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When Students Become Informers
The parents of a teenage girl, a high school freshmen in Lancaster, California, are facing $40,000 in legal bills because their kid did what school officials all across America have been urging kids to do for years: tell school officials if she saw or heard anything suspicous.
She did, quoting a classmate as saying: "We want to kill people; we're sick of them." (If I or anyone reading this called the police everytime we came across that comment online, a lot of teenage boys would be in jail.) She said the boy later threatened her for reporting his remarks.
He was immediately charged with making terrorist threats and intimidating a witness, and a juvenile court judge ordered him to serve six months' probation, according to the Times. But courts overturned his expulsion as unconstitutional and unjustified, and the boy and his parents then sued his accuser, her parents, school and Los Angeles county officials. The charges, said his suit, made him the object of ridicule, hatred and distrust.
A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge threw out his suit, but not before the girl's family had spent $40,000 in legal fees defending her. The school, which asked her to inform, refused to represent her after she did. So now her parents are suing them to recoup their losses.
Now, school and county officials are squabbling about whether they are obliged to pay her legal costs or not. In considering the implications of student informing, one has only to think about the fear, anger, and humiliation, the court, school and legal time expended, and the overall cost and implications of this single remark. Then multiply it by millions of kids informing on millions of other kids, as is now seemingly national educational policy.
School officials in California are arguing that it's going to be tough to get informers if schools won't defend them. You bet. But it's unclear whether insurance companies will pay such claims. The Times quotes the director of the Education Legal Alliance of the California School Board Association as saying schools do not have a responsibility to shield or indemnify students in that kind of situation. There's a legal difference between students and employees, said the official. That raises free speech issues on both sides of the student informing issue: kids who say stupid or ill-considered things are treated as terrorists, and kids who think they are doing the right thing aren't protected with they speak out either.
That suggests that neither of these high school freshmen should have landed in the position they did. Both deserve sympathy. As repugnant as informing is to many (me included), kids are told over and over that it's their job to protect themselves and their friends from dangerous peers, by turning them in. Adolescent boys have been saying offensive, profoundly stupid things -- even hateful ones -- forever, as everybody online knows. Are schools really creating safer environments, or instead institutions in which speech of all kinds is unsafe?
Turning kids into informers is viscerally anti-democratic. Student informing has been a hallmark of the worst political systems on record, whatever political labels have been attached to them, by bringing out the worst in human foibles, from fear to unchecked malice. Now it's easier than ever to turn a classmate in -- just make an anonymous call to an 800 number or, better yet, turn somebody in by e-mail. The target usually never gets to confront his accuser, unlike the student in California.
There's also the question of proportion. If a high school freshman expresses a desire to kill somebody, isn't there any educational response or remedy short of arrest for terrorism?
The story illustrates the dreadful position both of these people have been put in by the insane response to the Columbine tragedy. In a sense, the girl was doing what she's been asked to do. The boy -- there was never any evidence he planned to harm or kill anyone -- is threatened with jail for allegedly making a remark that would, in other times, be considered stupid or worthy of some suspension time.
In the months after Columbine, students all over America were asked to become informers by law enforcement authorities and educators. Companies like the Pinkerton Corp. under contract to state and local governments, even created sites like WaveAmerica.com, which urges kids to report the errant behavior of their friends and classmates, and provides toll free numbers manned round-the-clock by people who take and store reported information in a computerized system.
The chilling implications of student informing on social ties, civil liberties and free speech went largely unremarked-upon by the popular media in the national hysteria that followed the Columbine killings; by most parents, and by the people who really ought to have known better, educators themselves. Civil libertarians did sound repeated alarms, but they were ignored.
Definitions of dangerous behavior are wildly subjective and complex, and kids often had a tough time distinguishing between run-of-the-mill obnoxious and posturing behavior, and truly dangerous behavior worthy of being reported to the police. Trained psychologists disagree about symptoms and behavioral warning signs.
Lost in the Columbine mob scene was the fact that violent incidents in schools are rare in America, and getting more so by the year. Gamers, oddballs, Goths and geeks, kids who are bored, angry, alienated, or individualistic are naturally particular targets for kids-turned-informers. Anybody who's different or doesn't conform -- or who is angry -- can seem dangerous, especially given the wildly varying criteria applied in different schools.
Online, teenagers flame each other and everybody else all the time. If they do it in school, they can -- and do -- end up in jail.
But the bottom line seems as clear as it was after Columbine. It's the job of parents, educators and psychologists to watch our for and anticipate dangerous behavior. It should rarely be a legal or law enforcement issue, and it ought never to be the job of kids, students or classmates.
