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October 13, 2011 10:35 PM   Subscribe

What should I do about an aspiring Marine in my class who keeps encouraging others to join the service?

A young man in one of my classes has decided that he want's to join the marines. I'm glad he's found something he's passionate about. He sports a crew cut, calls teachers "sir" and brings his lunch to school in an old MRE bag. He sometimes stands at attention for a whole lunch period, a little odd but hey the kid has found something that gives him identity and strength.

This was all well and good but now he's bringing literature and contact information for recruiters into my classroom and encouraging students to enlist. THis makes me super uncomfortable, knowing first hand how predatory and dishonest recruiters can be. A friend of mine put my name on a card on their booth when I was in highschool, they came to my door a half dozen times, called endlessly and told me all kinds of implausible lies.

I understand the military can be the answer for many people, but honestly I'm teaching at this school because I want my low-income and minority students to have opportunities beyond trade schools and the service. In fact, our schools mission is to get low-income minority students into college. He keeps saying things like the military is the only way to pay for college without loans, and other things I know the recruiters are telling him.


So, is there anything I can do besides telling him that I'm uncomfortable having him proselytize inside my classroom or is this something I just have to politely disagree with?
posted by JimmyJames to Education (37 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
You control your classroom, so you can tell him to take it outside. Outside of the classroom it's none of your business.
posted by joannemullen at 10:45 PM on October 13, 2011 [5 favorites]


If you're feeling that way, I'm fairly sure some of your students are beginning to feel highly uncomfortable about his views too, and he's likely making the classroom into an uncomfortable place to be for everyone else.

Under those grounds, you've got to step in. As the voice of authority in your classroom, it's up to no one but you. Think about the situation as the same as if one of your students began trying to convert the rest of their class to their religion or political party - everyone else simply does not want to raise a voice because they KNOW a huge argument's going to start just because the guy in question holds his beliefs so strongly.

The classroom isn't a soapbox.
posted by Conspire at 11:01 PM on October 13, 2011


Sounds to me like the kid is insecure and looking for validation. I would ask him politely to not create ANY distractions in your class including recruitment.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:02 PM on October 13, 2011


Response by poster: To be clear, I already plan on telling him to take it out of my class. It only started at the end of study-hall today. I was looking for guidance if it would be appropriate to extend my disapproval beyond my class.
posted by JimmyJames at 11:04 PM on October 13, 2011


Talk to him respectfully - privately obviously - and just ask him to stop. You don't want to quash his enthusiasm, encourage him in his choice, validate him in that, but make it clear that he's out of line. Give the kid a chance to come correct himself before making a big deal out of it.
posted by three blind mice at 11:08 PM on October 13, 2011 [2 favorites]


Hi there!

So with the military, we have a passive consent law - basically, if the parents don't actively sign a "refusal to distribute information" form, the military has the right to give information to students about enlisting. You could check with your school about how they handle that.

Now, this kid giving information has two issues:

1. He's not the military. So he has no idea who has consent to receive information and who doesn't. That's a serious legal issue, and is probably your best choice when you communicate with him about it.

2. He's free to express his opinions and life plans, but him being pushy and shoving information in their path would be similar to him trying to convert kids to other religions in class. Outside of school, it's a different issue, but in school, students do have the right to have a learning environment in which they feel comfortable. If I were a student with some kind of issue that made the military a sensitive subject to me, that would impinge on my ability to be the best student I could be. That's a total violation of classroom community and is fundamentally unfair to other students.

If neither of those options work, there's always corporal punishment. :-)
(kidding, obviously)
posted by guster4lovers at 11:14 PM on October 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


While you can "disapprove" of his actions outside of the classroom, you can't monitor it at all; and even if you could, you wouldn't have much authority outside of the classroom to stop him just because that's where your role as a teacher ends.

Rather, I think what you need to do is just honestly sit down and talk to him about his choice and new-found passion in more realistically. From what it sounds like - he probably just got all starry-eyed after speaking to a recruiter; he's an impressionable kid, he doesn't have all of the critical thinking skills he needs to understand whether what he's being told is true or not, and he's likely very uncertain about himself and just wanted to find a place to belong.

He's getting his information from one very biased and dogmatic side of the picture who's willing to lie to him just to get him into the military, and who's worked to psychologically close off every other option that he has. As a teacher, you need to work to counter that by presenting a more realistic point of view, teaching him how to think critically for himself, and showing him that more than one option exists.

