by Samuel Royer ’15
With one stroke of the pen, Principal Daniel Bradesca ‘88 has eliminated the Correct Deportment Award. The change was announced at the start of the school year.
The Correct Deportment Award had been given to seniors who, after four years of attending Saint Ignatius, reached graduation without receiving a single jug. The removal of this award reinforces Mr. Bradesca’s message to students that it is okay to fail. “Failure is necessary if growth is to be realized. By accepting this, we must also accept the fact that jugs are not to be viewed as a death sentence. Jugs happen. They happen to the best of students. Jugs exist to help the student learn from his mistakes,” said Mr. Bradesca. [pullquote]
Jugs happen. They happen to the best of students. Jugs exist to help the student learn from his mistakes,” said Mr. Bradesca.
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Of particular frustration to Mr. Bradesca was the fact that the award was given out to many seniors who, although they never received an official jug, probably should have. Instead, often they received private punishment from their teachers. The result was an award that put its emphasis on the wrong metric for measuring behavior. “I have recently experienced students reduced to tears when informed that a bad decision had prevented them from receiving a Correct Deportment Award. The award was what was important to them. That is a problem.”
Despite there no longer being an award for a perfect disciplinary record, Associate Dean of Students, Mr. Ryan Franzinger ‘02 still urges students to make it a goal to not get a jug. “People are perfectly capable of doing that. It’s a good goal. I presented that at orientation – an emphasis on how you act. It’s the Christian code of ethics,” he said.
With an updated dress code and a new cell phone and technology policy, Mr. Bradesca hopes that the rules can be easier to follow for students and easier to enforce for teachers. He admits, “In the past, ambiguities in the rules often caused students to test the waters of acceptability and teachers often acquiesced because they were either unclear or were too frustrated to find clarity.” Even so, Mr. Bradesca acknowledges the possibility that with the new rules students may still choose to break the rules. With the discontinuation of the award and new guidelines, Mr. Bradesca and the administration hope for more consistent enforcement of the rules.
Mr. Franzinger advises students who have trouble inside the classroom to cooperate with their teacher and wait until after class to object if they need to. He warns that if a student is sent to the Dean of Students Office, it almost always results in the student receiving an automatic five jugs. “One thing that I don’t think kids understand is that when they’re told to do something or told not to do something and they don’t listen to their teacher, the situation quickly escalates,” he says.
