Nothing ticks me off more...

than someone (especially a gov't/public agency) trying to tell me how to raise my kids or wanting to do it for me. Now schools are being sued because they aren't acting like parents....

The family of a gay teenager who was fatally shot in class blames the school district for allowing their son to wear makeup and feminine clothing to school... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26218530/

Why didn't the parents enforce the dress code on their son? I hardly think the school is to blame on this one. Discuss....

It would be less of stretch if the school was to blame for not giving all of its students a safe and fair place to obtain an education.

Unless the parents expressedly forbade their son to wear such things, to the point where school faculty were providing a change of clothes for him upon arrival, then they could possibly be to blame.

How ever, even if this were the case, and they were to blame for that example, it would still circle back to why didn't the school do what was needed to provide a safe learning environment.

I guarantee you that if the school enforced the dress code, and sent this gay kid home over his choice of clothes, we would be hearing about how that school was excercising homophobic practices and promoting hate, to which this family in question would be filing another lawsuit entirely.

The current generation of parents are so pants-on-head retarded, that I'm amazed people aren't inadvertantly killing themselves at a faster rate.

If they told him not to wear the girly clothing then they'd be sued for violating his rights and if they let him wear it then they get sued for any damage he incurs. How can they win?

^Sorry, I edited my post as you were creating yours.

Christ almighty. In related news, I found out some disturbing stuff about my nephews' schools this weekend. Not sure if this is a state/county thing or if things are this f'd up all over:

1. No more "tag" on the playground.
2. No more P.E. (WTF!!?!?!??)
3. (This one is the most disturbing to me:) Remember when your parents used to get a list of "required items" that you were expected to have for class at the beginning of the school year? They still do, but now when the kids bring said "required items" to class, they're put in a big pile and "distributed," so that little johnny douchenozzle doesn't feel inadequate because he doesn't have a spongebob trapper keeper. Freaking weird.

1. This has been the case for a looooooong time right now. No more dodgeball either, (my favorite part of 5th grade despite the fact I sucked. It was still fun.)

2. I agree, WTF, I just started jogging daily again 2 days ago and at 25, I regret not taking PE more seriously in grade school How are we supposed to combat the obesity epidemic if our kids think it doesn't matter. Bravo America, bravo.

3. Sounds kinda socialist. I could also get butthurt over the fact that you used waterhead as an insult. I recently revealed in another thread that I was born as one. But I'm not that sensitive. I'm only pointing this out because the amount of sensitivity we're shoving down our kids throats is brainwashing them into becoming adult babies.

I got made fun of A LOT as a kid. I got over it. Why can't kids be taught to overcome some of lifes simplest obstacles as opposed to crying foul to the nearest authority? This type of mentality leads to a very tragic adulthood.

Hi, my name is Jason and I drive a Miata. I wear kilts. I've been known to put my hair up in bunches, even when in public. Somebody please fatally shoot me for not following the social norms, so that my family can sue someone for not enforcing social norms and hit the lawsuit lottery.

I'm going to have to echo the sentiment that, it's not the school's job to dress the kids; it is the school's job to create an environment where fatal hate-crimes aren't committed.

Truly tragic.

No tag and no P.E.? WTF?!? When I was working teaching junior high students those were staples. The kids loved P.E. And they loved tag games. The restrictions on tag were just that they weren't allowed to play it while climbing on other equipment that they could potentially fall off of. Heck, I even organized cool stuff for the kids, like field trips to a local rock climbing gym, and the parents loved that.

mistanfo wrote: Hi, my name is Jason and I drive a Miata. I wear kilts. I've been known to put my hair up in bunches, even when in public. Somebody please fatally shoot me for not following the social norms, so that my family can sue someone for not enforcing social norms and hit the lawsuit lottery.

[AA]Hi Jason.[/AA]

Sorry, I can't help you. As a fellow Miata-driving, kilt-wearing guy who has been known to have facial hair and/or a pony-tail, I feel such an action would have a minimized impact if I were to be the one to shoot you.

Original post edited out of respect (and no, I didn't see the reference in the other thread.) My bad. Hopefully Salanis wasn't born a douchenozzle (I joke, I keeed.)

I would post The Great PC Post, but in difference to Capt. Zib, and having treated many hydrocephalus patients, I'll refrain as that is a tough one to live with and I wouldn't want to tarnish The Post with the truth.

