Pubdate: 25 Apr 1999 Source: Hartford Courant (CT) Copyright: 1999 The Hartford Courant Contact: http://www.courant.com/ Forum: http://chat.courant.com/scripts/webx.exe Author: Laurence D. Cohen WHEN EL-AMIN COMES KNOCKING, TELL HIM 'NO THANKS' If the state takeover czars who sort of set policy for the Hartford schools want to flex their muscles and perform a valuable public service, they should padlock themselves to the front doors of the city's middle schools and prevent Khalid El-Amin from speaking to students who have more important things to do. El-Amin, whose only credential as a distinguished educator is that he shoots a pretty good jump shot for the University of Connecticut basketball team, has been coerced into sharing his wisdom with the kids as punishment for getting nabbed with a bit of marijuana. This approach to "community service" sentencing is all the rage in legal circles; gang thugs, drug dabblers and white-collar crooks are routinely sent out among the youngsters to wag their fingers and vow to sin no more. There is no bigger prize than a popular athlete -- how much more interesting a way to spend the morning than learning the multiplication tables. The El-Amin obligation to chatter and appear morose in Hartford schools is irresponsible, insulting and dumb. Criminal court judges don't set education policy for the Hartford schools -- and the city should stand up for what's right and send El-Amin back to court for a more constructive slap on the wrist. Middle school kids aren't dumb. They are well practiced in the art of apologizing to adults and kicking themselves for being careless enough to get caught. They also are sophisticated enough to know that El-Amin's well-scripted grovel has been produced as an alternative to jail time or raking leaves in the park. What might not occur to the Hartford middle school kids is why exactly they were picked as the captive audience. Drug arrest? Oh, let's send Khalid to those Hartford schools, filled with brown and black children who by their nature are only one small step away from needles dangling from their arms. If the El-Amin patter is going to be how irresponsible he was to risk a high-paying career, shooting baskets and marketing athletic shoes, then why don't we carry the insulting racist stereotype to its logical conclusion? Send him to speak in Avon, Simsbury and Farmington, filled with budding doctors, lawyers and insurance executives who can't risk an arrest record on their way to the top. One of the revealing bits of wisdom to emerge from decades of research by tweedy, elbow-patched communication scholars is that the audience often engages the speaker in a mental dialogue during the performance. What would the middle school kids be mulling while El-Amin is delivering his sermon? Did he ever partake of evil-demon marijuana during the basketball season? If you're already famous before you get nabbed, is it likely that sermons in school auditoriums will be the punishment of choice? How did you know where to go in Hartford to buy your stuff? Would you be feeling so bad if you hadn't been caught? What is the perception that an appearance by a popular basketball player will make on the middle school drug-addicts-to-be? El-Amin will be greeted with enthusiastic applause, he will be introduced by the school stiffs with more awe and respect than many of the kids have ever experienced, and he will exit the stage a conquering hero -- marijuana arrest be damned. The appearance will be lavishly covered by news media and deemed a "success": The idiotic rationalization for the "do as I say, not as I do" curriculum. Whether you're a falling-off-the-edge-of-the-earth libertarian who doesn't think it's anyone's business what El-Amin is smoking, or a slippery-slope, anti-drug warrior, there is something distasteful about judges and educators using high-profile personalities who screw up to teach a murky lesson that if you smoke a little dope and shoot a few hoops, perhaps you too, someday, can be stars of the middle school assembly. For all the chatter about the need for diversity and expanded opportunities for minority children, in the end what we offer them is another black athlete in trouble with the law. It borders on educational malpractice, with a strong assist from judges who think it's cute to send the criminals back to their own kind. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea