Common Sense

[raisindot]

Common sense would go a long way in coming up with adequate responses.

http://www.wbz.com/Child-s-Christmas-artwork-deemed--violent------SOU/5896962

A child was asked to draw something about Christmas and the child drew Jesus on the cross. This has been a symbol of Christianity for two thousand years, not a violent image warranting therapy.

This is just yet another example of total stupidity regarding "zero tolerance policies" at schools. Kids bringing Swiss army knives to school, having a picture of a gun (kids doodle) etc, are not signs of a homicidal rampage...

Okay, this story has been totally mis-reported, by the Taunton Gazette, based mainly on the lies of the boy's publicity seeking father, who is seeking 15 minutes of fame. According to Taunton officials. It is not a case of "zero tolerance policy." It was, at worst, an overreaction to a possible misperception of a child's call for help.

1. The children in the class were never asked to draw pictures of Christmas or a holiday. It hasn't even been established whether the kid drew the picture in the class.

2. The kid was not brought to a psychologist because he drew Jesus on a cross but because he put his name over the image. School officials, rightly or wrongly, thought that might be a sign that the child was being persecuted at home. Listen to the kid's scuzbag father and you can see why.

3. The kid was not suspended for the drawing.

4. The father, who is trying to get his 15 minutes of fame and money, has changed his story so many times now he's replaced Tiger as the new Lyin' King.

Citation:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...on_officials_dispute_reports_on_jesus_sketch/

Jeff in Boston

 

[mmack66]

"Making the story more compelling, the boy’s father held court for much of the day at his girlfriend’s apartment, granting interviews to reporters from Providence to Boston, demanding that the school district compensate him for his family’s pain and suffering."

"“It hurts me that they did this to my kid,’’ Chester Johnson, the boy’s father, said in an interview with the Globe. “They can’t mess with our religion. They owe us a small lump sum for this.’’"

 

[AndrewWiggin]

Okay, this story has been totally mis-reported, by the Taunton Gazette, based mainly on the lies of the boy's publicity seeking father, who is seeking 15 minutes of fame. According to Taunton officials. It is not a case of "zero tolerance policy." It was, at worst, an overreaction to a possible misperception of a child's call for help.

1. The children in the class were never asked to draw pictures of Christmas or a holiday. It hasn't even been established whether the kid drew the picture in the class.

2. The kid was not brought to a psychologist because he drew Jesus on a cross but because he put his name over the image. School officials, rightly or wrongly, thought that might be a sign that the child was being persecuted at home. Listen to the kid's scuzbag father and you can see why.

2. The kid was not suspended for the drawing.

3. The father, who is trying to get his 15 minutes of fame and money, has changed his story so many times now he's probably forgotten his own name.

Citation:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...on_officials_dispute_reports_on_jesus_sketch/

Jeff in Boston

Indeed. I read this when I woke up... The father seems to be a tool. We could just replace the drawing story with any number of stupid suspensions of kids, as has been demonstrated by previous posters...

 

[Mr. O]

Maybe it was because I lived in an rural community, but in high school almost every male had a pocket knife with a clip on it. You knew who had a knife because of the clip and top part of the knife poking out of the pocket. Teachers never made any fuss over it even though 70% of the student body was "armed" with a "dangerous weapon" about 95% of the time. As long as you didn't fool around with it you were fine. Heck I remember comparing pocket knives with some of my teachers! Geez. And people look at me funny when I tell them I use to be a education major but don't want any part of the public school system.

 

[mr_economy]

Maybe it was because I lived in an rural community, but in high school almost every male had a pocket knife with a clip on it. You knew who had a knife because of the clip and top part of the knife poking out of the pocket. Teachers never made any fuss over it even though 70% of the student body was "armed" with a "dangerous weapon" about 95% of the time. As long as you didn't fool around with it you were fine. Heck I remember comparing pocket knives with some of my teachers! Geez. And people look at me funny when I tell them I use to be a education major but don't want any part of the public school system.

Assuming KCK means Kansas City, then I'm sure you realize that rural schools are becoming increasingly rare, and that urban schools have all sorts of issues with school violence that require strict no-weapons policies.

I also grew up in a rural community, but one of the teachers at my high school had worked several years in a Wichita high school. After several gang-related stabbings on school grounds (Wichita and Topeka have some neighborhoods that would rival Compton), they were forced to install metal detectors at all school entrances and hire security staff to screen students.

It's an unfortunate trend, but especially as state education budgets dry up and you start consolidating schools - putting more kids from varied backgrounds into the same size building - violence becomes a greater issue.

Then again, even in our rural community, we had a kid try to poison his pregnant teacher by putting pure mercury in her coffee. Mental illness doesn't discriminate, and it only takes one crazy kid to make one think about the consequences of allowing things like knives on school grounds.

 

[AndrewWiggin]

Then again, even in our rural community, we had a kid try to poison his pregnant teacher by putting pure mercury in her coffee. Mental illness doesn't discriminate, and it only takes one crazy kid to make one think about the consequences of allowing things like knives on school grounds.