The other thing is - while okay, it's the military and you might not want to quash his enthusiasm about it since it's considered a respectable goal in life, the way they've influenced your student seems to be extremely cult-like in fashion. If it was an actual cult, wouldn't you try to talk him out of it, just because you know that it's going to cause major problems down the line, that he's being lied to, and that he's going to get emotionally invested in someone that's not going to fill his expectations in the end?
posted by Conspire at 11:21 PM on October 13, 2011


Also - have you talked to his parents? They may have some advice, and it may also give you some perspective on his choice, and therefore information to use in your decision on how to talk to him.

Also also, like you said, it is a disruption and his parents may be able to help. Ok, so I know this next part will seem counter-intuitive, but (hear me out) his recruiter might be able to help. If he's a nice guy (I know some of the ones in our area and there are some really awesome recruiters who really do seem to just want the best for the kids), he probably will hear you out and tell the kid to knock it off. I mean, what does it say about this kid if he's being asked by an authority figure to do something (not talk about the military during class/school day) and he refuses that direct order? I don't know if that's something you're comfortable with, but it's an option if other things don't produce results.
posted by guster4lovers at 11:32 PM on October 13, 2011


If he still disrupts class in the manner you described after you have spoken to him, print out the first and fourth sentences of hal_c_on's comment and show it to him.

Actually you might want to show him his forth sentence either way, for the kid's protection. He sounds extremely naive and, the way he is "playing marine" the way little kids play cops and robbers, a little childlike, and that's no path to marine-hood.
posted by mreleganza at 11:57 PM on October 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Is he talking to students about the Marines while you are trying to instruct? Or is he doing it during down time or a time when students are allowed to talk to each other about things unrelated to class subject matter?

If it's the former, then yes, it's your prerogative to stop it. But if it's the latter, this is a free speech issue and you don't have a leg to stand on. "No military recruiting material in my class" is not a defensible position, in my opinion, regardless of what your thoughts about recruiters is.

And just for the record, the military can be a good option for low income kids and college recruiters can be misleading and predatory too.

posted by jayder at 12:32 AM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


How would you react if he were proselytizing for something other than the Marine Corps? Suppose he was handing out Jack Chick tracts. I'm not being sarcastic in making that comparison. This kid has a fervor for the Corps.

No one conversation with him will help him assess his options from a more balanced perspective. Barring a miracle he's going to enlist, and we can only hope that he'll be happy in the Marines. "I don't let students hand out pamphlets in my class, not even for a good cause" might be the best you can say to him.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:43 AM on October 14, 2011 [2 favorites]


The fact that this kid is sharing his enthusiasm and possibly incorrect information isn't the issue. The fact that you aren't confident that your students will ask critical questions that help them assess if a career choice is right for them, is.

you may think you are protecting by silencing this kids. But what will really help is correcting incorrect information when you hear it, telling them to talk about career options with counsellors, if you have then, suggesting questions they can ask to think critically about their values and skills as well as assess a career option, etc. Will go a lot farther than stifling your student who us enthusiastic about the military.
Model the behaviour of critical thinking, etc. That you wish to see in your students to them. This will help them when any recruiter approaches them, college, military or otherwise. It will give them the confidence and the skills to know that they are asking good questions and meaningfully considering their values and talents when making career choices. Then you can be more sure that no matter what path they chose, it was an informed and free decision.
posted by anitanita at 2:39 AM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


Ugh. Sorry about the typos.I am writing on my cell phone. Look, does your school have sessions on financing college, or choosing the right career path for you? that will help more than silencing your student.
posted by anitanita at 2:58 AM on October 14, 2011


You have the right to tell the kid to stop his "recruiting" in your classroom. You do not have the right to tell him to change outside of the school environment.

As far as his behavior goes: considering how many people bitch about rude teenagers, count your lucky stars he's into crewcuts and calling you 'sir' rather than having his pants falling off his butt!
posted by easily confused at 3:40 AM on October 14, 2011


"Free Speech" nut checking in here.

If he is indeed causing a genuine class disruption, stop him from doing that. But stress that that's the REASON you're stopping him -- it's not an anti-military thing, you're stopping him from thrusting brochures on people the same way you'd stop Brandy and Tiffany or whoever from texting back and forth to each other in class. You might -- MIGHT -- also be able to gently discourage him from stopping with the standing at attention throughout class in this way (if it's just causing too many kids to sneak looks back at him and get into whispered conversations about him).

Other than that, though -- not under your control. If you get into a casual conversation and you want to offer some advice, tread carefully; he's a teenager who's passionate about something, which means he's going to be a huge zealot about this and if you try to talk him out of it he's probably going to dig his heels in more. But you have no control over what he does outside of class.

