In the brilliant "Adventures of Baron Munchausen," the Prefect (Jonathan Pryce) of a city under siege by the Turks has brought before him a valiant, heroic soldier (Sting) who singlehandedly took out several Turkish cannons. The Prefect promptly has the stunned soldier executed, contending that his heroism served as a bad example for lesser soldiers who would be incapable of duplicating his feats.
And you laugh at the satirical content of the notion...until you read the following from the preferred news publication of peterdavid.net, "The Week":
"A California sixth grader was suspended from school for performing cartwheels and handstands in the schoolyard. Eleven-year-old Deirdre Faegre 'created an unsafe situation for herself and others,' said principal Denise Patton. She explained that other, less skilled kids might try to imitate Faegre and get hurt. In that case, Faegre said, the school should also ban basketball."
Suddenly it's not as funny anymore.
PAD
Posted by Peter David at November 24, 2004 01:07 PM | TrackBack | Other blogs commentingNo problem with basketball, but can we negotiate the banning of algebra? It gave me brainache for years and yet haven't used it once since I left school.
John
If everyone's special, then no-one is.
Pete, do you have a link for this article? I find the news extremely upsetting, especially in light of the fact that I'm a politician. I don't want OUR schools to act the same way.
In the Uk we had a school ban Conkers, unless protective gear is worn.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/3712764.stm
This reminds me of a great Kurt Vonnegut short story that I am blanking out on the name. It deals with a society in which anyone exceptional is forced down. Does anyone remember the title?
From the NBCTV4 site ...
11-Year-Old Declares Victory In Battle Over Cartwheels
Principal: 'It Made The School Look Bad'
POSTED: 9:51 am PST November 16, 2004
UPDATED: 10:05 am PST November 16, 2004
LOS ANGELES -- Deirdre Faegre, 11, is declaring victory over the administration at San Jose-Edison Academy charter school in West Covina, Calif., in their struggle over cartwheels.
"I actually won the battle," Deirdre, suspended for one day last week for refusing to stop doing cartwheels and handstands, told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune after school principal Denise Patton told her she could practice her stunts -- but on the playground, which is supervised, and out of the quad.
"You should always stand up for yourself if you want to make a change," said the sixth-grader.
Patton told the Tribune she is pleased to have reached an agreement with Deirdre that will keep her safe and happy.
"I'm just happy we have been able to find a viable solution," Patton told the newspaper.
Deirdre -- and the school -- earned international fame last week when news of her suspension came out.
"Only in America," was the headline over a story about the suspension in the sports section of The Times in London.
"There were a lot of kids telling me how cool it was at school," Deirdre told the Tribune.
For Patton, news of the controversy was more of a mixed bag. She said she received e-mails from throughout the nation condemning her decision because, she said, a lot of news organizations told one side of the story.
But once she appeared on NBC's "Today" show, she received just as many apologies.
"It became a crazy story because of the half-truths," Patton told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. "It made the school look bad ... but there's been overwhelming support from the staff and parents."
******************
"For Patton, news of the controversy was more of a mixed bag. She said she received e-mails from throughout the nation condemning her decision because, she said, a lot of news organizations told one side of the story."
For example, the people writig this article.
Not that I'm one to support inanity...
But the stories that I read stated that she was suspended because she refused to obey school staff. I agree that it's silly to stop gymnastic activity during recess, when baseball, kickball dodgeball (in my day, anyway) monkey bars, just plain running...
But the point, I thought, was that she was told to stop something, and didn't. Failing to obey school staff gets you in trouble. Whether the staff was correct or not is a matter for the parents to bring up.
And before y'all jump on me with the "oh yeah, well, what if the staff was abusing the girl, should she obey them then?" comments, just...don't. We're talking about a playground activity that the staff considered dangerous, potentially to her and to others. She's out on the playground, no mats, no gymnastics coach, and she could, foreseably, hurt herself or someone else. Time and place for everything...Gymnastics in the gym, properly supervised.
Now, again, it's not like she was dropping a triple lutz (yes, that's ice skating, you get my idea) or vaulting 30' off the bars, but I can see how SOME might view it as inappropriate during recess.
Of course you all realize the next step. Peter must stop writing. It is not fair that he can write better than I. Plus most of his literature requires thinking. We must put a stop to it. :-)
Like it was said in 'The Incredibles:' When everyone is special, then no one is.
You know, back in my day as a kid. We used to ride our bikes and skateboards without helmets or knee pads. We'd play on playgrounds of hard blacktop and swing on the swings as high was we could and then jump off. We'd climb on the monkey bars over the same hard blacktop.
Nobody ever said a word against any of that.
Are kids today made of glass or something?
But the point, I thought, was that she was told to stop something, and didn't. Failing to obey school staff gets you in trouble. Whether the staff was correct or not is a matter for the parents to bring up.
I've always been a firm believer that whenever an authority figure is an idiot, they forfeit all of their authority.
Den wrote...
I've always been a firm believer that whenever an authority figure is an idiot, they forfeit all of their authority.
If that isn't inviting this to become another political thread, I don't know what is =)
It's interesting that the one article mentions another side of the story, but I can't figure out what that could be. Of course, the school would have the right to ask the girl to stop if her actions were overly dangerous, as has been mentioned, but I'm not sure "cartwheels and handstands" qualify.
This reminds me of a great Kurt Vonnegut short story that I am blanking out on the name. It deals with a society in which anyone exceptional is forced down. Does anyone remember the title?
Sounds more like every Ayn Rand book written.
Yup, Harrison Bergeron (Bergerson?) is the name of the short story by Kurt Vonnegut.
