I asked that you not get your panties in a bunch. I guess that went unheeded.
Do you really think comments like this are going to help lead to an intelligent, civil discussion? Telling people what to think and how to act doesn't sit well. In this kind of forum it's trolling.
1) Public schools ARE government owned. If you send your kids there, expect them to follow GOVERNMENT rules.
They're publicly owned. THat means they belong to the taxpayers and are there for the taxpayer's benefit. Personally I don't think that accostoming children to being observed by cameras all day, and having their freedoms excessivly restricted is in the public interest.
As other poeple have mentioned all these rules about hats and zero tollerance rules about anything resembling a weapon didn't exist 20 years ago, and schools were considerably safer then. Our society is crushing the concept of personal responsibility. When I was in school it was safe for kids to carry knives on their belt, because none of them would consider using one as a weapon. Fights still happened, but not ones with serious or deadly injuries.
We keep getting more rules. However we keep failing at teaching young people to be personally responsible for their actions. It doesn't help that school administrators use zero tollerance policies because they don't want tohe responsibility of having to make reasonable judgements and taking steps to help correct bad behavior. Instead they just toos the student out of school for a while.
A computer can teach a child information often better than many teachers. The advantage of a teacher is that they can help build character in students, and engage the students in discussions which make the students not just learn the information, but to learn why those lessons are important.
2) Wearing hats is a big distraction. Hats are almost always related to gangs in one way or another. Hats cover eyes and block others' view of the teacher/board. They are sometimes just a pain in the neck as no one can stop laughing about the dork in the rooster tail hat. No hats, simple rule. My school doesn't allow sunglasses indoors either. Keeps the stoners sober.
Yea, I'm sure that kid wearing the red hat with a big number 8 on it is a member of the bloods or some crap like that.
If you can't see the student's eyes because their had is down in front of them, they obviously aren't paying attention. The problem isn't the hat, it's that the student isn't paying attention. You can tell that regardless of if they are wearing the hat or not.
If the hat is blocking the view of other students, or is overtly distracting, then having them remove it is reasonable. Banning all hats is just being lazy so you don't have to exercise any judgement.
3) Minors don't have the same rights. All the civil libertarians can scream and moan all they want, they still can't change the truth.
They are human beings, and they have rights. The have less rights because they are minors and they are placed in the care of adults. That means that the adults are taking on the responsibility to do what's in the student's best interests because the students are not considered to be mature enough to make good decisions.
Somewhere along the line we quit trying to infringe upon their rights as little as possible, and started treating students like inmates that cannot be trusted in the slightest.
4) IDs are a big pain. I know. I wear one all the time I'm in school, more to show an example to the kids since all the faculty recognizes each other.
But, you know what? I don't know all 1600 kids. If some punk from the rival school, or one of the local bangers who dropped out 2 years ago decides to drop in and cause trouble I can pick him out because he's the fool with no ID.
Only if he's really stupid, or you're paying really close attention. It's pretty easy to make something that looks like the school ID and wear it to get into the school. Unless you stop each kid to verify their ID people can still slip past if they want to cause trouble.
IDs may be necessisary in a really large school, and they may help in a few circumstances. The fact that we may need IDs in schools shows that we have some much more basic problems in society. Our society is suffering from moral decay that we all need to work to address.
Another benefit is I know who I'm dealing with when I have discipline issues in school. A few weeks ago, I busted 4 girls for drinking at the dance. I didn't know a one of them and had to confiscate ID's (and keys, since they were in the car). No IDs means everyone is named Jim Bob, AFAIK.
Since I assumed you called the police, all you needed to do was ask for a copy of the police report, which I suspect your administration would want anyway.
Nah, that probably wouldn't work.