Inside class, though, if he's disrupting what you're trying to do, doesn't matter what he's trying to disrupt class with; unless he's interrupting class to say something like "I think I just broke my leg" or "my backpack just caught fire" or something like that, you have the right to tell him to cut it out.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:32 AM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


High school is a great time to try on lots of things to see if they fit, within the safety of not yet being adult. If it were me, I'd give it more than part of one study hall to see how this works itself out

Having said that, it is study hall. They are supposed to study, and as the teacher you are supposed to control the classroom to make sure they study instead of stand around talking. That should be done regardless of the topic under discussion -- recruiting for the military or passing petitions to give teachers raises, none of it is studying so none of it should be done in study hall. That you disagree and are able to quash the discussion because you have greater power is really unfair. Having an open debate with him is equally unfair because you are the person in authority.

I suspect he respects authority to a much greater degree than most kids his age, so if you assert a new rule of "The only thing we do in Study Hall is study" then he'll probably fall in line. The trick for you will be to make sure the new rule is for all students.
posted by Houstonian at 5:37 AM on October 14, 2011


Before you deal with the recruiting I think you have missed a much larger problem. This kid is a nut case, or one in the making, and I'm not talking about his desire to become a Marine. No one in high school would want to attract the kind of attention he is. Standing at attention, pretending to eat MREs. Does he have any friends? Does he play sports or do any extra-curriculars? This kid needs a shrink right away.
posted by Gungho at 5:47 AM on October 14, 2011 [5 favorites]


Just because he's enthused about something, and might not care what his peers think of his actions, doesn't make him a nut case-- it just makes him someone who's enthused and doesn't care about fitting in.

I was very much into computers, and spent some of my lunchtimes programming in the computer lab, at the detriment to my social standing, it doesn't mean I'm a nutcase.

And the other voices in my head agree.
posted by Static Vagabond at 6:36 AM on October 14, 2011


The kid is slightly crazy. Lots of kids are sure they're going to be in the military, but they don't usually dress the part before starting.

It might just be a good idea to talk about how the military recruits in class for a couple of minutes. Military recruiters are a BIG presence at low-income schools, at least when I was in high school they put me on some kind of a short list and basically followed me around trying to get me to enlist. There were posters and brochures for the military everywhere. I wonder if they put this stuff in his head.
posted by miyabo at 6:45 AM on October 14, 2011


On the "is the kid crazy" question: Is this kid young for his age? He sounds like a former student of mine, who exhibited a lot of behaviours like that to get attention. He was 12 and in 10th grade, and he knew he couldn't fit in normally, so he did those things to carve out an identity for himself.

He also wanted to be a marine. Now, he's 16 and at UCLA studying engineering. Sometimes those kids go to charter schools so they can skip ahead or be a little weird and not get beaten up constantly.
posted by guster4lovers at 7:09 AM on October 14, 2011


The surest way to get a teenager to stop doing something is to approve of it. Authority figure disapproval ensures continuation of the action.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:27 AM on October 14, 2011


Talk to your principal or assistant principal, whoever handles discipline at your school. They handle this stuff all the time.
posted by summerstorm at 7:31 AM on October 14, 2011


Make sure to point out that he is not actually in the Marines yet, and to hold off on the hoo rah-ing until he gets in. Bonus points for asking him what MARINES stands for.
posted by Sphinx at 8:12 AM on October 14, 2011


AFAIK the current state of Constitutional law about these issues still boils down to:

(1) Is the speech in question taking place in a time and place where students can talk about more or less whatever they choose, or during a time when only academically-relevant speech is permitted? If it's not in an academic-only time and place, then:

(2) Is the speech disruptive, abusive, or otherwise fundamentally incompatible with the good order of the school? If it is not, then:

Prohibiting that speech is a violation of the student's Constitutional liberties.

This gets ignored more than followed, except where courts end up involved. But the right answer here is that unless it is disrupting academic activity or his behavior is so extreme as to constitute outright harassment, what he says and who he says it to is not up to you, and your approval or disapproval are irrelevant.

This includes times when he is in your classroom but non-academic speech is permitted.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:24 AM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


He sports a crew cut, calls teachers "sir" Nothing wrong with that.

Would you feel the same way about a student who promoted a specific university in the same manner, or who promoted any other cause, i.e., Occupy Wall Street, in the same manner?