Holy crap!

I suppose seeing a silver liquid in your coffee isn't the "best part of waking up."

On an unrelated note, my dad explained last month that when he was in school, they would push mercury around with their bare hands because they had no idea it was poisonous.

 

[kreigle]

Holy crap!

I suppose seeing a silver liquid in your coffee isn't the "best part of waking up."

On an unrelated note, my dad explained last month that when he was in school, they would push mercury around with their bare hands because they had no idea it was poisonous.

I remember in 7th or 8th grade, the science teacher passed a blob of mercury around the classroom, we passed it from hand-to hand around the class, marvelling at how heavy it was. I think someone may have even dropped it at one point.

I have many memories of picking mercury off the floor from broken fever thermometers.

 

[airplanedoc]

Carrying a pocket knife was pretty common where I went to school as well. Same at Work. Come in with a Ka Bar you might have a problem, but most everyone has a folding knife of some sort.

 

[AndrewWiggin]

I remember in 7th or 8th grade, the science teacher passed a blob of mercury around the classroom, we passed it from hand-to hand around the class, marvelling at how heavy it was. I think someone may have even dropped it at one point.

I have many memories of picking mercury off the floor from broken fever thermometers.

So you're not horribly deformed now? I'm not going to ingest the stuff, I just want to play around with it, I now feel like I've been denied a joy of childhood.

I mean come on, it's liquid metal!

 

[Prince]

I remember in 7th or 8th grade, the science teacher passed a blob of mercury around the classroom, we passed it from hand-to hand around the class, marvelling at how heavy it was. I think someone may have even dropped it at one point.

I have many memories of picking mercury off the floor from broken fever thermometers.

Ditto. I think I turned out ok. At least that what all the voices keep telling me.

And to think, we drove in cars with metal dashboards and never used seatbelts.

 

[cellopudding]

Sadly, common sense isn't very common.

The principle and I would be having a nice long conversation were this my child. Stupid things like this are why I want to either home school my child or put him through a private school, of which there are several in my neck of the woods. Unless you have a lot of kids I figure it's a small investment in my child's future in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe it was because I lived in an rural community, but in high school almost every male had a pocket knife with a clip on it. You knew who had a knife because of the clip and top part of the knife poking out of the pocket. Teachers never made any fuss over it even though 70% of the student body was "armed" with a "dangerous weapon" about 95% of the time. As long as you didn't fool around with it you were fine. Heck I remember comparing pocket knives with some of my teachers! Geez. And people look at me funny when I tell them I use to be a education major but don't want any part of the public school system.

As someone who is in school to become a teacher, it makes me sad to read these comments. Sad, because I know that people are becoming so fed up with "the system" that they simply want no part of it. Sad, because there's so much that could be done to improve the system if our children were kept in public schools, or if more folks decided to become teachers. I feel that school boards and administrators who make policy would be held accountable if more parents were to say "no, I will not accept my children being taught to not think; to be so open-minded their brains fall out." Sort of a "squeaky wheel getting the grease" situation. I also feel that a lot of damage could be undone, so to speak, if more people were to become teachers and help students learn how to interpret situations with candor and an ounce of "common sense." I think a lot of public school officials need to realize that they serve the public, and if we put the public back into the public schools, I think we would see a lot less of these incidents.

 

[professorchaos]

At the risk of sounding trite, common sense exists only in theory. It has yet to be seen in use.

 

[Unknownsoldier]

Maybe it was because I lived in an rural community, but in high school almost every male had a pocket knife with a clip on it. You knew who had a knife because of the clip and top part of the knife poking out of the pocket. Teachers never made any fuss over it even though 70% of the student body was "armed" with a "dangerous weapon" about 95% of the time. As long as you didn't fool around with it you were fine. Heck I remember comparing pocket knives with some of my teachers! Geez. And people look at me funny when I tell them I use to be a education major but don't want any part of the public school system.

You and me both..............

Tom

 

[Mr. O]

Assuming KCK means Kansas City, then I'm sure you realize that rural schools are becoming increasingly rare, and that urban schools have all sorts of issues with school violence that require strict no-weapons policies.

I also grew up in a rural community, but one of the teachers at my high school had worked several years in a Wichita high school. After several gang-related stabbings on school grounds (Wichita and Topeka have some neighborhoods that would rival Compton), they were forced to install metal detectors at all school entrances and hire security staff to screen students.

It's an unfortunate trend, but especially as state education budgets dry up and you start consolidating schools - putting more kids from varied backgrounds into the same size building - violence becomes a greater issue.

Then again, even in our rural community, we had a kid try to poison his pregnant teacher by putting pure mercury in her coffee. Mental illness doesn't discriminate, and it only takes one crazy kid to make one think about the consequences of allowing things like knives on school grounds.

I live in Johnson County now but grew up and went to school in Miami County.

