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By now most of you have seen the video of a school officer flipping a student backwards out of her chair because the student refused to leave a classroom, or cooperate with the teacher.  This sparked a huge conversation about who was wrong in the situation, and who should have done what.  My personal belief is the school should have contacted the child’s mother and had her deal with it instead of the deputy getting involved, but he definitely went too far.

Having said that I don’t think people are asking the right question about this situation.  Instead of asking who is to blame?  We should be asking how did we get here?

Perhaps I am thinking about this too deeply, but for me this event illustrates two crucial parts of our broken society:

1. The misuse of power by those in authority
2. And in a deeper sense the disrespect of those in authority by children

I’ll be the first person in the world to admit the deputy completely overstepped his bounds here and should be fined.  This is especially true since there had already been allegations of excessive force against students in the past.  Yet this abuse of power took place because one girl refused to leave the classroom.

Should she have flipped her out of the chair?  Absolutely not!  But he wouldn’t have to do that if she had complied with his and teachers request to leave the classroom.

Yes it is scary that police deputies will use this much force to subdue a student.  But it’s also scary that the student defiance played a part in this.  And the scariest thing of all?  We see this defiance in children as young as five!

Being someone who works in many children’s ministries (and loves it) I’ve seen dramatic changes over the years in how kids respond to an authority figure.  In the beginning all it took was a teacher to tell little Johnny or Susie to calm down and they would be okay.  Today that just doesn’t cut it anymore…today you need “crowd control.”

As someone who has logged countless hours as crowd control I can tell you

1. It involves taking control of a group right away by reviewing rules, giving out prizes, and rewarding those who follow the rules
2. Constantly roaming the room calming down children who aren’t paying attention, or are disrupting everyone else
3. Separating disruptive children from everyone else, and making sure they know exactly why they are there
4. And being mean (strict) when necessary

In the past everything would be fine if the teacher made the rules clear, and enforced them.  Today most children’s ministries wouldn’t be caught dead without crowd control

I happened to be sick one afternoon winter and wasn’t able to be at a weekly after-school Bible program.  Later on that week I asked how things went, and was told the whole time was utter chaos because there weren’t enough people to keep the kids under control.

The next week I began the program with a very serious talk about how disappointed I was with them misbehaving while Mr. John was gone last week and noticed a boy (we will call him Jason) had his shoe off waving it around.

Jason happened to be the worst kid in our program and exhibited a complete lack of respect for all authority. No matter how many times we separated him from the others or withheld prizes he just didn’t care.  That afternoon I ended up sending him to the principals office because he was just being too disruptive.

I came to visit him a few minutes later and asked why he was waving a shoe around when everyone else was listening but he just shrugged his shoulders and refused to say a word.  As the secretary called his mother Jason suddenly started to cry and told me that he had “sand in his shoe.”  I thanked Jason for telling me what the problem was (never saw any sand) and encouraged him next time to raise his hand and ask permission to take his shoe off instead of disrupting the class.

Notice that the hard heart of this little boy in the first-grade wouldn’t break or show any remorse until the moment his mother was on the phone; and then it was probably only fear of punishment that broke him.  Now imagine what it would take to bring obedience in the third, fourth, or fifth grade.  The sad truth is children’s heart are just getting harder…before long a call to their parents won’t even make a dent in the armor.

My point is we often don’t think about a child’s authority problem till their in Jr. High, but at that point it’s already far too developed.  There is more of a need than ever before for parents to instill in their children a respect of authority (their authority) at a young age so they obey before the moment a police officer oversteps his boundaries.

Ministering in a small island town has helped me gain a new perspective on, and burden for individuals who struggle with poverty.  The truth is what we call “poor” in the United States would be viewed as rich in a place where children don’t the street can’t afford clothes, and beg for food every day.

Being here has helped me understand better the issues those in need struggle with, and in a deeper sense how it affects every part of their lives.

One of the more interesting articles that emphasizes this holistic affect of poverty is Joe Carter’s “Why Being Poor Is Too Expensive” that uses a recent article “Being Poor is too Expensive” by Eric Ravenscraft as it’s major source.

Carter begins by referring to a movie where a poor african-American family plans a weekend getaway but blows a tire, and then since they don’t have a spare are forced to drive back on the rim.

Not much is made of the event by the characters in the movie, but those who are poor (or have ever been poor) know exactly what it means. If they weren’t able to pay for a small repair like a flat tire they certainly won’t be able to pay for the damage that comes from a bent rim. The car will either be abandoned or be sold for scrap. Either way, it means the same thing: they no longer have a car. Life for them will became just a little bit harder, a slight more miserable.

That’s one of the worst things about being poor: almost everything becomes a luxury good.

This idea that the smaller expenses of life being a luxury are explained further

If you’re higher up on the economic ladder you get things fixed, whether tire or teeth, before the repairs become even worse and become more costly. But when you’re poor, even small repairs are more than you can afford. And they lead to catastrophic consequences. It’s not that you’re ignoring a situation or ignorant about the inevitable disastrous outcome. You know it’s a problem and that it’ll be an even bigger problem in the future. There’s just not much you can do about it.

In other words it isn’t that they don’t want to fix the problem…they CAN’T fix the problem.

The article borrows an illustration from Ravenscraft involving transportation.

Transportation has two major hidden costs when you’re poor. First, lots of expensive car repairs are avoidable…if you have money to fix them early on. I used to ignore changing my brake pads for months. My car would start making that familiar squealing noise that indicated I didn’t have much time left before the brake pads were gone. I hated the noise, but I hated overdrafting on my account more. So, I turned the stereo up a little louder and tried to drive less.

Replacing brake pads can cost an average of $145, depending on your car. If I had to spend $145 to change my brake pads (assuming I even had that much in my account), at best I’d wipe out my food budget for the month. At worst, I wouldn’t have enough to pay utilities. So I’d put it off.

He proceeds to explain putting off replacing break pads eventually meant grinding the rotors which was of course a much more expensive repair.

Carter finishes his article by encouraging Christians to view poverty in a more personal day-to-day fashion thinking about the small expenses which to them would be luxuries.

Much of the discussion about poverty in our country tends to focus on the macro level. While it’s important to consider broad, general effects like unemployment or welfare policy, it’s just as essential to consider what we can do on a more personal level. There is so much we Christians can do for the poor, both as individuals and churches, if we simply take the time to find answers to the question, “How can I make life less expensive for the poor?”

On a personal level this article has helped me respond differently to those who visit and ask for things like food, soap, or cooking oil.  In the past my American worldview would think about how cheap those things are (oil would be $5, soap maybe $10) and wonder why they couldn’t go buy those things themselves.  Now it’s clearer to me how $5 would be much more than spare change for them….it’s a massive amount.  May God help me remember what I view as cheap others view as a luxury.