"The thrill of defeat... the agony of victory." ;)
"This reminds me of a great Kurt Vonnegut short story that I am blanking out on the name. It deals with a society in which anyone exceptional is forced down. Does anyone remember the title?"
"Harrison Bergeron," as Ralf Haring alluded to above. I think they made a movie sometime in the 90's.
Apparently, the Man of Steel is not exempt from this thinking either: http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99996679
PAD, I want to thank you for turning me on to The Week. You mentioned it a few months ago, and I've been buying it ever since. It's a wonderful news magazine!
Den,
I had the same blacktop and no helmets/pads for skateboarding. It also reminds me of Brad Stine's comedy routine "Put a helmet on!" where he pokes fun at how "safe" we've tried to make things.
Helmets for bike riding
Anti-bacterial wipes
and so on. If you haven't seen it, it's recommended.
Are kids today made of glass or something?
In our society, yeah.
The title "Only in America" seems to be quite appropriate.
She's out on the playground, no mats, no gymnastics coach, and she could, foreseably, hurt herself or someone else. Time and place for everything...Gymnastics in the gym, properly supervised.
But telling a kid to stop doing cartwheels during recess? Gimme a break.
If you don't want kids to get hurt, don't let them have recess at all - simply running across the playground and tripping and falling can just as easily hurt a kid as farking up a cartwheel.
Another thing to consider is the possibility that the principle chose this course of action not out of fear for the children's safety, but fear of lawsuits. You Yanks seem to be pretty trigger-happy with those things at times.
As a teacher, I can sorta very vaguely see the "she was told not to and she did anyway" argument -- but that's grounds for an office chat or a detention at most, not suspension. Even if their reaction was vaguely legitimate (and I have a lot of problems considering a cartwheel during recess out of bounds from a safety POV, unless she was doing it over a firepit), it was way, way out of proportion.
Craig nailed it pretty well, I think -- recess has all sorts of activities which are inherently risky. Banning cartwheels is just high-level idiocy.
TWL
The title "Only in America" seems to be quite appropriate.
I would have titled it "Only in California," the state that brought us the ban on dodgeball and drivers licenses for illegal aliens.
Yup, Harrison Bergeron (Bergerson?) is the name of the short story by Kurt Vonnegut.
"The thrill of defeat... the agony of victory." ;)
---Addiontional informantion, The easiest place to find "Harrison Bergerson" is in "Welcome to the Monkey House", a handy little book that collects a lot of Vonnegut's short story all in one place.
Of course, if anybody out there doesn't know that maybe the fair thing to do would be for the rest of us to forget it as well.
Only in California would be more apt.
This is the kind of hippy dippy "We play t-ball but no one keeps score' liberal BS that makes the Red States vote Republican.
And I live in a Blue State, I voted against Bush. But this stuff screams of Political Correctness Gone Mad
And it is Bergeron not Bergerson, unless my memory for useless trivia has finally gone kaput.
I think this is a case of a story that gets twisted around until it makes a point that someone thinks should be made. It reminds me of a classic story of pointless of Army bureaucracy. During WWII, soldiers under one command were ordered to alternate the way they laced their boots. On even days, the laces had to go straight across, on odd ones they had to be criss-crossed, that sort of thing.
Which certainly _sounds_ like either pointless bureaucracy or egotistical "You'll do it because that's an _order_, soldier!" micromanaging, but there was actually a good reason. Soldiers were issued two pairs of boots, and they tended to wear one pair and keep the second pair polished up and pretty for morning inspections instead of breaking them in properly and actually using them. So the order sort of forced them to wear both sets of boots and keep them both in good shape.
Reading the administrator's side of the story, I have no doubt that this was a simple safety issue which was compounded by (a) a subsequent discipline issue and (b) a suspension that should have been a detention, or better yet, a talk with the kid's parents.
But I guess people want an excuse to talk about how The Exceptional Members Of Our Society Are Kept Down. There was a time back in grade school when our class was ordered, ordered, ORDERED not to run up and slide across the frozen water next to the swings during recess. The principal was just being a killjoy and we were write to say so. Still, wow, I don't think it was a reason for anybody to start quoting Ayn Rand...
Den wrote:
> We used to ride our bikes and skateboards without
> helmets or knee pads. We'd play on playgrounds of
> hard blacktop and swing on the swings as high was
> we could and then jump off. We'd climb on the
> monkey bars over the same hard blacktop.
>
> Nobody ever said a word against any of that.
>
> Are kids today made of glass or something?
At the risk of sounding like I'm aping what apparently is being said in The Incredibles (which I haven't yet seen), it really does have to do with liability.
It's a combination of lawyers and insurance companies. A wonderful playground in a public park in Belleville, Illinois, for instance, with a cool three-story rocket-ship shaped sliding board, built in the '50s, was torn down and replaced with a modern, plastic, cork-mat-surfaced playground with nothing taller than about eight feet.
There was nothing structurally wrong with the old playground, it had been designed and built to last, and the city had been careful about maintenance -- but the insurance premiums became beyond what the city thought the taxpayers were willing to bear. It was less expensive to raze and newly construct and thereby pay a lower premium than just pay the premium on the older playground.
To be consistent, let's ban Peter David, Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, Neil Gaiman, Judd Winick and Jeph Loeb from writing, and Alan Davis, Arthur Adams, Adam Hughes, Brian Bolland, Carlos Pacheco, et. al., from illustration.
Rob Liefeld, on the other hand, should be safe. :-)
Posted by Mark L: It also reminds me of Brad Stine's comedy routine "Put a helmet on!" where he pokes fun at how "safe" we've tried to make things.
Or, as Crow T. Robot says: "What's the point of a helmet in skydiving? In case you land on your head?"