The message to kids isn't that schools are safer, but for everybody is to watch not only what they say, but what they hear.
They would pay at least as much attention to controling the jocks who routinely beat and rob other students. Actual assault and robbery are apparently OK with the adults who run the schools - but threats to the system rate an informant network. Oh well, at least the kids are learning first hand what it means to be an American.
Or, if the kid chooses to place her faith in the wisdom of Amendment One, she will say, "Excuse me?!? You're telling me that I can't tell someone else that I hate them and would be quite happy if they were to die? Well... in that case, Esteemed Principal and Board Members, I hate you all and would be quite pleased with your immediate demise
Of course, we've already established that humans under 18 possess no rights, so I guess we can indeed punish them for their feelings.
yes, for example, the words of freedom contained in the Declaration of Independence have a very powerful effect on people -- they remind people that freedom is the most precious state, deserving of the utmost protections.
Personally, I'd rather get to know an angry kid than a happy one. 'Cause if you're not angry about something you're either dead, blind, or evil.
i am not an angry girl
but it seems like i've got everyone fooled
every time i say something they find hard to hear
they chalk it up to my anger
and never to their own fear
I agree everyday kids say "I'm going to kill you" etc. Most students know that this is not to be taken seriously. When athorities start to encourage and put a halo around turning people in for comments like above, kids and thier parents think they are protected. In reality kids are cruel and will stop at no end to make some little freshmans life a living hell.
The job of deciding whether a student is dangerous should be left to adults that way kids lives aren't screwed up because athorities want to be lazy about their job.
In the same schools where such literary pillars as "The Crucible", "1984" and "A Brave New World" are being cranked out of the learn-o-matic, we find the quintessence of irony in the Salem-esque peer-on-peer informing reigning king. It isn't something to fret over, my friends, it is something to savor. It is rare to find such profoundly macabre beauty in the school system that has evolved here, and I intend to keep what beauty there as I may. Certianly, it spells the doom for the ideals of our nation, but at least we will make a grand corpse... American Nero...
I don't htink that I would want my child to have even one "counseling" session with the school shrink. And as a parent my childs health care "including mental health" should be under my control.
That's no solution, and for us, that'd be a rather difficult proposition - since our right to bear arms is codified as part of the Bill of Rights (Amendment 2 to the Constitution).
Besides, how would you know that no one has guns, even in whatever country you live in? How can you guarantee that? If you're dealing with someone who intends to commit a crime anyway, then do you REALLY think that, if they want a gun, they're going to care about the fact that the method they used to get it, or the possession of it, is illegal? I rather doubt it.
Everyone comes up with "fixes" that on the surface, give the impression that something's being done, but the fact is, no one is fixing the real problem. The real problem isn't the guns - it's the people.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I saw the story (on a link from Blue's to foxnews.com), and I laughed my ass off. Yes, it was a chicken strip, and the kid (8 years old, I believe the article said - second/third grade age) pointed it at a teacher, and said "bang bang bang" or "pow pow pow" or something to that effect. The whole crux of the issue there was the (IMO moronic) "zero-tolerance" policy that the school was using as an excuse for this. They considered it a weapon.
As others have said, these zero-tolerance policies discourage the punishment fitting the crime - punish everyone, if the "crime" can even be remotely thrown into one of a small set of categories, instead of considering per situation the proper punishment. I understand principals and educators are busy - but the answer is either more people or better ways of dealing with the problems - not brain-dead rules that eliminate the thought process.
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Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
This is NOT Albania.
Children should not be jailed for careless comments. You're trying to manufacture a legal standard that would be considered absurd for adults.
Also, you're just trying to cover up SYMPTOMS rather than going after the real problem. You're not even trying to FIX the symptoms of the problem.
This is the real world here, not a Crime and Punishment fantasyland. Society will have to deal with your insistence on needlessly driving marginal elements of society into deeper isolation.
IOW, this is the shit that CAUSED Columbine.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The only thing that kids of today put their efforts into is dealing drugs, getting alcohol and committing crimes. Have you ever lived in one of our cities? The kids there do nothing apart from hang around doing these things, because they've never had any discipline or a good schooling system that encourages team sports and other activities.
::shrug::) The second one had practically none at all. It was a private school, which she paid most of the tution *herself*, from having saved most of her money from part-time jobs before and during her senior year, when she attended there. My graduating class and hers only had one alcohol-related death each, and in both cases, it wasn't the students' faults - both were hit by other drunk drivers, while being stone sober themselves.
