JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE YOU!" Well, I hate to break it to you, but you aren't. You may be special to your mom just because you're you, but you aren't special to the world just because you're you. You can become special, by leaving the world a better place than you found it; you can bring enlightenment, or peace, or comfort and thereby become special, but I'm sorry, you aren't special without at least a little effort on your part.
And all of us, every one of us, should think about that bus driver's side of the story. We should take some time today to remind our children how to behave on a bus and how to be respectful to those in charge of their safety and security, and--most importantly--we should hold them to it when they fail. And we should put ourselves squarely in that bus driver's shoes, and we should walk a mile.
Listener-Commentator Mary Akers is a writer and mother who lives and works in Lockport.