The thing that seems to be overlooked in the article (and the posts here)is the that girl wasn't getting in trouble for doing cartwheels on the playground, but in the "Quad" or commons ground outside the cafeteria. She'd been asked to stop the activity (when not on the playground) and repeatedly ignored the teachers/administration.
This was not an isolated incident, but a pattern of repeatedly ignoring the warnings.
jeff
Peter and all,
Apparently you've all missed the point of the story. The girl was suspended, not for doing cartwheels etc. in the gym, or at recess, but for doing them in or near the lunchroom during lunch.
Now, I think that suspension in this case is a bit harsh, but this point DOES completely change the story from "isn't this a stupid thing to do" to "maybe they were just trying to keep her from knocking other kids around and she wouldn't listen."
Personally, I subscribe to the Jeff Foxworthy school of parenting: When I was a little boy, we had a 100lb TV on a five-pound TV tray. My dad's theory was. "Let him pull that on top of himself a few times, he'll learn."
In all seriousness, if a kid can't get scraped up knees, a black eye, or a broken bone or two, they're too damn insulated from life.
Glad to hear that you're a fellow The Week reader. It's easily replaced NewsTime as my weekly news mag.
This sounds like an odd case, but surely this isn't the first time something like this has happened. The punishment was harsh, and the reasoning for it was a little off, but overall the point didn't seem to be a bad one. Both sides twist it in their favor. Also, the girl feels she has won since she can now do cartwheels in the playground so it wasn't just an issue of where she was doing them.
At this year's cheerleader tryouts at my local high school, the girls were not allowed to do backflips because others that couldn't do them would get hurt trying. Not really sure how one can acquire a skill without trying and failing a few times...
This also reminds me of one of the few times I got detention at school. I was running at recess on the playground. I had just transferred to the school, and I was in the third grade so I had no idea that running would be against the rules. Some other kids from my class were racing and I joined them. I still remember the teacher telling me that I should know better, but I really didn't know any better.
The punsishment seems way out of line...but then again, at my school we are yelling at kids to not run down the halls, which seems less dangerous than doing cartwheels. We have 2600 kids and it gets chaotic even when they aren't doing gymnastics. There was an incident last year where a kid almost died during horseplay (a freak thing, they hit a window and a piece of glass severed her femoral artery. Luckily the ROTC teacher was able to save her life).
That said, the sentiments expressed by PAD are correct, if not necessarily in this particular case.
PAD,
Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing this up. This Political Correctness To The Insane Extreme is both depriving our children of - well, a lot of things that are fun to do during childhood AND leaving then woefully unprepared for the challenges of the real world.
Michael Barone has a new book out, titled "Hard America, Soft America" where he puts schools in the soft category and warns that they leave young adults unprepared for the hard world awaiting them in the workplace.
"The education establishment has been too concerned with fostering kids' self-esteem instead of teaching then to learn and compete," he says in the book.
PAD, and everyone else,
Once again, the story gets misreported. The girl has been doing this on cement and concrete floors all year. She has been told numerous times to stop, and she refuses. If she gets hurt, her parents are going to sue the school. If she cracks her damn skull, it will be a huge mess. Once again, when a student does something that she has repeatedly been told not to do, she is directly disobeying her teachers and the administration of the school, and deserves to be punished. The issue isn’t that she’s been suspended for turning cartwheels, she’s being suspended for direct insubordination. And she deserves it.
The rule that everyone needs to understand, that teachers and schools have to live by, is In loco parentis (in place of the parent). Teachers (such as myself) are legally responsible for the welfare of the students in their care. If we see them doing something dangerous and ignore it, we are liable for whatever happens to that student. So every time you hear a story about students being suspended or disciplined, think about the huge responsibility teachers and administrators have to ensure student safety. I've read a lot of people being critical of schools here, but until you are a teacher, or an administrator, you have no idea what it's like to be on the other side of the desk.
Michael Barone has a new book out, titled "Hard America, Soft America" where he puts schools in the soft category and warns that they leave young adults unprepared for the hard world awaiting them in the workplace.
So we should teach our kids to lie, cheat, and steal. That will definately prepare them for corporate America.
Sounds like a plan. ;)
"Posted by: Rob Ellis at November 24, 2004 10:12 PM
PAD, and everyone else,
Once again, the story gets misreported. The girl has been doing this on cement and concrete floors all year. She has been told numerous times to stop, and she refuses. If she gets hurt, her parents are going to sue the school. If she cracks her damn skull, it will be a huge mess. Once again, when a student does something that she has repeatedly been told not to do, she is directly disobeying her teachers and the administration of the school, and deserves to be punished. The issue isn’t that she’s been suspended for turning cartwheels, she’s being suspended for direct insubordination. And she deserves it.
The rule that everyone needs to understand, that teachers and schools have to live by, is In loco parentis (in place of the parent). Teachers (such as myself) are legally responsible for the welfare of the students in their care. If we see them doing something dangerous and ignore it, we are liable for whatever happens to that student. So every time you hear a story about students being suspended or disciplined, think about the huge responsibility teachers and administrators have to ensure student safety. I've read a lot of people being critical of schools here, but until you are a teacher, or an administrator, you have no idea what it's like to be on the other side of the desk."
In fairness, Mr. Ellis, I'm not a teacher or administrator but I agree with you 100%.
First, let me say, since it's just about midnight and therefore Thanksgiving, that I'm thankful for people like you. There is no job I would want to do less right now than being a teacher in the current education system. God bless you and your colleagues.
It's a sad but true fact of life that if the girl had been hurt, her parents would have sued the school. And they would have won.
Why? Because the teachers and staff *knew* she was doing the cartwheels in an unsafe place and they let her do it.