I think you should get to know some teenagers. For every drug addict/drunk/criminal in public schools today, there are 10 trying to keep their heads down and get through school. The two high schools my sister attended are a good example (one of which I also went to, 6 years before). The large public one had a surprisingly low instance of both violence and drug and alcohol abuse. (It wasn't such a good place to learn in, but...
My sister also worked to pay her own way through an AAS in nursing, and is working for her BSN now too. I'm acquainted with a teenage boy who works two jobs, one as an engineering assistant at the SO's company, and he's going to be able to pay the slack his college scholarship won't cover. Think kids are all lazy today?
les
A lot of teenage boys ARE in jail (or more likely, prison). Actually a hell or a lot of teenage boys are in prison.
What may have blinded Katz is that these hundreds of thousands of teenage boys in prison are not what you call... white. In the U.S., being black or hispanic, male, and teenaged is effectively enough to put you in prison, quite absent anything else except cops who don't like you (and cops do not like black teenage boys, by their nature).
Katz' concern is good... but their are even larger ones being ablated.
Buy Text Processing in Python
Wait'll they start using strong encryption and hiding messages in images/chat sites to plot their attacks... Oh wait, that was Tuesday's story...
Are the schools are going to take the responsibility of protecting there informents. Since the school are taking the role as police they must also take on the role in protecting thier sources. Now this child did what the school ask her to do. The suit agianst the child is stupid becuase she told the truth it is what the school did with the information that is the problem.
"Student informing...is an irrational, anti-democratic practice"
Puh-lease!
Are you educated, Katz, or do you just play a liberal arts major on Slashdot?
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I am going to kill every single human.
--- I do not moderate.
Had he harmed you or anyone you know in any way?
I forget what 8 was for.
I spent about 4 or 5 years as a radio station news director/reporter/announcer. Strange (and IMNSHO very bad) things happen to information when (a) you're forced to reduce it to 30-second chunks that have nothing to do with logic and (b) every second or third story has to be suffixed with a "hook" terminating in "Details after this..." leading into a commercial break. The distinction between information and entertainment becomes blurred, even for the announcer. Everyone gets hooked on the hooks. Both announcer and audience become locked into a vicious cycle; we turn ourselves into a giant gibbering gaggle of crisis junkies. The content itself ceases to matter.
In the not too distant future, we'll all be going around in our usual routine, except that every 60 or 90 seconds, we'll all stop and wait nervously for 30 seconds, then resume whatever it was that we were doing before. Blarg.
Anyhow, that's one of the reasons I got out of the biz.
Ex-newsman concludes rant... We'll have more, right after this...
(P.S. Sometimes Jon Katz pisses me off. But I say keep him around anyway.)
Zontar The Mindless,
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
This is crazy!!!
Now, if she didn't tell anyone untill after the kid did kill someone then she would be held as an ocmplase (kan't sqell). The is all screwed up!
If you were to select HTML Fromatted, I bet it wouldn't look so funny. You could probably get by just adding a <P> at every paragraph break. I'd try it, but I don't have access to Lynx.
I know I'm gonna get modded to flamebait for that, but I have to say it :
America is a sick country.
Silly yanks.
This is nuts! Calling people 'tattletales' for reporting negative behavior?
This is called accountabilty. When my neighbor is dealing drugs, I'm calling the police.
When my kid is bugging the neighbor's dog, I expect my neighbor to call me to discipline my kid.
Your rights end when they step on someone else's!
Holding each other accountable to certain behavioral standards is good for society.
Sheesh!
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
citations?? I know a number of people who have been affected by prescription drug bans (including not being allowed to keep prescriptions in the office and not being allowed to have parents come and administer said prescriptions and being able to keep an asthma inhaler in the office, but having to come down [three flights of stairs, possible] on one's own whilst having an asthma attack to get it -- a teacher coudln't get it for her) but no one who's had to have medical attention yet. I'd love to have some evidence to beat clues into people's heads with.
Good luck at getting a teacher to give a damn, though.
True story: A friend of mine, in her senior year of high school (last year) got numerous written threats from a set of boys who told her that they would kill her for being a dyke. when she brought the notes to her principal he told her that she had 'brought it on herself' and that if she weren't so obviously gay she woudln't have problems. But when she told the boys that if they laid a hand on her she'd beat them up, *she* got suspended.
lovely, eh?
There's plenty of evidence that schools are much more dangerous for queer kids than straight kids. Unfortunetly.
I will not pass judgement, I will just provide a few quotes and mention a few historical facts:
1. Criminal societies are farely relaxed in their morals and internal laws. Mostly it is stronger wins rule. Snitching though is an undisputable crime punishable by the worst death executioners can think of.
