Cultural Terror Strikes Children In Public School

[Jedi Knight]

When "boys talk to girls", it becomes a dangerous behavior and must be abolished in public schools (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32326). Golly, how dare boys talk to girls.

People wonder when I say that public schools have become houses of horrors. Here is another example of that. I also can only ponder if these children were of the same sex making "communiques" at each other that their behavior might have been encouraged, given today's leftist political climate in America and the outcomes it promotes as normal.

The new American public schools motto--"Where being a child is culturally-dangerous, and where the idea of America is forbidden."

JK

[Supercharts]

The fact that a 6th grade teacher can actually introduce a policy like that is horrendous. :mad:

[Bentspoon]

JK wrote:

"People wonder when I say that public schools have become houses of horrors. Here is another example of that. I also can only ponder if these children were of the same sex making "communiques" at each other that their behavior might have been encouraged, given today's leftist political climate in America and the outcomes it promotes as normal."

This sounds more like legislating morality. Isn't that the purvue of the right wing. And if we had a voucher system, I am sure that this kind of thing would never happen at the good right wing Catholic schools.

There is no end to idiocy - you will always be able to find idiots supporting gun control and gun freedom, against the war, for the war - all for idiotic reasoning.

Left right left right

It really is meaningless to pull up stories of the extremists and pose them as indicative of some large group thinking.

I think most people are moderate or at least not as whacko as this. Even if we disagree, it is not usually diametrical opposition - until you trot out the extremists.

Benspoon

[Lisa]

Don't get too extremist here Jedi. I agree with a lot of what you say about this, but you have to trace it back.
Used to be, there were just fist fights in school. Then kids started bringing knives. Then guns. Then the various school shootings started. Drug dealing was going on openly. We won't even get into the sexual harassment, because after 30 years, it's still to embarassing to talk about. (In my case)
So in a typical knee-jerk reaction, the "zero-tolerance" policy was enacted. Now to me, this means if a kid shows up to school with a weapon, a bag of crack, or thinks it funny to grab at members of the opposite sex during class change, the kid gets the bounce.
However, this has now been interpreted as:
Weapon: Anything from a gun to fingernail clippers
Drugs: Heroin to asprin
Harassment: Assault to a peck on the cheek.
The clippers, asprin, and the stolen kiss are all treated the same as a major infraction in many cases.
Jedi, do you ever go over to Lyris? That dude has a huge anti-zero-tolerance rant. The cases I list above are sadly, actually true. If you don't know the link I'm talking about, either wing me a pm or answer this post, I'll provide it. (I'm about to go out and commit some matriarchial totalin...whatever at the pool table. They never should have taught me to play.)
The hard and fast zero-tolerance policies have got to go. I get the above mentioned newletter, and I'm glad things aren't that bad here. Teachers and administrators here can recognize the difference between a couple of Midol caplets and a dime bag.

[Baggle]

Funny you should mention zero tolerance.

Just yesterday my little brother was suspended from school for five days, during finals, at the end of his senior year, because drug dogs, searching through the school parking lot went off on his truck. Upon searching, they found a half inch long stem of marijuana. This part is not even smokable, and would not be enough to get anyone high if it was. His passing grade in one class depended upon him being able to take the final he has been studying for. He may now not be able to graduate with his classmates, wrestling and football teammates, because of this incident.

And don't think this is isolated. The year I graduated from the same high school(2001), a friend of mine was nearly expelled during his senior year because the same dogs went off on his vehicle, and upon searching they found an empty shell casing to a .22 bullet. He had gone hunting that weekend.
Finally a group of his teachers and parents, friends, etc, got together to protest his expulsion from school at the school board hearing and rallied against it, although he still was suspended for 5 days.

That's not to say that this makes the school drug or anything else free, either. There has never been a weapon attack as far as I know, but drugs were easily attainable during school hours during my time there. You just had to set up an appointment for the next days and it'd be there.

-Baggle

[Clancie]

Jedi Knight,

Are all your criticisms based on some bizarre, isolated event (political or cultural) that you then over-generalize from? It sure seems so.

This is an isolated example of a teacher facing a typical problem and dealing with it badly.

It says absolutely nothing about educational prejudices toward "boys and girls"-- or anything about "schools" in general.

[DavidJames]

"It really is meaningless to pull up stories of the extremists and pose them as indicative of some large group thinking.

I think most people are moderate or at least not as whacko as this. Even if we disagree, it is not usually diametrical opposition - until you trot out the extremists."

Excellent points, will be ignored by many, but excellent none the less.