Steel Bar Schoolyard | Teen Ink

Steel Bar Schoolyard

March 26, 2010
By HeraclitusDRM SILVER, Sewell, New Jersey
HeraclitusDRM SILVER, Sewell, New Jersey
8 articles 0 photos 31 comments

Favorite Quote:
"For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories." -Plato


So I walked into school one day
My politics on my shirt
And someone kicked my ***
So they banned politics on shirts
Because we can’t have that kind of behavior

So I walked into school one day
And my peers smuggled booze in bottles
Bottles for water, and they got hammered
So they banned bottles of water
Because we can’t have that kind of behavior

So I walked into school one day
And my peers smuggled knives in their pockets
They stabbed one another, but knives had already been banned
So they banned having pockets
Because we can’t have that kind of behavior

So I walked into school one day
And all the fists of my peers were raised
And they fought and bloodied each other
So they banned having hands
Because we can’t have that kind of behavior

So I walked into one day
And I tripped on a pipe
And with no hands to balance, I died
So they banned all the pipes in the school
But now I have no behavior

The author's comments:
Our school has an interesting disciplinary policy: if someone breaks the established rules, it's not enough for the school to enforce punishment. They have to ban whatever tool or behavior that helped them break the rules. This thinking shaped the policies of many schools, and it's why hooded clothing (which helps avoid identification by security cameras) is banned in some districts, just as an example. So one day a girl smuggled vodka into school in a water bottle (obviously against school policy), got hammered, and got suspended. And as the poem details, they subsequently banned water bottles. (Actually, water bottles had already been banned, but rule enforcement had gotten lax over the years, and the administration is now cracking down.) It's just funny and sad to me, because it's almost as if in an attempt to cut down on, say, school violence, the administration thinks of new things it can ban and new rules it can create instead of enforcing the old ones. It's almost as if they'd ban pencils because kids were stabbing each other with them, or ban talking cause sometimes kids curse at and bully each other. I hope people can read my poem and realize that change is needed in our school system, specifically in the area of discipline (though other areas certainly need reform as well). But my ambitions for inspiring change don't stop at schools, but at the entire American legal system, which allows for the irresponsible lawsuits which force these sorts of policy into fruition.

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