2. In stalinist russia of 1930s anonymous informing was very very much encouaraged to get at so called "enemies of the people". This, in many cases, lead to a neighbour reporting a neighbour as a imperialist spy for not turning lights off in the bathroom. Such report would generally result in arrest, torture and death sentence.
3. Recently I have seen a discussion on FOX about school shootings and I have heard a phrase that I have found funny and scary at the same time: "... although we recognize that parents have certain amount of responsibility for their child's moral and ethical growth..."
That's it folks. You think, since I lack appropriate organs to do so.
Everybody Lies. But it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
What I want is an 800 number I can call every time Katz kills me with his pedantic tone.
-don
But only so much. Since they're usually minors (at least in these cases) wouldn't it be possible to make them "anonymous" and have the school protect their identity?
Another issue here: if the threats were investigated thoroughly before it was brought to court and whatnot, some of these troubles could be avoided.
Either way: if the school is encouraging children to rat each other out, they should be prepared to bear the cost of any and ALL legal bills that result from such activities. Set up a trust fund, cancel the football team and cheerleaders, have a bake sale, whatever - but if you're asking the students to step out on a limb, you should be there with an airbag, not a chainsaw.
-=-
Computer geek for hire. Reasonable rates. Email me.
I think it's sad that the persons family has to pay all that money to lawyers *shiver*, but I also think that there is a valuable lesson in this - nobody likes a squealer.
They used to tell kids this in shows like Leave It To Beaver, or Ozzie and Harriet, in fact, I even remember an episode of Full House like that, but look at the sitcoms and garbage we have on TV now... are any shows on TV family oriented with good moral values? It's time to get rid of the TV folks, it's not the handy-dandy babysitter it once was. Television has turned into a whiz-bang-centric cesspool of garbage, while entertaining, is not for anyone under the age of 18 (Yes, there are always exceptions ex. PBS, Discovery).
I also find it interesting that if there is a big problem in society, I instictly blame television right away without even thinking about it... kinda makes you wonder.
Sig missing. Reward.
What we really need is a Katz madlibs. Now that would be fun.
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
Nonsense.
Zero tolerance is about a politician who, after hearing the desparate cries of "enough of this! do something, anything! make a law!" from a vocal group of the voters he represents, throws up his hands and chooses the easiest possible solution: all situations that meet the following criteria (X,Y,Z) are punishable by (P).
It's about the fact that you can't come up with a law that fairly covers all situations, so you draw hard lines and wash your hands of the problem.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
I did no such thing.
The easiest solution is not to control the masses, it's to make a quick, short-sighted decision and move on. Lazyness, ignorance and greed are the more likely culprits not malice or fascism.
Get over the Nazi's. The situation in America today is light years from the situation in Germany 65 years ago.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
To take your example to it's logical conclusion based on the situation that we are discussing, when your daughter tells her sibling that she's going to strangle you in your sleep your first response should be to ban her from the house and your property and then to have her arrested and tried for conspiracy to commit murder
You're very funny. The original quote and statements had nothing to do with punishment. They only had to do with reporting crime. If you stand on a street corner and yell about how stupid the president is and that he should be dead. People will ignore you because you are anoying. If you stand on a street corner and screem about how you're going to kill the president, the secret service will rip your life apart and ask questions later.
The response to the stimulus is based upon the need of a response. If I caught my daughter actually putting the pillow over my head, you're darn right I would call the cops. If I found out, via an informant, that she was feeling that I needed to die in a big way, I might react differently.
The original school incident reported in the Katz article had the school acting responsibly.
I can tell you this: If someone I worked with, or one of my kids or someone I knew told me they were going to kill me. Darn straight I'd take it seriously.
One more thing, you may think you're bad ass and angry with a temper, but it is obvious you've never actually met someone with a real temper. Don't behave as if you know what you are talking about just because you might have had a misguided problem or two as a child.
Beware the wood elf!!!
There is a guy working for the U.S. governement who saw someone doing something illegal and then when he reported it, he was punished and eventually forced to leave his job. Okay, there's a lot of guys like that.
I never thought I would see the day when John Katz agreed with people in the U.S. government who retaliate against whistle blowers.
Okay, I know it's a stretch to say a hard core liberal like John Katz can be anything like a highly placed Republican official, but there it is. He hate's people who blow the whistle. He hate's people who turn others in for doing something wrong.
Did he ever even stop to think about what might if happened if the guy had said, "I'm going to kill a lot of people," and the girl who overheard him did nothing, and then the guy turned around and killed a lot of people?