The school system has been taken over and corrupted. The people who did it are: 1. Useful idiots. 2. Socialists/Communists pushing their agenda on the children, because anyone old enough to think it through would just as soon bust-a-cap on them. Wonder why Johnny can't read? It's because if he did, he might "offend" the other children who can't read.

That dumping all the stuff in a pile and redistributing them is just too far. I'm sorry, that kid needs a private school, home schooling or the parents need to move.

One of my great beliefs about our existence on this ball of rock is that if we're going to survive we all need to get along to some degree.

In a great twist of cosmic irony, however, few things make people get along worse than forcing them to get along.

How we continually deal with this dichotomy has largely defined civilization through the ages and will probably continue unresolved until the last dying whimper of the last guy who gets to turn the lights out before he leaves.

And, please, PLEASE stop with the "Communists have taken over the school system" nonsense, Doc. You're too smart to be a finger pointer and a conspiracy nut like that. Yes, the imperfections are many and wide ranging, but most of them stem from simpler roots like apathy or misguided/selfish good intentions. Trying to pin blame on some unseen conspiracy just makes the problem worse. The vast majority of people involved in public schooling are working unreasonably hard to give kids an exceptional education in the middle of a rapidly changing society of a young nation.

Instead of pointing at mustache twirling communist puppet masters, I could just as easily wag my finger at a taxpayer who continually votes to remove public school funding, then chastises the same system he just screwed for not having the resources to give the kid a proper education.

I could, but I won't. Those folks are just trying to do their version of the "right thing" as well.

jg

Dr. Hess wrote: The school system has been taken over and corrupted. The people who did it are: 1. Useful idiots. 2. Socialists/Communists pushing their agenda on the children, because anyone old enough to think it through would just as soon bust-a-cap on them.

In my experience it's generally not the educators leading these sorts of things. Usually it's in response to parents complaining or CYA to head them off. Or, these pushes are lead by shiny-happy administrators who have never actually run a classroom. Yes, there are some happy fuzzy neo-hippy teachers out there that are really easy to point out as what fruit-loops they are. Most teachers are too busy actually doing their jobs.

It is the parent's responsibility to raise their children.

It is not the school's problem.

Who let the kid walk out the front door with those clothes and makeup on?

poopshovel wrote: Original post edited out of respect (and no, I didn't see the reference in the other thread.) My bad. Hopefully Salanis wasn't born a douchenozzle (I joke, I keeed.)

Don't sweat it, and thanks for the email. I wasn't truly offended, I just used your post as a jump off for my rant about how the oversensitivity/political correctness issue in this country has gone a bit overboard.

pete240z wrote: Who let the kid walk out the front door with those clothes and makeup on?

Who let the other kid walk out the front door with a gun!?

Sorry, JG. The school system has been taken over by the left. Call them Left, Pinko, Commie, Socialists, whatever you want, it is only a matter of symantics. Don't believe me? Look at the teacher's union (NEA) platform from their meetings. I don't think teaching children to read is even on it. Then you add in the tremendous overhead that has been placed on teachers by various government agencies and getting the kids to read just isn't the important part. And, I'm sorry, it doesn't take a lot of money to teach a child to read. It takes some type of book, a person refered to as a teacher, and a student that is motivated to learn. More money isn't one of those three things. Fancy computers, new books, new buildings, after school music programs, none of that actually teaches the child to read. There is a limit as to how much the property owner can cough up for a failed system. So, if the taxpayer votes no more money, the school needs to figure out how to teach the child with what they have.

The best thing for Stig Kilmer would be for the Schroeder family to start teaching Little Stig his alphabet and phonetic reading as soon as possible, like when he starts talking. If they wait for the school system to do it, Little Stig will be at a great disadvantge versus those who did get taught at home. Call it "Home Schooling" if you want, but that is how most successful people learned to read. And guess what? It didnt' cost much at all.

I too think that school systems are pushing towards a bit of a socialism-esq methodology. Its not a conspiracy, but an alarming trend.

Even when i was in middle school i can remember being pushed that i had to share things that I had brought for myself. I even got in trouble for in essence telling them to pound sand. "But you have to share!" "Not if its MY stuff"

I think half the reason that I lacked academic motivation in highschool is that it was not challenging. I already knew half the E36 M3 they were trying to teach me.