Disclaimer: my son joined the US Army. Not quite what I had in mind, but. For many of your students, the armed forces are a way to get training, to see the world in a different way, and to get education funding. and, in this economy, it's a job. The US Armed Forces have been a really important force in providing training, skills, education and leadership roles to minorities, and they are starting to provide that in a big way for women, and now, openly, for gays. For my son, who I really wanted to go to college, the Army was a better choice. It provides an environment that works very well for him, with the unfortunate reality that he will be in a combat zone soon.

Make sure he represents his message honestly, i.e., not identifying himself as a Marine. I suggest you coopt his message. When he promotes enlistment, point out that ROTC is a way to pay for College. When he says Marines, point out that there are 5 services, incl. Army. Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard. Point out that if you enlist as a college grad, you can apply to be an officer, with better pay, better training, better jobs, and more safety.

The recruiters were not entirely honest with my son, in a stupid way. He wanted to join, so being honest would have made him feel better about his choice. The recruiters have been pushed to stop their abuses, and it seems to be better than it was 5 years ago. Maybe you can find some good articles about recruitment and enlistment, so that those students who want to consider enlistment can be better prepared.
posted by theora55 at 10:01 AM on October 14, 2011


This kid (and the others in the class) would benefit from a word to the wise about recruiters of any persuasion. Most of the recruiters that my brother dealt with were honest, but one promised a big bonus for reupping for two years, and when the time came to sign the contract it was written up for five years instead. Thank goodness he read the contract! My brother had them draw up the contract again, sans bonus. At the ceremony, he refused to shake the recruiter's hand. Word got out, and he was approached by several people who had been duped in a similar fashion. So in the military as in life, always read the contract!

And make sure the kid looks up how to apply for his college benefits, exactly how much he'll be eligible for, and what sorts of hoops he'll have to jump through, lest he get screwed out of them. (Yes, that happened to my brother as well.)
posted by Soliloquy at 10:33 AM on October 14, 2011


I used to be in the Marines, and I used to work in a school. The kid’s standing at attention seems over the top, but so what? I had a guy in one of my classes who wanted to be a police officer. He said that in his bedroom he had police lights (like from police cars).

Better either of them than the girl who said she hadn’t been home in three days. Etc.

Either your student is causing disruption, or he isn’t. If he’s disrupting, you deal with that as you would with any other disruption. If not, you should accept it.

What he talks to other kids about outside of class is generally not your purview. If he were encouraging them to do something illegal, that would be different. Your disagreement with employment choice is just that, your disagreement.

Further, I agree with Jayder about this being a free speech issue.

From guster4lovers:
So he has no idea who has consent to receive information and who doesn't. That's a serious legal issue, and is probably your best choice when you communicate with him about it.
-- He’s just a teenager talking to other teenagers. There’s no law restricting what they talk about.

From Conspire:
He's getting his information from one very biased and dogmatic side of the picture who's willing to lie to him just to get him into the military, and who's worked to psychologically close off every other option that he has.
-- That is all an assumption.
posted by maurreen at 10:49 AM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Hal_C_on:

He's been playing the Marine since I met him in September, and talks about the Core endlessly to his classmates. Only as of yesterday did he actually bring in literature. His bringing in actual contact information and sign up forms is what catalyzed this question.
posted by JimmyJames at 11:11 AM on October 14, 2011


Is he really bringing enlistment forms?

That seems highly unlikely. But if so, bring that up with the recruiter or the recruiter's boss. I expect that those shouldn't leave the control of the government.
posted by maurreen at 11:18 AM on October 14, 2011


What if, for example, he was just as gung-ho about being a doctor? What if he wore a white coat and a stethoscope and brought literature relating to that and tried to get kids to sign up for first aid classes and such?

Your response should be the same.
posted by maurreen at 11:25 AM on October 14, 2011


Or, for that matter, if he was handing out flyers and sign-up sheets for a walk in support of breast-cancer research, or handing out stickers with a band's logo on them, or handing out flyers and sign up sheets for a noncurricular school club. Like, a Wargames Club as opposed to a French Club that's tied directly to the school curriculum.

Students either can distribute not-strictly-academic literature among themselves, so long as it doesn't violate maintaining order in the school, or they can't. There's no "Students can only distribute literature and related things for groups I approve of."

Or, really, there is, and it happens all the time. It just violates the fundamental law of the United States. But you could very probably do so with complete impunity.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:38 PM on October 14, 2011 [2 favorites]


maurreen: What if, for example, he was just as gung-ho about being a doctor? What if he wore a white coat and a stethoscope and brought literature relating to that and tried to get kids to sign up for first aid classes and such?