What would some sleazebag lawyer make of a teacher saying "Hey, she was just doing cartwheels. I didn't think it was a big deal"? And can't you just hear this response when an administrator said, "Well, what did you want us to do. We asked her to stop! Were we supposed to suspend her?": Wouldn't a simple *suspension* be better than allowing this poor innocent flower of youth to be hurt?!?!?!?!?
It sucks, I know, but the litigious society isn't going away and teachers who are virtually powerless in middle of Ground Zero (because what school district can afford to put the taxpayers money on the line to fight for a child's right to be unsafe - which you just know is how a newspaper would describe it - and I know this because I'm a newspaper editor...) are stuck with always having to take the safe approach... even when it's ridiculous and they *know* it's ridiculous.
True story...
I work at a TV station, and a couple of years ago, I had to run a special weather cut-in (tornados in the area) with the meterologist on camera and the various graphics and maps. Normally the production dept. would do this and make it all fancy with the chromakey wall, wipes, special opens, the whole nine yards. Yet, in Master Control, I managed to do the cut-in with all the effects (except for the chromakey). I even managed to get the name key on the screen with the meterologist. This was due to planning in advance on my part, plus my previous experience as a technical director.
My boss, who happened to be sitting next to me at the time, said "that looked great, don't do it again".
We have people in our dept. that don't know how to use the equipment to it's full potential, and it was easier for him to tell me not to do so, than it would be to try to teach them.
This really is a society that works harder on pushing folks down to the lowest common denominator rather than try to raise folks up to their potential.
I was a fat kid at school - I couldn't do cartwheels, or parallel bars, or kick a ball at football. Nor could I skate, run worth a damn, or fight ...
Lots of other kids could.
Bastards.
I am glad to hear that American schools have seen sense and stopped these fit, active rotters from cartwheeling all over the place.
Next - ban the footballers playing in the playground - one of those balls could break loose and hit someone you know. And all those swine who can swing the swings really high, they'll laugh on the other side of their asphalt scarred faces when they come off...
Stop 'em playing baseball too - that's just asking for trouble - you know those things are gonna go through a window or something.
My freinds, by this time next year we could have a playground full of quiet, well behaved kids who do exactly as they are told, sit quietly and make no noise.
Admittedly they will be twenty stone lard-butts, but that's a price worth paying to have a society of quiescent, obedient children, isn't it ?
Remember the slogan of Fat Obese Kids Against Fitness ( FOKAF ) - it's all very funny, until someone loses an eye !!!
Rob Ellis:
>Once again, the story gets misreported. The girl has been doing this on cement and concrete floors all year. She has been told numerous times to stop, and she refuses. If she gets hurt, her parents are going to sue the school. If she cracks her damn skull, it will be a huge mess. Once again, when a student does something that she has repeatedly been told not to do, she is directly disobeying her teachers and the administration of the school, and deserves to be punished. The issue isn’t that she’s been suspended for turning cartwheels, she’s being suspended for direct insubordination. And she deserves it.
If your statement is true, than I'm huessing the suspension was due to a combination of her continued behavior and the fact that the school knows in this Once again, the story gets misreported. The girl has been doing this on cement and concrete floors all year. She has been told numerous times to stop, and she refuses. If she gets hurt, her parents are going to sue the school. If she cracks her damn skull, it will be a huge mess. Once again, when a student does something that she has repeatedly been told not to do, she is directly disobeying her teachers and the administration of the school, and deserves to be punished. The issue isn’t that she’s been suspended for turning cartwheels, she’s being suspended for direct insubordination. And she deserves it.
If the statement that you tell is true, my guess is that she was suspended for a combination of 2 reasons:
1) Her continued behavior and ignoring of stated rules.
2) The school's knowledge that we are living in an overly litigious society and, should she continue and break her neck, they would certainly be sued.
Fred
"Michael Barone has a new book out, titled "Hard America, Soft America" where he puts schools in the soft category and warns that they leave young adults unprepared for the hard world awaiting them in the workplace."
"So we should teach our kids to lie, cheat, and steal. That will definately prepare them for corporate America.
Sounds like a plan. ;)"
Actually, the problem is that too often the schools teach them that if they DO lie, cheat, and steal they will get a slap on the wrist and all will be forgiven. In the real world they will be fired and/or have the living snot beaten out of them.
The problem with the principal using the justification that others could get hurt trying to imitate Deirdre is that she just opened the door to being sued by anyone who might get hurt trying to imitate, for instance, a cheerleading stunt. That's because cheerleading is a sanctioned school activity so one could make the case that the school was negligent in not banning it for the exact same reasons that they banned Deirdre's cartwheels. One may try and make the case that cheerleading stunts are supervised and done by "professionals" and that the average person would know better than to try and imitate them; well, that applies to movie and TV stunts as well but that doesn't stop them from being sued when someone hurts themselves recreating something they watched.
A particular example I remember concerns a college football movie that was made in the 90's (I don't remember it's name because I never watched it). During the previews, there was a scene where some of the players were lying in the middle of the road on the lane division line, at night, as cars sped by them; now some real life kids got seriously hurt doing the same thing and blamed the movie producers. I don't remember how exactly the issue resolved itself in the end, but I do remember reading that, because of this, that scene was cut from the final print of the movie.
Now for those who asked about the Harrison Bergeron movie, it was a Showtime production back in 95 that stared Sean ‘Samwise Gamgee’ Astin. I remember really enjoying it when I saw it and some scenes still pop up often enough in my head, like the explanation that the whole "make everyone average (read: lowest common denominator)" concept started because Michael Jordan was so good that no other player had a chance against him, or the scene with the average, randomly selected, president whose only solution for dealing with countries that fell out of line was to "Nuke-em! Nuke the f***ers!". I found that disturbing even then.
