posted March 24, 2007 11:04 PM         

I don't blindly jump on the "good ol' days" bandwagons, about how much better things were when we were all patriots and tough love was the solution to every problem.

It's all about balance... maybe someday we'll find it.

posted March 24, 2007 11:20 PM         

Although there are two of the '06 scenarios I disagree with as being bad.
The first being the rifle one at the top. The second being the pregnancy of "Mary".

Firstly, weapons do not belong in a school setting in the first place. With the not-so-far-in-the-past phenomenom of school shootings, of course they're gonna react quickly.

posted March 25, 2007 01:04 AM         

It's all about balance... maybe someday we'll find it.

posted March 25, 2007 09:43 PM         

Yes, Zero Tolerance is Zero Intelligence, and causes far more problems than it solves. Police responses and criminal charges are such that I don't even think the Evil Empire in Star Wars would do anything like that. Heck, many of those storm troopers that people boo as villains are nicer than many of our cops who taser with wild abandon (a device originally symbolic of bannana republics where dissidents were tied to a chair and tortured to one, but now the taser is compact enough to carry, more powerful, and used on old ladies, little girls, people who refuse to pee in a cup on demand, and really just because. One cop even tasered his partner for not pulling up to a store so he could buy something!)

That is, I agree that things have gotten really insane as this chain letter says. But not everything. In particular, I have a very hard time believing the school would call the ACLU--that's like the KKK calling the NAACP! The ACLU is considered the enemy of most schools, given how often the ACLU has challenged schools on various things (and rightly so more often than not, IMO).

Also, don't pay so much attention to those stories of free condoms, free and secret abortions, and things like live demos of fisting in sex ed. My sex ed was absolutely pathetic and was "abstinance-only" in order to get some federal funds, like the majority of other schools. If one could get free condoms there, I never heard of it. And the info was pretty much so academic and/or vague as to be useless. Plus, the lies the school told about sex and drugs inspired many of us to ignore the truths they told and so increased a lot of risky sexual behaviors. The teachers were typically too embarrassed or too unfriendly to ask anything, and most teachers wouldn't have dared answer honest questions anyway for fear of being fired by a panicky school board that didn't want any trouble from various parents and special interest groups that would raise a ruckus if they heard of it.

To me, sex ed was mainly about carrying around a creepy doll and reciting mortifying lines to each other that we would never, ever use in real life. Beyond that...well that movie Mean Girls does a good satire on the ignorance and uselessness of sex ed, IMO. I've gathered from others that my experiences were pretty normal.

I suppose it could've been worse. If those stories about live fisting demos had happened for real, I'd have been made celibate for life after having seen that. :P

And I had delayed puberty. I have to say I was bemused and annoyed that doctors and such wanted me to enter puberty and saying that my not being interested in sex was bad...but once I did and became interested in sex, then I wasn't suppose to have it!

And while some teacher or counselor somewhere may have secretly contacted Planned Parenthood on a student's behalf, you're gonna have to show me some proof before I believe schools do that as policy. Even that one school in the USA does that.

Btw, school shootings have risen as schools became "gun free zones." Just like the other gun free zones. "Gun free zones" lists are like the "joy list" of would-be mass murderers. Also, school shootings were stopped in Israel by bringing guns into the schools.

I'm not advocating that all teachers be armed...especially as I recall some of the major idiots and jerks that haunt the teaching profession and other faculty members. I'm just saying that it's not so simple as "schools must be gun free zones in order to be safe." Though IMO, they were much safer when Johnny could bring a long gun to school...certainly the lack of school shootings (compared to today) would seem to bear that out.

And adding another complication are those blasted psyche meds that are vastly overprescribed. I think multiple studies have shown that like 2/3 of those on those drugs are helped equally well by sugar pills (not including those people working on Madison Avenue & Wall Street). And that when not monitored (because of metabolism, the same pill can affect kids differently and so are supposed to be closely watched which often doesn't happen), those pills can trigger suicidal and homicidal behavior. They ARE messing with brain chemistry after all! Nearly every single school shooter was on prescription psyche meds at the time (including one of the Columbine killers--who didn't start acting really weird and making those videos until AFTER he was put on his meds), and the few who weren't very well may have been anyway (back in 99, some kids sold their Ritalin as "Vitamin R" to those without a prescription).

