CHARLES BLOW » REALITYCHEX » U.S.

Nobody Is Monitoring the Monitors

June 23, 2012   ·   7 Comments

Source: NYTX

By Marie Burns:

In today’s New York Times, Jennifer Preston writes,

About $600,000 has been raised online this week for a 68-year-old school bus monitor from upstate New York after a cellphone video showing a group of boys on the bus brutally taunting her spread quickly on the Internet. The monitor, Karen H. Klein, of Rochester, who drove a bus for the nearby Greece Central School District for 20 years before taking her current job three years ago, was sitting in the back of the bus on Monday afternoon when seventh-grade boys began pelting her with vile remarks and one profanity-laced insult after another about her weight, her hearing aid and her sweat glands.

On Thursday, Preston wrote a post for the Times‘ “The Lede,” in which she wrote that the cellphone videographer was one of the four students who was harassing Klein. In other words, the kid – who is evidently 12 or 13 years old – thought his behavior was pretty cool. As Preston reported, the cellphone video “found its way to YouTube on Tuesday, titled, ‘Making The Bus Monitor Cry,’ where it has surpassed 3.9 million views. The video prompted outrage around the Internet….” Preston writes today that three of the four students have since apologized in statements to Ms. Klein.

In his New York Times op-ed column today, Charles Blow writes that the bus incident is “a remarkably apt metaphor for this moment in the American discourse…. This kind of behavior … stretches to the upper reaches of society – our politics and our pulpits and our public squares.” Blow attributes this tendency to bully to the “upending” of “the majority-minority paradigm” which is “making many people uneasy…. Women are under attack. Hispanics are under attack. Minority voting rights are under attack. The poor are under attack. Unsurprisingly, those doing the attacking in every case are from the right.”

O-k-a-a-a-y. So let’s just stipulate that bullying is bad and that in most circumstances, polite discourse is preferable – and more persuasive – than name-calling or threatening harangues. But maybe Blow should take a deep breath. Or read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, which was published in 1954. Bullying – especially by 12- and 13-year-olds – is not news. Nearly every one of us who has made it through junior high school has been bullied or has bullied others. For millions of young people, especially but not only boys, some sort of anti-social aggressiveness seems to be a right of passage. The lovable Dick Cavett has written several New York Times op-ed posts in which he fondly reminisced about his schoolboy pranks – none of them nearly as awful as the Klein incident, but nothing he would get a Boy Scout badge for, either. Or think of the not-so-lovable Mitt Romney, who in 1965 led a gang of bullies to physically assault a fellow-student. Million of Americans – no doubt including some of those who expressed outrage at the schoolboys’ treatment of Klein – will vote for Romney to lead the country. Never mind that his entire campaign platform is a plan to oppress the vast majority of Americans in service of a privileged few, including, of course, himself. Now, that is bullying. No “profanity-laced insults” required.

So – contra most other commentators and the general public – I want to raise another issue related to this incident. Rather than going big, as Blow did, and seeing the incident as symptomatic of larger societal problems, I’ve gone small (as I’m sure some of you will agree). My question is,

What was Karen Klein doing?

Klein’s job title is “school bus monitor.” I don’t know exactly what her job description is or precisely what her duties are, but I think we can guess: her job is to keep rowdy kids in line so the bus driver is not distracted from her primary responsibility: transporting students safely to and from school. Most people found the bullying video disturbing because of the way the boys behaved. I did, too, but I found Klein’s inaction even more disturbing.

Klein and I are about the same age – though of course I look 28, not 68. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that whether or not I was a school employee or just an adult observer, I would not have put up with the harassment Klein received without pushing back. Hard. Moreover, if a gang of teenaged bullies had got the best of me, which is not implausible, I would have reported the attack to appropriate authorities. I have taught junior high school as a substitute teacher. Not surprisingly, a few kids tried to bully me. They did not get far. I never got angry, never got hurt, never had to turn the kids in to the principal – because as an adult I knew how to turn the tables on junior high kids. Kids who tried to pull stunts on me quickly found themselves the class laughingstocks. Putting down the class bully is an easy way for a substitute teacher to gain control of a whole classroom and turn it back into the learning center it is supposed to be.