Your response should be the same.
Er, so an enlisted man in the Marines has just the same life, pay, and career prospects as a doctor? Both populations have similar chances of ending up homeless? Doctors and young, active-service Marines have similar mortality rates, due to the international circumstances we're carefully stepping around in this conversation? 4036 Marines have been badly wounded enough to appear in official stats, as of the beginning of this month. That doesn't include the number that have been killed. I'm sure a statistical breakdown, along the lines of race and social class, would show that those casualties resembled the young men JimmyJames teaches far more than it would a first-year premed student intake.

Seriously, the armed forces in America prey on young minority high school students for their own, entirely predictable and self-interested reasons. We know this. The school that JimmyJames says he works for aims to give its students a better chance than that. I think his concerns are entirely valid.
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:00 PM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


He keeps saying things like the military is the only way to pay for college without loans

He might have heard this from recruiters, or maybe from parents. Kids are pretty aware when their folks are just tapped out and there's no room for extras. They hear that school loans are obnoxious, and kudos for him for doing the math and deciding he doesn't want a lifetime of debt.

I'm teaching at this school because I want my low-income and minority students to have opportunities

That's what you want. I assume that's what his parents want. Luckily if he's talking about paying for college, he wants to go to college. The only disagreement is that he wants to join the military (for now, but of course what you want at that age changes frequently) and you don't agree with military service.

If you really, really want to make a difference? Expose him to all the paths to his goal, without bad-mouthing his current ambitions, or killing his dreams, or telling him he's wrong. He wants to go to college without loans. Is this possible?

The whole class might be scared to death about all the college-is-important talk they hear at school, without actually having the cash to go. They read the news, they see that people are saying they will never, ever be able to pay their student loans off. They see that the job market is in the toilet and the economy basically sucks -- and will suck for the lower-income people for much longer than the middle class. A lot of them are eligible for the free-lunch program, right? If they can't afford lunch, college will seem like one of those things that you'd like to go to, but seriously must do something dramatic to make it actually happen. They want to go to college, and finish college, and somehow get ahead without killing their parents with (unavailable) overtime or signing up for a lifetime of debt that they can't pay back.

When someone says they want to join the military to pay for college, they are talking about one of four general options:
- Go to the Reserves while in college ($24,000, 12 weekends plus 2 weeks service)
- Go to the military before college (GI Bill plus $30,000 - $70,000 college fund depending on the branch, with Marines paying the least actually)
- Go to college and then the military (ROTC scholarship, 4 years of service)
- Go to a military academy (100% coverage, 5 years of service)

Find the students grants (not loans) that do as well or better. Who knows -- maybe he'll still want to join the military. But maybe he'll go to West Point, or do ROTC for a year to see if it's right for him. At least you can know that you addressed an underlying concern the students are having.
posted by Houstonian at 1:44 PM on October 14, 2011 [2 favorites]


Sonny Jim:

Those of us answering this question have no evidence that anyone in this specific situation is being preyed upon or has been preyed upon by the military.

JimmyJames is these kids' teacher, not their father.

If Jimmy wants to help them think critically about their choices, great. If Jimmy wants to use appropriate time to give them appropriate information, great.

Squelching enthusiasm by someone who would give his life, not great.

Whoever wants to dissuade people from joining the military should consider whether it would be OK if the country didn't have a military.
posted by maurreen at 1:47 PM on October 14, 2011 [2 favorites]


@maurreen - Talking about the Marines to other kids is his right, so long as it's not disruptive of class activities (and it sounds like it is, which is why it's problematic). Bringing promotional material and giving it out at school, no matter who's doing the handing out, could actually be problematic because of the consent law I mentioned. I've been in a situation like this and even though he's only a student, it still matters whether parents have allowed their students' information to be passed on to recruiters.

However, I do agree with you that if it is outside of class and not a disruption to school or causing harm to other students it's probably fine. High school students do not have free speech, but promoting their interest outside of class time is protected.
posted by guster4lovers at 6:11 PM on October 14, 2011


So what if he brought in forms and contact info? A minor's signature isn't valid. Seriously, why not just ignore him? If my kid had a teacher this concerned over an enthusiasm, I'd suggest the teacher back off.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:45 PM on October 14, 2011


You say "he's been playing the Marine since [you] met him in September" --- so a little over a month? For heaven's sake, that's no time at all! Maybe it'll last, but considering how a kid's enthusiasms often jump around, he could be '60s-style hippie by Thanksgiving.

(And a minor point: it's the Marine Corp, not 'Core', even though they're pronounced the same.
posted by easily confused at 6:11 AM on October 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


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