I try to teach my kids two things on this subject. First, "I don't want to know if your sister bad mouths me when I'm not around." Second, "If your sister tells you she's going to strangle me in my sleep, I want to know about it." It's a very different thing to say, "This school sucks, you suck, the world sucks and I wish you would all just up and die real slowly and painfully," and/or "I'm going to kill you all and your little dogs too." See the difference. John Katz doesn't, but the girl who got sued did.
Beware the wood elf!!!
The motivation here is to help the State as well. By removing the dissadents, the state is better off.
I think there's more of a paralell here.
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Every time some kid does something stupid, every other kid that could possibly have any kind of similarity to them is immediately suspect. In World War II, we placed people of Japanese origin in "internment camps," merely for the crime of being from a certain place. I'm well aware that the measures being taken now against children to protect them against themselves are nowhere near as drastic as the Japanese internment camps, but the concept is the same.
Not a day goes by that you can open a paper and miss an article about some person or corporation suing another person or corporation. This case (either the court battle against the accused or the accuser) seems like it could have been resolved with a little thought and effort, and without expensive court battles.
We probably don't bother to give attention to things that are *actually* problems most of the time, in a vain hope that a "zero-tolerance" policy (read: zero-effort policy) will allow administrators and parents to avoid the difficult chance of having to clear away the amazing amount of ambiguity that is present in interpersonal relationships.
When a kid shoots another kid over a dispute, whose fault is it? Is it the owner of the gun's fault for not restricting access to the gun, or would the kid have found another way to obtain one? Is it the parents' or peers' fault for not imbuing the virtue of understanding or restraint, or is that up to the kid to learn? Is it the administrator's fault for allowing the situation to escalate or was it beyond their control? With no tolerance for anything, blame is not cast on some of the parties (i.e. administrators, parents) who would rather not be involved in such problems, even though they have more to do with it that they would ever want to admit.
With a little more thought, and perhaps some planning and attention, these problems would not be as big as people make them out to be.
As a side note, I wonder how many times things like this have happened in large cities, for us not to find out because the people involved aren't white-bread "average" americans that we can relate to and worry "will this happen to me?"
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"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
At the Jr High school my brother attended there was a program for peers to patrol the halls looking for mischief. They had a little tag they wore around. Many of the students in the honors classes were asked to be "hall monitors" or whatever they called them, my brother didn't really want to but they specifically asked him, so he said yes. A few months later he had an ulcer, and school had become hard for him to deal with. My mother told him to tell whoever was in charge of the program that he couldn't do it anymore. He did and everything went back to normal. I don't think they kept this program (this was back in '96), but other schools might have this sort of thing still going on. I'm sure that in this case everyone meant well, but either way it sucked for my brother.
this sig is deprecated
the problem is that kids are being encouraged to inform on kids who may commit a crime
You are sadly wrong. The student informed on another student who _was_ committing a crime (at least in the eyes of the police). To quote: He was immediately charged with making terrorist threats and intimidating a witness. In other words, the police believed he was breaking the law.
People seem to be under the misapprehension that it is legal to threaten, even in passing or jest, other people. Saying "I'm going to blow this place up" is against the law and can result in going to jail for a long, long time. It's not a matter of free speech, it's a matter of uttering a threat.
The whole point of my initial article is that turning a colleague in for committing a crime (which is what happened in this instance) is not a bad thing. In this case, the bad thing is the law itself that made the utterance a crime.
Various organizations that are attempting to get people to report on suspicious behaviour is a very different thing and not the topic of this thread.
I am going to kill people, lots of them. .....
I cant sort out the good from the vile and the wretched. After watching Apocolypse Now last night
I have to agree with Kurtz. Judgement works on both sides, if I say you are good I have judged you, it is not my place to judge. Kill them all and let "god" sort it out.La blah blah
I hate all people.. . you all should die.
etc... etc...
Whoops did I say that out loud.
Guess when I go crazy years later and kill people someone can sift through data come across this and say "We should have seen this coming! Look at this message-board post, this man was obviously deranged."
What if, say, playing video games were made criminal? Or, if not made criminal, the "Under 17" and such ratings were made legally binding, in order to 'protect our youth' or some other propaganda? What about something like Mortal Combat 3 (for the lack of a better example in my mind) which is MA21?
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Eerily similar, nes pas? The next step, obviously, is kids informing on anyone, even parents/siblings/etc. AKA, The Death of Loyalty. AKA, politically-correct speech/thought monitors. Mr. Orwell, how do we create a lesson like yours in today's age?