 

[Mr. O]

As someone who is in school to become a teacher, it makes me sad to read these comments. Sad, because I know that people are becoming so fed up with "the system" that they simply want no part of it. Sad, because there's so much that could be done to improve the system if our children were kept in public schools, or if more folks decided to become teachers. I feel that school boards and administrators who make policy would be held accountable if more parents were to say "no, I will not accept my children being taught to not think; to be so open-minded their brains fall out." Sort of a "squeaky wheel getting the grease" situation. I also feel that a lot of damage could be undone, so to speak, if more people were to become teachers and help students learn how to interpret situations with candor and an ounce of "common sense." I think a lot of public school officials need to realize that they serve the public, and if we put the public back into the public schools, I think we would see a lot less of these incidents.

It's the whole system that's broke. You can't teach kids an assessment test and expect that they will grow up to be engineers, mathematicians and scientists. The school system is dumbed down and as such our kids are dumbed downed. When standards have to be lowered to fulfill accomplishment as in the case of test scores we have a problem. Until the education system re-focuses on the betterment of the pupil and not obtaining a bigger grant than the previous year, the system will remain broke.

What was it that Sigmund Freud said? The definition of insanity is the doing the same thing over expecting different results? Yep, I feel that quote best describes our current state of affairs concerning public education. That and the emphasis on organized sports rather than intellectual thought....

Just now thinking of it, my stepson is in the fourth grade and brought home a "new and improved" way of doing multiplication of double digit numbers. The "new" way was a joke. It involved using a box and made working the problem more challenging as compared to the "old fashioned" way. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel. But I suspect this has to do with grant money and window dressing to the state "look at we did!!!"

I could on and on, and I probably should have stopped earlier in this post. I will kindly bow out and hope this doesn't take a turn and wind up another closed thread. If anyone would like to continue the discussion please feel free to pm me.

~I'm out~

 

[airplanedoc]

Even the rural schools around here have begun to go down hill. So many people have moved out of town to the outlying areas to get the kids in better public schools because their kids cant get a decent education in town, Now the rural school districts can't keep up with the influx of kids, even thou they have plenty of money.

 

[Shane]

Well, this could go down a really crooked, bumpy road, and fast. I'll say this as a public school educator that loves his job:

What we do is generally at the mercy of parents, believe it or not. Oh, sure, power-mad school board members who have political aspirations are one thing, but as stewards of the public trust, teachers and administrators tiptoe around eggshells because parents lob a lot of grenades at schools in the form of litigation.

Case in point: a kindergartener at my school is incredibly socially inept. Now, I teach music, but this kid has been a problem in my class before (he's urinated all over himself during my class and never once decided to raise his hand to use the restroom). In an effort to get the child to open up, his teacher tried to get him to share some pencils. The next day, there's an e-mail from the boy's mother saying he shouldn't have been made to share his pencils and that her attorney would be contacted, which apparently never materialized. The protocol for that is to notify school headquarters of a potential lawsuit and legal counsel is sought, which costs money. Public school systems are some of the most sued entities in the country. Maybe if we didn't have one wackjob parent after another trying to get money they didn't earn, we could concentrate more on teaching children, but this Chester Johnson fellow is more a part of the problem than anyone who teaches a child.

An addendum: some of the comments about public schools in this thread are quite inflammatory and purely politically-charged: until you teach children for a living and have to go what we go through, it would be nice if you realized that people like me don't clown on your line of work, so it would be great if you didn't clown on mine.

 

[Mr. O]

I'm just adding this and I'm out. I'm sorry you feel that way Shane. But as an employee of the state, we, the tax payer, are your collective boss and reserve the right to "clown on your work." The operative phrase here is your work. Not you personally. It is not your fault nor the fault of many educators in our country. Everybody shares blame from the state who demands specific expectations in exchange for funds to the education board that implements the demands to the teachers who carry out the demands to the parents who don't like the demands/system and fails to do anything about it. I think it is agreed that something is wrong and cannot be easily fixed. No one is saying, at least I'm not, that educators should bear the full weight of blame. I was going to be an educator once too in a time long, long ago in a town far, far away. It's the system Shane, not you and I hope you understand this. Please accept my apologies if you feel the the different views on public education somehow was targeted at you personally.

 

[danek]

But as an employee of the state, we, the tax payer, are your collective boss and reserve the right to "clown on your work."

Mr. O, I respectfully disagree with your statement. We have no right what so ever to micro-manage and second-guess his daily duties. You've heard the sayings, "too many cooks in the kitchen" and, "too many chiefs not enough indians", this is a prime example.

I am not intending to be inflamatory here, and I have no idea of your occupation or expertise, but I would wager that a professional educator is better qualified to make decisions regarding a classroom of children's education than a common taxpayer.

Delegation of duties is much more productive than micro-management. My .02.

 

[Abdiel]

Dan. While we tax payers do not have the role, nor should we, to micro manage the daily activities of schools we most certainly have the right to critque it on a higher level.

Administrators are hired to run things but that does not mean the tax payers are not entitled to an opinion or voice when something it screwed up.