Actually, the problem is that too often the schools teach them that if they DO lie, cheat, and steal they will get a slap on the wrist and all will be forgiven. In the real world they will be fired and/or have the living snot beaten out of them.
Unless they end up working somewhere like Enron, MCI Worldwide, or other such places of ill-repute. ;-)
Raphy
If you don't want kids to get hurt, don't let them have recess at all - simply running across the playground and tripping and falling can just as easily hurt a kid as farking up a cartwheel.
As a matter of fact, a number of schools have, apparently, cancelled recess.
I have to say, the comments expanding upon the news item beyond what was initially reported are pretty interesting. I can see how the argument can be made that the problem wasn't the girl's behavior, but her refusal to obey instructions of the teachers.
Nevertheless, I still think the principal brought a lot of it on herself in even opening her mouth over concern about imitative behavior by other kids (which she did, apparently, say). That's the thing that catapulted it to national attention.
The bottom line is that the girl had NOT hurt anyone. So the school was essentially disciplining the girl, not for having done something unsafe, but because of their perception that there was potential for unsafety. That's just too ephemeral a notion to make the kid a disciplinary example. It's an elementary school, not the army.
You can argue that, if the school waited until it happened, they might be leaving themselves open to litigation. Well, here's news: The day they opened the doors of the building, they left themselves open to litigation. That's just the way it is. The fact is that kids ARE much more likely to injure themselves playing basketball. They can trip, slam into each other, get a split lip from a ball, jam a finger, get an elbow in the mouth. Basketball is a constantly shifting series of events, any one of which could lead to injury. One girl doing controlled cartwheels simply isn't on the same level of presenting a hazard.
It has to be all or nothing. Either do away with any manner of physical activity on the premises, or let kids be kids.
PAD
"If you don't want kids to get hurt, don't let them have recess at all - simply running across the playground and tripping and falling can just as easily hurt a kid as farking up a cartwheel."
"As a matter of fact, a number of schools have, apparently, cancelled recess."
Oh, well, thank God, because in a society where doctors are expressing concern over growing obesity and a rise in juvenile diabetes, the last thing we want to do is encourage kids to burn off calories in free play.
PAD
I was going to offer up the Puyallup, WA, school district as an example of political correctness run amok. After all, they forbade any mention of Halloween this year, as a) the portrayal of witches as twisted, hideous, evil creatures might offend the (tiny) Wiccan community, and b) some of the children couldn't afford costumes, and they might feel bad.
Then I remembered the incident in '02, when a high-school senior caught some flak in national news after posing for his yearbook picture in blackface. Nobody in the school seemed to understand why it might be offensive.
So, maybe they're not excessively PC - maybe they're just stupid.
PAD, how can it possibly be "all or nothing"? For starters, I don't think you can sue for injuries that occur during a game unless some kind of negligence can be shown (sending a kid out with a cracked helmet, that sort of thing.) I believe that the parents have to sign waivers for atheletes to that effect.
Secondly, can you IMAGINE what would happen if we just "let kids be kids"??? Rollerblades in the hall, skateboard jumps off the roof (which happens anyway but on the weekends when we aren't there. I've seen the videos), backyard wrestling with thumbtacks and neon tubes. It would be like Rollerball.
And yes, that WOULD be very very cool. But...
"PAD, how can it possibly be "all or nothing"? For starters, I don't think you can sue for injuries that occur during a game unless some kind of negligence can be shown (sending a kid out with a cracked helmet, that sort of thing.) I believe that the parents have to sign waivers for atheletes to that effect."
First of all, you can sue for anything. A man sued the planet Mars because he said the Martians were interfering with his dreams. So any sentence that contains "I don't think you can sue" is pretty much wrong. Second, I wasn't referring to organized sports. I was talking about kids out on the school blacktop during recess playing pick-up basketball...which is what I kind of figured the father and kid were referring to. Should that be stopped?
"Secondly, can you IMAGINE what would happen if we just "let kids be kids"??? Rollerblades in the hall, skateboard jumps off the roof (which happens anyway but on the weekends when we aren't there. I've seen the videos), backyard wrestling with thumbtacks and neon tubes. It would be like Rollerball."
And that would have some vague relevance to what I was saying if you weren't taking my simple opinion that kids' activities shouldn't be interfered with, especially if they're not hurting anyone, and going for the good old reducto ad absurdum. Just about every school I've seen in the past years has big honkin' signs up that say "NO SKATE BOARDING. NO ROLLER BLADING."
As long as specific rules are posted and everyone knows them going in, that's fine. If this kid had been busted for roller blading, it wouldn't even have made the local news. What I take issue with is making the rules up as they go. When you do that, then you run into exactly this kind of arbitrary decision making.
Obviously a school doesn't need to spell out EVERYthing in advance. I doubt there's any rules against, say, climbing out a window and walking on a ledge. But any reasonable person would say a child seen doing that should be stopped, even if he's one of the Flying Wallendas (actually considering their track record, especially then.) But this, to my mind, was an unreasonable application of arbitrary decision making.
PAD
In the real world they will be fired and/or have the living snot beaten out of them.
You're kidding, right?
Try telling the workers at companies like Enron that those who were lying, stealing, and cheating were losing their jobs.
They weren't.
Until they got caught.
We live in a society that tells you not to do those things, and then, once you get into the Real World, you have to do those things.
So, no, I don't think we do a good job at all of preparing our kids for Life After Schooling.
I took a course in high school that was college prep - a lit/history course. But, we couldn't use cliff notes; we'd get in trouble.
So much for preparing for the college way of life. ;)
PAD,
Sorry if I reductoed all the way to ad absurdum. I tok the statement "any manner of physical activity on the premises" at face value.