Depends where you go to school. But, yes, it's not only students that are homophobic. At a certain point, it is more effective to go to the media. And, sometimes, nothing helps, and you're just stuck, which sucks and causes tons of people off themselves every year. Fortunately, it's easier now than it ever was to meet people over the net who are like you and who will be understanding, etc. I think the next generation will have it easier, which is how I interpet Kafka's statement "there is hope, but not for us"
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
"Informing" is required behavior under most student honor codes. I.e., if you see anotherh student do something wrong and you *don't* rat him out, you're in trouble yourself. Of course this rule is not often enforced, but the point is that schools have always favored the collective over the individual. So there's really nothing new here except bigger stakes.
Godling.
She lives in califorina so shes an adult and has to live with her choices. She wrongly accused someone because she was spooked, and her parents are out $40k. Real bummer for them but they live there too and they can vote (one would assume) and they did not do enough beforehand to stop this nonsense. So when the idiot train headed in their direction, they got ran over.
The Jeneva convention describes this situation as torture. I bet a few papers to the court house would get the school to reconsder their stupidity. As an added bounus the person could be in for enough cash to cover the cost of a decent university.
Reminds me of the various posters in the background of the movie "Brazil":
"Suspicion Breeds Confidance"
and
"Don't Suspect Your Friends -- Report Them!"
Car analogies work about as well as a Ford Pinto with a keg of beer in the passenger seat.
about a year ago, the Justice Policy Institute released a fairly good study about juvenile crime and perception thereof in the united states.
the full report
an excerpt from the introduction:
"Despite the fact that there was a 40% decline in school-associated violent deaths between school years 1997-8 and 1998-9 (from 43 to 26), the number of Americans who were fearful of their schools rose nearly 50% during that same period. Even after two new well-publicized studies reported school crime to be on the decline, seven months after Columbine, more than 60% of Americans said school safety "worried them a great deal." Parents and school boards continue to call for more metal detectors, locker searches and student identification badges, even as students say they feel less safe and report more crime in schools that use these "secure" school procedures. Since the Littleton shooting, when students and school administrators talk about the safety of their schools, they might as well be speaking about different worlds:"
it is impossible to stop random acts of terrorism, particularly when the terrorist doesn't care if he/she gets killed. unless you have every citizen under complete mind control, it's always going to be possible for someone to sneak a gun into a school and blow away 20 people, or to drive a van full of explosives in front of just about any building in the country. i'm not willing to subject everyone to complete mind control to escape the infinitesimal chance that i will be the victim of one of these acts; presumably, if other people actually realized how small their chances of being a victim are, they would also agree that extreme measures aren't worth the costs to freedom.
oh wait... that would require people to understand probability and statistics. hahahahaha!
...why your legal system allows a witness to be sued? (i.e. Why did she accumulate the $40K in legal fees in the first place? Isn't there a preliminary hearing or something like that?)
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
While a good degree of modern psychology is simply finding ways to avoid responsibility, Anorexia is a medical condition and not just confined to the mind. This is another case where intelligent wording would have salvaged a "flamebait" rating.
When you're on the outside in High School, there are two possible psychological outcomes- the first is to become angry and resentful, embittered and something of a dingbat- witness the flamer. The other is to realize that "they" are little people of no consequence, a neusance to be tolerated, and to ignore them and get on with whatever it is that you're doing. In my case, it was lots of hardcore slack [the exceptions being english, art, computers, and my occasional meetings with the local Gifted Program faccilitator]. I achieved the second state after languishing in the first for the majority of my life- some people never manage to pull themselves out of it, and go on to traumatize and inflict their small-minded hate upon anyone that offneds them [usually, everyone.]
As for false bodymaps, try growing up in redneck nowhere with severe gender identity issues- while they're by no means solved, the torture recieved by being Agnostic [to rednecks, this means "Devil worshipper"] and having A-cup breasts [I'm male] was at times enough to make a case of anorexia seem like a skipped dinner.
As for the flamers, the best way to ding up your psyche is to read their comments [Hence the reason my threshold is set at 2] and reply to them... this may be more worthwhile in a board system with signifigantly lesser volume than slashdot [K5, for example, is far more of a community than a mob], but here.... your time could probably be spent in ways that would be more interesting than distressing, I'm certain.
reminds me of a line from Jerky Boys skit
(schmuck) "Sue Me!?"
(Jerky Boy) "Sue Everyone!"
And the beauty of it is that your hometown lawyer never had a chance against a mob of the best corporate lawyers in the country.
Dude, didn't you see Erin Brockobitch?(or what ever on my green earth it was called). All ya gotta do is show a lot of clevage and you'll get your way. THAT's the New(and old for that matter) America.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Seriously though, although there is a valid issue here, I think about half of what you're saying is absurd. The problem isn't informing, it's how the schools respond to tips. To say that asking people to be informants threatens first amendment rights is like saying that newspapers publishing what people say threatens first amendment rights--both are exercizes of freedom of speech, and both make it easier for the authorities to catch people expressing opinions they don't like. The first amendment was intended to ensure that the authorities (whether it be the principal or the police) couldn't a) surpress the right of free speech, and b) prosecute someone for simply expressing an opinion.