Maintaining discipline is – unfortunately – part of a teacher’s job. Klein of course is not a teacher. Instead, her only responsibility is maintaining discipline. Klein didn’t just fail at her job. I would not fault her for that. A single adult cannot always get the best of a gang of kids. But Karen Klein didn’t even try. She sat there like a bump on a log for ten minutes while four boys harassed her. Indeed, Klein appears to think her inaction was laudatory. In this video where Klein discusses the incident, she tells the interviewer, “I was just sitting there minding my own business.” Klein evidently does realize that remark was an admission of dereliction of duty, because after a brief pause she adds, “… and, ah, trying to keep an eye out, making sure nobody was jumping around, yelling….” But, as the bullying video shows, students were “yelling,” if not “jumping around.” They were yelling obscenities. Probably the Greece Central School District’s code of student conduct does not condone “vile remarks” and “profanity-laced insults.” Yet throughout it all, Klein – as she said – just sat there.

Apparently part of Klein’s duties include formally reporting incidents of bad student behavior. Yet Klein did not report this extended bullying session. When the interviewer (see linked video) asked why she didn’t write up the students, Klein says, “Because it was almost the last day of school. ‘Cause why bother? What good’s it gonna do? Lot of times you’d write a referral, nothing would be done about it anyway.”

Yes, that’s right, Ms. Klein. “Why bother” to do your job? Hey, the school year is almost over. Besides, other people up the line might not do their jobs, either. Filling out paperwork is so time-consuming. Clearly, Klein treats her job as a sinecure, a reward for 20 years as a bus driver. Klein may be “double-dipping,” too: as a 20-year school district veteran, she may get a pension and her wages as a supposed monitor.

I know Klein is a low-paid employee, and probably many people cut her slack for that. But there is more to even a lousy job than just showing up. And showing up is all Klein did. She reinforces the negative stereotype of public employees. Especially because of her windfall, she should retire from the job she doesn’t do. She is an embarrassment to the school district, not because she was a victim, but because she failed to try to stop her victimization. Raise your hands, kids, if you think Karen Klein ever stopped those same boys when they bullied other students on the bus. My guess: she “just sat there, minding her own business.”

The upside of the incident, as reported by Stacy Khadaroo in the Christian Science Monitor, is that “school administrators may now be more inclined than ever to take seriously drivers’ reports of taunting, sexual harassment, and other forms of bullying against kids and adults.” Khadaroo writes that “better training is making its way to thousands of bus drivers and monitors across the country.” She cites a program by a school bus transportation company that conducts workshops which “teach bus drivers how to recognize signs of bullying and strategies for responding – once they’ve stopped the bus in a safe location.”

The bad news, it appears Karen Klein received similar training. Khadaroo writes, “Peter Mannella, executive director of the New York (State) Association for Pupil Transportation, [says] The roughly 50,000 drivers and 10,000 monitors in New York State have received antibullying training developed by state education officials and his group.” The Klein incident, Mannella says, is “prompting people in his organization to ask, ‘What are we missing in training that might have helped in that situation?’”

Karen Klein said she would welcome a written apology from the students who harassed her. Yesterday, though, Klein’s daughter said Karen Klein was not ready to forgive the bullies. Those of us who expect public employees to do their jobs would welcome an apology from Karen Klein. And, heck, I’ll be more than ready to forgive her. But I do hope she doesn’t go back to work. The taxpayers in the Greece Central School District paid her to help protect schoolchildren from bullies. The kids need and deserve that protection. So far, the evidence suggests they’re not getting it. Somebody will have to monitor the monitors.