And while you are absolutely correct that anyone can sue for anything at any time, it is also true that the vast majority of idiot lawsuits go nowhere. On the other hand if (to take the situation in question to a possible extreme)little Deirdre Faegre does a cartwheel into someone's face and breaks something, they have a case (not a case I agree with--shit happens--but a case. I doubt that the guy you mentioned collected anything from Mars).
Again, let me be clear--if they just saw this kid doing cartwheels and suspended her it was a ridiculous abuse of power. If, on the other hand, a teacher made the judgement that things were getting out of hand and told the kid to knock it off and she kept right on doing it, secure in the knowledge that mommy and daddy would sue...well, we are making a monster.
Craig says:
"You're kidding, right?
Try telling the workers at companies like Enron that those who were lying, stealing, and cheating were losing their jobs.
They weren't.
Until they got caught.
We live in a society that tells you not to do those things, and then, once you get into the Real World, you have to do those things."
Well, the "until they got caught" pretty much invalidates the "they weren't" don't you think?
But even if you take the cynical view that most crooks DON'T get caught, it is a breathtaking leap to say that "you have to do those things." (those things being lying, cheating, stealing.)
I'm going to guess that you exclude yourself from the list of people who have to behave unethically to get by. My own experience is that people are vastly more often good than not.
Peter David wrote:
> First of all, you can sue for anything. A man
> sued the planet Mars because he said the
> Martians were interfering with his dreams.
Please forgive me for sounding dense, but I have to ask if this is metaphorical, or you're citing something which actually happened?
If this was a real case, I wonder how the plaintiff served the defendant?, he asked with his tongue in his cheek.
I'm going to guess that you exclude yourself from the list of people who have to behave unethically to get by. My own experience is that people are vastly more often good than not.
My point was that schooling does NOT prepare you for life and what you can expect.
"My point was that schooling does NOT prepare you for life and what you can expect."
On that we can agree.
A particular example I remember concerns a college football movie that was made in the 90's (I don't remember it's name because I never watched it). During the previews, there was a scene where some of the players were lying in the middle of the road on the lane division line, at night, as cars sped by them; now some real life kids got seriously hurt doing the same thing and blamed the movie producers. I don't remember how exactly the issue resolved itself in the end, but I do remember reading that, because of this, that scene was cut from the final print of the movie.
That would be THE PROGRAM.
When my friends and I heard about this tragedy we debated about it and come to the only conclusion possible:
Natural selection in action.
"Please forgive me for sounding dense, but I have to ask if this is metaphorical, or you're citing something which actually happened?"
Absolutely 100% happened.
During my college days, I earned a living by working several different jobs at New York University law school. And I wound up reading a LOT of stuff about various strange cases. And what I remember was that there was this guy who, acting as his own lawyer, filed suit against the inhabitants of the planet Mars.
The judge listened to the guy's assertion that the Martians were invading his dreams. And the judge calmly issued a restraining order against the planet Mars, enjoining them from coming anywhere near the guy's brain. The plaintiff, clutching the "injunction" in his hand--the legal equivalent of a placebo--thank the judge profusely and left satisfied.
PAD
Craig,
I said:
"Michael Barone has a new book out, titled "Hard America, Soft America" where he puts schools in the soft category and warns that they leave young adults unprepared for the hard world awaiting them in the workplace."
You said:
"So we should teach our kids to lie, cheat and steal. That will definitely prepare them for corporate America.
Sounds like a plan:)"
You know, seeing as how most people do not work for corporate America (and certainly not at the upper levels) and seeing as how I did not refer to corporate America in my post and seeing as how most of the people I know who do work in corporate America - gasp! - do not lie cheat and steal and seeing as how the topic of this thread is how we are as a nation seemingly determined to penalize excellence, which you did NOT address, this is simply you going on another rant to suit your worldview no matte what the topic.
Of course, that's par for the course anymore.
Everyone who all of a sudden thinks it's all that significant whether the girl was abusng/disobeying rules in this particular case are missing the point. It is the principal's WORDS that are CHILLING.
The New York Times, coincidentally, had a story in last Sunday's edition that was obviously nspired by "The Incredibles" titled "When Every Child Is Good Enough".
Among the interesting tidbits:
"Many parents believe that their children, mostly in elite schools, are being pushed too hard in a hypercompetitivr atmosphere. But other parents are complaining about a decline in programs for gifted children, leaving students to languish in untracked classrooms. Some critics of education believe that boys especially are languishing in SCHOOLS THAT EMPHASIZE COOPERATION INSTEAD OF COMPETITION. No Child Left Behind, indeed."
"But the basic issue is the same one raised four decades ago by Kurt Vonnegut in "Harrison Bergeron", a short story set in the America of 2081, about a 14-year-old genus and star athlete. TO KEEP OTHERS FROM FEELING INFERIOR, the Handicapper general weighs him down with 300-pound weights and makes him wear earphones that blast noise, so he cannot take "unfair advantage" of his brain.
That's hardly the America of 2004, but TODAY'S CHILDREN DO GROW UP WITH SOCCER LEAGUES AND SPELLING BEES WHERE EVERYONE GETS A PRIZE. On some playgrounds, dodge ball is deemed too traumatic to the dodging impaired. SOME PARENTS CONSIDER MUSICAL CHAIRS DANGEROUSLY EXCLUSIONARY."
"Children are constantly feted for accomplishments that used to be routine."
"Fans of competition complain that it's been de-emphasized for most students. SOME SCHOOLS HAVE DROPPED HONOR ROLLS AND CLASS RANKINGS, and the old practice of routinely segregating smart students in separate tracks has given way to the heterogeneous "inclusion classroom".