The schools would be stupid and irresponsible if they didn't watch for warning signs in the free expressions of the students and act appropriately. The problem is that they are reacting inappropriately--THAT is what the first ammendment was intended to stop.
Hmm, so is Jon really just yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater here? Taking a position he knows is partially incorrect in order to stir up some entertaining activity? Provoking others to riot?
I'm not going to say "Jon, please die." I enjoy too many of your columns to do that. But I will say "please talk about the real problem."
Convert RSS to HTML - integrate webfeeds into your website
Back when I was picking beans in Guatemala, we used to make fresh coffee, right off the trees I mean. That was good. This is shit but, hey, I'm in a police station.
A right to feel safe? People _aren't_ safe, and they should probably be aware of that; there is, frankly, *no* way to guarantee safety within a society and it should not be pretended that there IS such a way.
But beyond that, yes, authorities should use their critical thinking skills -- if they have any at all, which judging from the adoption of zero-tolerance policies, is by no means a given.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
There's a big gap between going to trial and doing nothing.
If I were a virulent critic of the Federal Government, for instance -- and sometimes I am, but mostly due to perceived abuses and contradictions with its own laws; I'm not even *close* to being an anarchist; but if I were a regular agitator, I might not be put on trial, but would it be unreasonable for a file to be started on me? And if there seemed to be a strong potential for violence, there might easily be grounds for an _investigation_. That's a long ways off from a trial.
Likewise, authorities, once told, can use their judgement -- if any -- to decide whether to follow up and gather more information, or whatever action should be taken. For instance, if one student is stupid enough to show off, say, a Sig Sauer to a fellow student at school or even wave one around a bit, action should probably be swift and firm; if he merely makes a vague threat, perhaps more information is required.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Not to mention that firearms tend to be equalizers, since few people are as willing to die as they would be to absorb a punch or a swing from Granny's walking stick, regardless of how many friends/fellow thugs they have.
Without such, well, numbers and raw strength rule, even if all firearms *were* confiscated. In that case, well, gangs now have a huge advantage.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
It's probably time to replace the adminstrators, and quite possibly, the school board; that sort of overreacion demonstrates a lack of either judgement (to realize that what they're doing is overreacting) or spine (to stop pandering to the Nervous Nellie electorate).
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
That would be true if you only believe what the media spouts out, use your eyes and brain. Do you think it has ever been better? Lets just put on our rose coloured galsses and pretend the past was as idylic as we remember, ahhh thats better isn't it... thank you! thank you mass media for stuffing my head with goss!
"Have you ever lived in one of our cities?"
Have you? Seriously, you don't just work there and see all those "scarey" high school kids standing around "hanging out". Sure, there are a lot of 'em who have problems with alcohol and drugs but uhh honestly do you think this is some kind of new thing?
The kids there do nothing apart from hang around doing these things, because they've never had any discipline or a good schooling system that encourages team sports and other activities."
And, of course, you base this statement off of which objective scientific/sociological research? Where are the numbers to back your theory?
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No the game never ends when your whole world depends
crazy dynamite monkey
That kind of radical-control-for-its-own-sake is nothing short of abuse.
When you abuse and dehumanize someone with ridiculous rules like the above and outrageous sanctions for trivial violations, it's not surprising that occasionally some will want to get some of their own back. Unfortunately, the people who suffer (either from the rules or the reactions to them) are rarely the ones responsible for the problem.--
Knowledge is power
Power corrupts
Study hard
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
to anyone from a civilised country the need for citizens to be armmed to the teeth is unfathomable. The talk I hear most from americans is that they are need to preserve freedom. This is nonsense when you see the statistics of gun violence and the general level of paranoia in US society. Where is the freedom from fear for the innocent???
It's time the US grew up and let go the trappings of a revolutionary state. George III (there were 2 before him you know) disappeared a long time ago, and you can be sure that Britian doesn't want to rule you anymore ;-)
In my school, underclassmen are not allowed to leave campus for lunch, though many do it everyday. Allegedly for a $5 gift certificate to a local Wendy's, I must now spend twenty days of my lunch locked in a room. The innocent victim of a squeeler. Most sadly, I was the only person in my car that was reported (four others remain unscathed). On a lighter note, the detention has been put off for four weeks because it is full of other kids that were squeeled upon.
sympathize with me people,
brandon
Hey! I resemble that remark!