Marie Burns blogs at RealityChex.com

By marieburns

Readers Comments (7)

1. PD Pepe says:

   Ha! Do I agree with you? You betcha! you have expressed my exact thoughts about this incident. Having worked with disturbed children for many years and then as an English teacher in a middle school I have had a belly full of young lads whose hormones run amok. I learned early on to let them know who was in control––and I am a small boned woman with a slender body––and never in all those years did I ever find myself in a compromising position. Ms Klein offered herself up as fresh bait for those “bad boys” who took advantage of this poor woman who was/is unable to do her job. In the interview that I saw she presents as somewhat nonplussed, not reacting very positively to the generous support of many including Disney. Look, I hate bullying, and I hope the parents take those boys to task, but yes, Karen Klein has no business pretending she’s a monitor.

   6:35 pm on June 23, 2012

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2. alphonsegaston says:

   You are right on one thing, I don’t agree with you. But I will get back to you on this after I talk to my sister-in-law who is a school bus pro–Bus Road-e-o national champion, trains and tests drivers et. al. In western NY too. We need to see what the woman was allowed to do, yes allowed. I have seen online suggestions that the boys were perhaps trying to get her breaking the rules on camera. Rules for interacting with students are absurd these days. I assume that a monitor only observes and records, also tries to keep the students safe, which she did by not reacting and escalating the incident. Her saying that she did not bother to report them because it was the last day of school and usually nothing is done about such behavior anyway makes sense to me.

   Mrs.Klein had driven a bus herself for 20 years before stepping down to serve as a monitor. Let’s see what Sue says.

   2:57 am on June 24, 2012

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3. alphonsegaston says:

   I might add that I too am small and yet never let students put me in such a place, but hey, university kids are not quite as difficult as 7th-graders. I don’t see what Mrs. Klein did to offer herself as fresh bait. I doubt that a bus monitor has any authority like a teacher, who holds the student’s grades in her control.

   3:04 am on June 24, 2012

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4. PD Pepe says:

   alphonsegaston: You make some good points and I would be interested in the info you get from your sister. What I meant as “fresh bait” is Klein’s passive stance on the bus––turning from the boys harangue to looking out the window which would seem to encourage them on. Bus behavior is notoriously fraught with incidents therefore wouldn’t a bus monitor have some clout? Also her saying that since it was the last day of school it was futile to report them since nothing would be done about it. Really? How about the parents of these boys having this knowledge. This was not something like a spit ball fight, this was serious. This attitude indicates to me that she doesn’t take her job, perhaps herself, very seriously. But hey, I’m open to new perspectives and look forward to your sister’s comments.

   7:12 am on June 24, 2012

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5. Mushiba says:

   I like to think of our lives as being in a classroom where we have many lessons to learn. Each of us is at a different level of understanding of those lessons ~ some are at the beginners stage, while others are at advanced stages. Yet, we are all in the same classroom. Most people who teach formally know that teaching and learning exists on the same coin ~ as they teach, they learn more strongly what they have taught, which enables them to teach with greater insight ……..

   I think the school bus incident is a lesson, perhaps in respecting self and others, that has been presented in our classroom and is now having class discussion. This is beneficial to everyone, at some level ~ and, all responses are legitimate ~ because each person adds to their knowledge, regardless of their level of understanding.

   As in any discussion, we find people who we think are credible on the item being discussed. And, in this case (and, almost always), I find Marie to be most credible in the points she has made. And, the response from alphonsegaston, who while initially is disagreeing with Marie, is going to check with her sister in law, a school bus pro, is a great example of looking to credible sources. Learning to Respect Self and Others is a most challenging lesson and, I agree, that defending Self and projecting an attitude (and behavior, if necessary) of ‘do not mess with me’ is important ~ yet, being able to first ‘feel’ that attitude and then project it is learned through experiences.

   While we do not know if Karen Klein was teaching or learning, we do know that both was occurring. Integrating this information will eventually make her stronger, and, hopefully, all of us more enlightened.