As I say, complicated.

And one last thing: When I was 14, my PE class was weighed, and all but 2 of us were then trashed for being overweight.

I was one of those 2. But I came close. I weighed as "healthy." Yet I was also under doctor's orders to gain weight so that I could enter puberty!

And the other girl who weighed as healthy was anorexic. We were both praised as healthy, and all the other girls trashed for being "overweight."

Natch, the school lunches were full of fat, and had been since decades ago when food and nutrition was harder to come by and the government wanted to make sure the boys were fit enough to be worth drafting...but the girls had access to the same lunches (and because girls aren't even allowed to sign up for selective service, not even to this day--technically, it's even illegal, though I doubt any girl would be prosecuted for breaking it--PE was generally much lighter on girls than on boys by tradition, and so are more prone to gain weight than boys). The trend is being reversed as things have changed and now if schools want future soldiers, they're gonna need to change the diets and exercises. But you know how slow government works...to bad they don't see the children as any better than cattle and property. :P

I avoided school lunches myself as they tasted so bad, and sodas just made me burp. Even their pizza tasted like cardboard. I almost always took my own lunch, typically a sandwhich of some kind.

posted March 25, 2007 10:57 PM         

As I say, complicated.

Big Time in Canada Too!!!

Just passing them out like candy, to all the children as if there the answer to all behaviour issues or illnesses. This is happening alot around here right now in our schools. I just had girlfriend of mine, stand up on behalf of her son's health and well being. They were saying that they would not teach her son, unless he was on Ritalin. One day she just sit there looking at her 8yr old boy and don't see his soul anymore when she looked into his eyes and he so looked like a Zombie justing infront of her, like the life was sucked out of him. She starting thinking what it would be like to take one of those pills herself, just to feel a little of what he maybe feeling. She got up and out of her seat and flushed the pills down the toilet!!!! Then went to the school and told them this is how we are going to deal with her son's education from here on out, without the med.'s. This is a boy that was failing and simple just not getting the right attention from the system and they where just pushing it off and him though the system. They said they didn't have the time for this kind of behaviour!!!

I'm proud to report, that this boy is now pulling off A's and was moved from the back of the room to the front of the class and is very happy for the right kind of attention!!!

Thanks Dervish for you great insight and heart felt feelings on such matters!!!!

posted March 26, 2007 12:04 AM         

I am old enough to testify to the fact that in "my day" problems were solved without the government, lawyers and court system being involved. Spankings from parents, along with loss of privileges and detention after school is how we learned to take responsibility for our actions. And were taught that there are consequences to pay for our actions.

Now kids get into a fight and parents sue each other. But it is also true that the "fights" among kids these days has become a whole lot more violent with the use of weapons and resulting in death in many cases.

What Dervish said reminded me of the case in Texas pending in the courts against the felony charges of an 11 year old student for breaking the glass on the fire alarm. The alarm didn't even go off! Yet the kid has already "served time" in a juvinile facility. Ridiculous!! This kid is also an honor roll student. He just did something stupid.

Incidently these stories come from ZeroIntelligence.com

11-year-old arrested, faces felony, for tripping school fire alarm

An 11 year-old student of the Conroe Independent School District was arrested and spent the weekend in jail for accidentally triggering a fire alarm. A false alarm or 911 call is a class A misdemeanor except when it involves school property, when it is elevated to a felony punishable by 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $10,000.

On Friday afternoon, the boy’s mother, Kerri Rasco, of Conroe, got the kind of phone call no parent wants and probably doesn’t think they will get about a child as young as 11.

“I was at work about 2 p.m. when I got a phone call from the sixth-grade assistant principal at the school,” Rasco said. “She said my son pulled the fire alarm. ‘That is a felony offense,’ she told me. I was shocked.”
Rasco said the assistant principal then put a CISD police officer on the phone with her.