"Competition has long been out of fashion in education schools, as indicated in a 1997 survey of 900 of their professors by Public Agenda, a nonprofit public opinion research group. Only a third of the professors considered rewards like honor rolls to be valuable incentives for learning, while nearly two-thirds said schools should avoid competition."
"To some critics, that cooperative philosophy is one reason why so many characters like Dash are bored at school. 'Professors of education think you can improve society by making people less competitive,' said Christina Hoff Sommers, author of "The War Against Boys" and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise institute. "But males are wired for competition, and if you take it away there's little nterest to them in school."
"The movie never quite resolves the issue. In the end, Dash is allowed to race but is coached not to get too far ahead of the pack. The writer and director, Brad Bird, offered a less ambiguous answer in an interview. 'WRONG-HEADED liberalism seeks to give trophies to everyone just for existing, he said. 'It seems to render achievement meaningless. THAT'S A WEIRD GOAL."
>Or, as Crow T. Robot says: "What's the point of a helmet in skydiving? In case you land on your head?"
Makes perfect sense if, as I was, you're trained to do a sort of 'tuck and roll' as you hit to minimize the force of landing.
>My boss, who happened to be sitting next to me at the time, said "that looked great, don't do it again".
Must have been related to one idiot I worked for who was upset when she saw me teaching myself WORDPERFECT (using its built-in tutorial) one of the brand new personal computers we'd just got in the office (16 years ago) during a slack time when there wasn't much else to do. "That's not what we're paying you for." You'd think a boss would LOVE to see staff learning new tricks on their own initiative whereby they can become more productive, but, no ...
> most of the people I know who do work in corporate America - gasp! - do not lie cheat and steal
Ask any personel manager about the percentage of people who either lie outright, or at least seriously misrepresent the fact in their resumes in order to get a leg up in the competition for those scarce jobs. Especially those jobs where the firm has artificially boosted the requirements for applicants.
A California sixth grader was suspended from school for performing cartwheels and handstands in the schoolyard.
The problem with schools today is a lack of the ability to properly discipline the students. She was told over and over again not to perform the cartwheels in areas where students walk, and ignored the requests even after the parents were involved. The school did the only thing they could do, which was suspend her.
This brings up the question of whether or not schools should be allowed to discipline children in other ways, such as spankings. I think that if spankings were still performed in schools, that there wouldn't be a lot of the problems that schools now face. Of course it wouldn't solve all of the problems, but it would be a deterrant to some.
Novafan (Bill's personal pest)
As I clicked the Comments link, I said to myself, "I wonder how many posts before someone brings up Harrison Bergeron?" Myself bet five bucks on 2; I took the bet, thinking he was being overly optimistic. But nope, second reply and there's Harrison.
You have a well-read readership, PAD. Can I borrow five bucks?
- Z
My personal pest says:
"This brings up the question of whether or not schools should be allowed to discipline children in other ways, such as spankings. I think that if spankings were still performed in schools, that there wouldn't be a lot of the problems that schools now face. Of course it wouldn't solve all of the problems, but it would be a deterrant to some."
There are a few problems here--1. I don't know that all teachers can be trusted with the responsibility of belting kids. Given the stress they are under what happens if one snaps and just gets medieval on some kid's ass? 2- It's just a matter of time before some parent sues. 3- You know that some parent who is beating the puss out of his kid will blame the teacher and the poor kid will probably back him up 3- It probably doesn't work, unless you have really really tough nuns doling out the punishment, the kind of nun who tried to escape INTO East Germany 4- At the high school level at least, most of the kids could take me. Yes, even the girls.
So this is one teacher who wants to pass on the whole corporal punishment offer. Thanks but no thanks.
And how do I get a personal pest but not, say, a personal groupie or raker of leaves, something I could really use?
Of course, that's par for the course anymore.
So, in your personal Crusade for... what was it exactly are you bitching about now?... you couldn't see a joke when it walked up to you and smacked you in the face.
Either that or you don't know what a smiley is - you know, one of those :) things that I put in my post.
Bill said And how do I get a personal pest but not, say, a personal groupie or raker of leaves, something I could really use?
LOL. I hope you know that I'm just messing with you. :0)
LOL. I hope you know that I'm just messing with you. :0)
Yeah, yeah, we cool. I just bought Les Yeux Sans Visage on DVD so I'm pretty much in love with all of mankind right now.
Bill said So this is one teacher who wants to pass on the whole corporal punishment offer. Thanks but no thanks.
I should clarify. I think Principals should be the one's to give spankings, if any are given. This would make a visit to the Principals office more scary to kids than a joke as it currently is.
Novafan
At about age 9 or 10 I once did something bad at school (I have no idea now what it was) and received some corporal punishment in the form of being spanked with a shoe of some sort (The Slipper, it was called). My main feeling afterwards was "is that it?" The actual punishment was brief and not very painful. The worst part about it was the embarassment of being punished at all. Other than that I considered I would rather have this than some of the more tedious punishments like detention or writing lines. They went on for ages...
"This brings up the question of whether or not schools should be allowed to discipline children in other ways, such as spankings. I think that if spankings were still performed in schools, that there wouldn't be a lot of the problems that schools now face. Of course it wouldn't solve all of the problems, but it would be a deterrant to some."
Good idea, but these kids are too young to appreciate the consequences of such a serious punishment. Tell you what, I'm going to volunteer to institute this new form of discipline where I think it will do the most good in American education: College co-eds.
This whole thread made my head hurt. This is what happens when you start down a bad road and try to make it better with patchwork solutions.
I'm sure this will fan the flames, but....this is why people want school choice. Why the public school system should not have a monopoly on education or, yet, not exist at all.