"no child left behind" is more like "75% of children held back"

confuZion3 wrote:

pete240z wrote: Who let the kid walk out the front door with those clothes and makeup on?

Who let the other kid walk out the front door with a gun!?

Guns don't kill people. Dresses and makeup kill people.

I don't know that this kid really needed to go to another school. It's mind boggeling that a kid would shoot another kid because they wore a dress. I would think to do that, the kid would have to be really messed up and I'd chalk this up to a freak occurrence.

As a side note, when I was in highschool there were a group of football players who would give kids E36 M3 who they felt were too feminin, my brother was one of them. So one day my brother decides to where a dress and makeup to school, they never bothered him again, it was brilliant. But I suppose it would depend on whether people are picking on kids because they think they are weaker than them or because they feel threatened by them.

JG and Dr. Hess, I fall somewhere in the middle with you two. I really do feel that in the last six years, our school system has taken an interesting turn towards some pretty damn communistic or socialistic views.

My high school implemented a few interesting things, one that caused almost the entire math department to quit. They elimintated the remedial classes and grouped everybody in with the "normal" students (average IQ, by definition 100). This means that people with developmental disabilities are either pushed too hard and fall behind, or, more likely, the entire class slows down so that the slower students can stay with the class.

The change that caused the math department turmoil was simple: the teachers are not allowed to teach! They are supposed to sit at their desks after introducing the new lesson to the class. "OK, today, we're going to learn about the order of operations. Here is today's problem. Get in your groups of five and figure it out. Don't come to me for help."

Here's a problem. What does seven math teachers minus four math teachers equal? Crowed class rooms, pissed-off students, and a lot of job openings.

The dumping of your stuff in the pile and then distributing it randomly to all of the other students in the class is Marxist Communism at its very basic level. There is no incentive to purchase anything other than crap because the odds are, you won't be using it anyway.

Super Edit: The reason I am in the middle is because I agree with JG that there is no conspiracy. It's just an "alarming trend" as apexcarver said.

confuZion3 wrote: The dumping of your stuff in the pile and then distributing it randomly to all of the other students in the class is Marxist Communism at its very basic level. There is no incentive to purchase anything other than crap because the odds are, you won't be using it anyway. Super Edit: The reason I am in the middle is because I agree with JG that there is no conspiracy. It's just an "alarming trend" as apexcarver said.

I don't think anyone here will disagree on the stupidity of redistributing materials. I'm sure there are wacko teachers out there who do that. Just because there are a few wackos, doesn't mean that is a common practice or that a school mandates that as standard procedure. (They might, but I'm guessing that's an individual choice.)

Would you say it is socialist/communist for a teacher to say, "The whole class needs extra materials like glue sticks, paper, markers, cleaning supplies, etc," and ask parents to donate these items which the teacher then sets aside for communal usage on projects? These are items that teachers frequently have to pay for out of their own pockets.

In my own observation, the #1 factor for the success of a kid in their educational career and giving them a good jumpstart on the rest of their life... is parental involvement. It is obvious when a student has parents that are involved and active in their education.

Yes, parental involvement is paramount to the child. That is why we have issues like West Helena, AR. How many of those people out dealing drugs and shooting at each other had parents that sat them down at 3 and taught them their alphabet and the sounds the letters represented? How many taught them how to roll a joint instead?

Asking the students to bring in donations of glue, etc. is not communistic. Requiring the students to bring in glue which is then redistributed to everyone is. As confuZion3 points out, that might work the first year, but the word will get out and the next year only the cheapest Chinese crap from the dollar store will be in the pile.

Conspiracy or Collusion. The results are the same.

Dr. Hess wrote: The best thing for Stig Kilmer would be for the Schroeder family to start teaching Little Stig his alphabet and phonetic reading as soon as possible, like when he starts talking. If they wait for the school system to do it, Little Stig will be at a great disadvantge versus those who did get taught at home. Call it "Home Schooling" if you want, but that is how most successful people learned to read. And guess what? It didnt' cost much at all.

Duh. Already planned. A vast majority of my formal education and even some of my rather expensive private university schooling was a monumental waste of time.

Reading and learning by myself was where I learned most everything.

Playing with myself...oh wait...

Please stop impugning teachers' unions, they're only trying to help. Look, I just went out and got the mail and there's an offer from the Florida Education Association to save us some money on our insurance.

jg