“The officer informed me he was arresting my son,” Rasco said. “They cuffed him there at the school and took him to juvenile detention.”

Later that afternoon, Rasco received another call, this one from a juvenile detention official.

“They called and told me they had (her son),” she said. “They told me they were going to keep him over the weekend, until his detention hearing on Monday. I pleaded and begged with them, but they said, ‘We have to.’

Hadwick Elementary Principal Under Parents' Microscope

45 of the 73 students in the sixth grade class wore red t-shirts, those pulled aside were sent home with this letter from the principal. Parents were shocked to learn what their child went through and tonight, they are demanding answers.

What was a normal day at Hardwick Elementary School on Thursday turned into a hornets nest. "I have a child who has never been in trouble for the seven years she's been here at this school. All of a sudden her world turns upside down because she grabbed a red jacket on her way out," said parent Laurie Long, also the school's librarian.

"My son was not aware of why he was wearing red. He just heard in the classroom, in the halls and all day long the sixth graders were wearing red," said another parent Terry Berryman. "My daughter is active in orchestra and honor choir," said parent Leslie Aparicio-Ramon.

"Lubbock Independent School District (LISD) had a police present, accused the kids of falling into a gang related situation, shook handcuffs at them, made them feel like a criminal," said Terry.

Leslie, Terry and Laurie says this is not the end. More parents are upset and they want some answers as to why this happened. Laurie is upset students were not asked questions first before gang accusations were brought up. "She wasn't asked 'Do you know what you were doing?' 'Are you a part of this?' She was just told to go down there and listen," said Laurie.

In the letter, the school principal says Hardwick has dealt with a gang that wore solid white t-shirts. He said the day before the red t-shirt incident, he had talked to a group of boys and girls who wore solid white t-shirts. The principal then said those students "proceeded to tell their friends in the sixth grade to wear red t-shirts the next day as a sign of defiance." The principal says this was the reason 45 students wore red shirts on Thursday.

"Some of these kids wore it by chance and were extremely upset and emotional."

Some of these parents have taken their concerns to the school administrator building. They want officials to handle the school principal for what those parents call a mistreatment. NewsChannell 11 contacted LISD administration, they declined to comment.

Parents join seventh-grader in detention

Jessica Dunkley, a seventh grade student at Pearland Junior High East had a problem with being habitually late to school. In fact she was late 6 times in October and November. Following the school policy outlined in the student handbook the administration gave her a one hour detention for excessive tardiness. Susan and Steven Manis, her mother and step-father, decided to serve the detention with her.

“We should be the ones who have to serve detention,” said Susan Manis, 41. “We’re more at fault than she is.”
…
“This is a case of a zero tolerance policy gone wild,” Susan Manis said. She said the part of school her daughter missed never included an academic class but a home room-like class called “Advisory.”

She said the tardies came on mornings when the school bus had already passed before she found out her van wouldn’t start. A recurring electrical problem with the vehicle has been remedied, she said.

School strip searches students

Mainland Preparatory Academy, an award winning charter school, doesn’t play around with theft on campus.

Principal Wilma Green admitted that seven girls and three boys who had been in a midday study hall were asked to take their clothes off down to their underwear while school officials searched for $10 that one of the students claimed was missing.

The students were all 11- and 12-year-olds, Green said.

"Everyone (of the students) acknowledges that that little girl had $10 and no one left that room for two hours," said Green, who authorized the search. "Nobody objected to it. Most of the kids didn't mind because they wanted to get their name cleared."

LOL Come on! At that age kids would feel total humiliation at having to strip in front of their parents let alone the principal at school. Strip searches are humiliating for adults for crying out loud!

posted March 26, 2007 01:13 AM         

The Pedro scenario especially P*ssed me off. Because if people weren't meddling in cases like his for some sort of "cause' (and there alot of Pedros out there) then people like him who don't speak English could prosper in this country. The whole idea of not learning English is detrimental to us because we won't be able to do much in this country without it....and end up like Pedro in the second scenario. It saddens me.

And don't even get me started with heavily medicating the children. And the thing about making spankings illegal...ughhhhh.