This girl apparently is good at cartwheels. Really good. The principal's problem seems to be that if other students emulate her without the skills, they'll get hurt. The folks in the thread who compare this to the football or basketball teams have it dead on. Why should any student, possessed of skills, be discouraged or punished for displaying them when they don't hurt anybody??
I figured this one out years ago when I was a good student academically, but not athletically. The trophies on display in the halls went to the strong kids, not the smart ones. They got sent home on awards night with a pat on the back and a kick in the ass cause the durable award went to the locker room bully. Our lesson: "yeah, yeah, report cards are just spiffy, but better run that gridiron like a champ."
Now, this circumstance shows us the reverse. If this girl had, say a talent for designing guns. I mean of course, on paper, drawing blueprints, that sort of thing. Anybody want to bet she'd still be in a sling with Mr. Principal? What if another child built one of her designs? What if she did? The school can't be endorsing this type of violent creation...heavens, no.
In all three examples, as well as some others posted to the thread, creativity, creation and achievment, the things our schools are by their very mission desgined to instill, are verboten by an arbitrary standard handed down by the bias of one or a few administrators. Not a fan of handsprings? Call them dangerous and punish them, while endorsing hockey. Don't like hockey, but love the balance beam....by all means scratch the hockey games. This bias can be applied to more cerebral pastimes , of course.
The main problem here is while if it was my backyard or yours, or ABC Inc.'s school, we'd simply say "well, they set the rules. Stop the backflips." But, see, this is the State. If we don't like what a private group does, we pack our bags and head for the one we do like, or like better, but not with the state. In this case, public schools. The principal pulls a stunt like telling a student to curb her natural abilities, we get big conflict, like we got.
I haven't forgotten about you folks who said "well, the girl wasn't punished for backflips, she was punished cause she wouldn't listen to the teacher." What's next? telling the sighted kids to wear blindfolds because of the visually-impared student? At a certain point, one fellow was right in the thread, officals lose all their authority when their rules display obvious bias, in this case, literally, a child could spot it.
What's that you say? The law does this to all of us at one point or another? We all have to put up with nonsensical rules, like the girl should have, or we go to the slammer? True, but as one can see, our prison population us way way up, and our society is increasingly polarized on this issue of when its a good idea to ban behaviors which affect little outside of ourselves, and which in turn, frequently cause ourselves to learn the best new ways to do things.
In short, there's no moral high ground to stand on with the story of the girl's suspension. Students should listen to teachers, and teachers should not be so shortsighted as to stifle student talents. Barring a utopia, it'd be nice if this girl could easily have said "Mr. Principal, if you don't like me using my natural ability to do handsrpings in school, that's okay, my parents and I will start transferring me to a new school tonight, but Mr. Prinicpal, if you do this to too many students who utilize their talents in ways you don't like, you may need to find yourself a new job."
Kevin Ryan
Oryan makes some great points. To me, school DISCIPLINE is a separate matter. What frightens me is the growing MINDSET that kids are made of glass, that lauding meritorious achievements might make other kids "feel bad", not realizing that they may have a special gift that will make them "feel good", which will be repressed as well.
This is a sad and scary way to think, I think.
From gymnast's view
Re "Cartwheel compromise best,' (Your View, Nov. 21):
The reason I refused to stop (doing cartwheels) was because I was not given a designated area even though my parents had asked for it. Also, the school never made it an issue at the beginning of the year. There are many sports out there and you can get hurt by playing all of them, but they did not allow my sport.
My dad helped me because there are many people in the past who made great changes such as Luther and Galileo and Rosa Parks that stood up to stubborn unfairness. If you do not go against something that is wrong how do you expect to fix your problems?
It is a good thing my dad will home-school me because education these days is not as good as it should be. I will not miss my friends because we have one another's phone numbers and we can see each other any time. Also my dad says that anyone not using the schools should not have to pay for them.
Deirdre Faegre
West Covina
When I was in school, all those short years ago, as I remember it, especially at lunch, the ones who were supposed to be in charge of us stood at the front of the cafeteria, usually facing away from those they were meant to supervise. Granted, if the girl wasn't supposed to exert herself in this manner, and it hadn't been the first time, how long had this been going on before all this took place?
Also, as far as the glassification of the kidfolk of America, my 3 year old keeps freaking out his preschool teacher because, (GASP) he throws himself around and jumps and runs and play-fights! And our downstairs neighbor throws a big fat hissy if my 40-pound kid walks from his bedroom to our living room because it (shudder) gives her stress! The kids ain't the only ones that are getting overprotected.
Posted by Jerome Maida
"But the basic issue is the same one raised four decades ago by Kurt Vonnegut in "Harrison Bergeron", a short story set in the America of 2081, about a 14-year-old genus and star athlete. TO KEEP OTHERS FROM FEELING INFERIOR, the Handicapper general weighs him down with 300-pound weights and makes him wear earphones that blast noise, so he cannot take "unfair advantage" of his brain.
*******
Another story that explores the same themes as "Harrison Bergeron" but concentrates more on how such a society like Bergeron's can come into being is C.S, Lewis's short story "Screwtape Proposes a Toast", the 'sequel' to his novella "The Screwtape Letters" (both stories star the demon Screwtape and are set in Hell but otherwise they are seperate stories. Both are published under the titile 'The Screwtape Letters'). Lewis approaches the topic from the opposite direction but comes to some of the same conclusions as Vonnegut does about what a society like that does to people's lives and souls. Forget the fact that this book can be found in the Religious Books section of the bookstore; 'Toast' is a good companion piece to 'Bergeron'.
Chris
A little late for this thread, but I just came across this article and couldn't help but remember this discussion.