Detective Work

 I have given up trying to find the kids who knock things down and tear things up. After the fact, there isn't a lot that can be done or said. Restorative Justice works very well when you don't have to plow through a mass of denial first. The initial reaction of, "What'd I do?" stands in front of progress like a brick wall.

"Well, the trail you left of torn bits of border from the bulletin board match the scraps you have in your hand."

Blank stare.

These kind of moments make me wish for a video playback system like the NFL has, with a monitor available to show the alleged perpetrator in action. After a look at the replay, we could move past the blank stare and on to the reparations. That tends to happen anyway, with a few quality moments with a stapler and a new roll of border because there is evidence tying the perp to the malfeasance. We are not always that lucky.

Over the past week, one of our little darlings has taken upon him or herself to challenge our hand sanitizing stations, knocking them down and leaving the wreckage for someone else to discover. Back in the height of COVID abatement, we kept these squirting sentinels full and running at most every entrance, and lines of students would dutifully pass their hands beneath the nozzle on their way to the next place. Many went out of their way to have more than their share of sanitization. They were part of the firmament. 

It could be that the response to the end of the pandemic was to lash out. More likely it was an interest in the batteries that could be found by crashing the sanitary sentinels to the ground. But I suspect the most likely reason for the mild delinquency involved in breaking an inanimate object is the wealth of frustrations felt deep in side many of the kids who make their way through our hallways each day. Over the course of any given day, perceived or actual slights build up to the point of lashing out in ways that provide immediate gratification. The scattered pieces of a hand sanitizing station provide this abrupt satisfaction. 

And a mess for Mister Caven to sort out. Instead of trying to find the culprit and have them put the machine back together, I find it's better now to keep an eye out to figure out who needs the kind of help that would keep them from boxing with a hand sanitizer station in the first place.