   12:26 pm on June 24, 2012

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6. alphonsegaston says:

   Tonight I talked to my sister-in-law the school bus maven. First, she said that the monitor did not do what she should have done, gone to the front of the bus and maybe the driver would pull the bus over and phone the garage. Which seems to me like a lot to do when the kids are not endangered, just the feelings of the old lady. Anyway, I asked what the job of the monitor is. No contact with students, verbal or physical, as anything can get one in trouble. Simply report the incident. Which, Mrs. Klein said, never does any good.

   Then I asked her about the behavior of the kids, the chance of anyone making them behave. Another story. All year she has had many discipline problems on her bus, which she is not used to. No monitors were available. She continually wrote up the kids who misbehaved and never was anything done about it, maybe a call to a parent. One mother insisted her daughter never did anything wrong, complained all the time about her driver. A meeting was set up, but the parents never showed up. Of course. Apparently no one can do anything except report the misbehavior to the school.

   Cell phones are not supposed to be allowed on buses but the kids will not obey the rule. Sometimes the kids will let her commandeer the phone for ride, sometimes not. The drivers and monitors have to be very careful not to touch any of the children. Recently a driver of a bus in a western NY district was fired because she had a very loud child on her bus and she could not drive with the noise. She put her hand over the child’s mouth for a moment. End of job.

   My feeling is that Mrs. Klein might very well have “touched” one of the kids as she made her way to the front of the bus. After all, the were already poking at her. I still think she did the right thing in not allowing the event to escalate, which it only did as the kids put the video up.

   Incidentally, in reading comments about the monitor, I noticed that many of the negative ones expressed great annoyance at her getting any money, as if somehow she had set it up. This is just the general new American attitude that no one should have anything if I can’t have it, whether it be health benefits or a decent salary or a paid vacation.

   I had often talked to my sister-in-law about her job, and this was the most negative I have heard. The bureaucracy of the schools was the more frequent issue in the past, which explains why she would never take a job as supervisor. She drove a bus for 45 years and looks forward to retirement in a few more.

   12:16 am on June 26, 2012

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7. marieburns says:

   Thanks to everyone for your comments here and on my Website Reality Chex.

   Alphonsegarcon’s report on her sister-in-law’s experiences is troubling; it does seem that bureaucratic rules may be part of the problem in the Klein incident. It appears the rules may serve to invert the power structure; that is, the students have more control of the situation than do the adults — who must follow strict guidelines.

   Also, I can see I’m not qualified to do Karen Klein’s job because I’d tell the little brats to shut up, If they didn’t STFU, I’d write them up, and I’d follow up on my write-ups.

   In Klein’s defense, it is easy to see her as an oppressed person — someone who has gone through life working in low-status jobs that have taught her to follow the path of least resistance. She has probably found that speaking up for herself or against wrongdoing has little payoff. Klein’s do-nothing attitude is reminiscent of the work ethic of slaves; the only resistance to oppression they could effect without recrimination was to maintain a pretense they were doing the best they could, even as they had no intention of performing well. This is an age-old method of protest employed by oppressed people; in the gospel story of Matthew, Jesus recommends this kind of passive resistance to Jewish subjects of the Roman occupation. Klein may not realize this is what she is doing, but her passive attitude displayed in the viral video and her apparently failure to even consider writing up the abusive boys suggests that she is accustomed to following the “go along to get along” rule. It has probably served her relatively well, or at least she thinks it works.

   One note: I don’t think the incident occurred on the last day of school; Klein said in the video that it was nearly the last day.

   As a follow-up, I plan to talk to some of the neighborhood kids to see what their school bus-riding experience is — we’re on the outskirts of a tropical storm right now, so the kids aren’t out and about, but when the storm passes, I’ll catch up with them.

   Thanks again to everyone for your input.

   Marie

   1:26 am on June 26, 2012

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