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The only thing that kids of today put their efforts into is dealing drugs, getting alcohol and committing crimes. Have you ever lived in one of our cities? The kids there do nothing apart from hang around doing these things, because they've never had any discipline or a good schooling system that encourages team sports and other activities. That's what they said about kids in the 1960s and 70s (and look at how successful they've become.) Generalizations, especially incorrect and offensive ones, should be avoided
Why do you want to live in a police state? There is no free society without true individual liberty. This liberty includes the ability to choose to violate society's laws. It is a fact that true liberty can be dangerous if there are people who do not have respect for others. However, I myself would rather see criminals walk than an innocent man go to jail. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance in respect to both the govenment and your fellow man. It is your personal responsability to ensure that you do not become a victim. In cases of school and work shootings, most of the "victims" disrespected the "wacko". If there is one thing that should be learned from these incidents, it it that children and even adults need to be taught to have respect for one another. This can only be taught in the context of responsibility. That seems to be the one thing that USA seems to be losing sight of. No one is willing to take any responsibility for anything, except other's hard work, but thats another rant...
While I dislike the idea of informants, especially uninformed or misinformed fols (and even more so the anonymous informants) this is a matter of responsibility.
Did she do the right thing? Maybe.. out of context the 'threat' is meaningless, how did she know he wasn't explaining a group in some RPG? She didn't. But she did do as instructed. If this was a real threat, then it was good she did so. She carried out her responsibility AS SHE UNDERSTOOD IT TO BE.
Did the school overreact? Almost certainly. Without properly investigating, such actions as they took are excessive, if not outright criminal. Did the school act responsibly here? No. They have a duty to see everyone can safely learn and that INCLUDES the accused. The only exception is if the accusation leads to evidence that the threat is real. They have denied him that (safe education), unless he and his family moves sufficiently far away. Not an action taken lightly.
The school also has a responsibility to the girl who acted AS THE SCHOOL DIRECTED her to. They want kids to inform, they had better back up the informers even if they (the school) botch things.
And again the school failed to act responsibly. And had better put things right if the informer is mistaken, wrong, or outright lying.
There are consequences for actions. The boy has experienced this. The girl has experienced this.
Right or wrong, both have experienced that. Now the school wants to exempt itself? Excuse me, what lesson are they teaching here? "We're more equal than you." perhaps? The one party with two responsibilities, which it already failed on one, now tries to absolve itself the other?
The only lesson the school is teaching is that it's safest to say nothing and keep everything between your ears. Such a love of freedom, that.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
Hold on a second there! Many of the comments I've read suggest that the student who was sued was _wrong_ to tell school officials what she overheard in a public area. What? If she heard something that disturbed her or scared her, she absolutely has the right to talk to someone about it. I don't mind the arguement over whether or not the school overreacted, but I whole heartedly disagree with the suggestion that the student should not be allowed to talk about something that disturbed her, no matter how trivial the matter may seem to you.
If there's any "guilt" in this case, it lies with the school that perhaps overreacted and the parents of the "dangerous" student who decided to sue the so-called informant.
And as far as schools turning student into informants goes, it's been happening for years. Students have routinely been told to "tell a teacher" if someone is abusing them or threatening them. Anyone have a problem with that? The problem here is not one of students talking about other students or even their parents, it's a question of how those comments are pursued. It's up to the adults in the matter to make the call between the need for a counselor and the need for the justice system.
RC
If some of the current plans go through, there will be a huge divide between schools as well as a class divide and it will result in a massive increase in stupid people roaming the streets.
There already is a huge class divide. It was caused by racism, facilitated by the automobile, and fertilized by negative images of cities bombed out during WWII.
Those public schools that you laud -- they undoubtedly are in the suburbs. The ones in the inner city are failing. What is your plan to help those schools?
School choice would most help inner city schools. But even that is not enough. Inner city children need role models. They need to be around successful kids (I think you said something similar, but I think you were talking only about mixing dumb suburban kids with smart suburban kids). Affordable, attractive housing needs to be built in the suburbs -- and new developments need to be walkable to make it even more affordable to lower income families.
School choice would help solve the current vast class divide. Your fears are unfounded and misplaced.
thogard continues:
You want to send your kid to a private school, fine but keep me and my money out of it.
And I ask you to keep my $112/month out of it (the portion of my local taxes that go toward Fairfax County public schools, not counting the portion from state and federal taxes).
Now that's the greatest "democracy" in the world in action, alright.
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OTTERS RULE.
> Again, I'm not aware of the curcumstances in Stalinist Russia.
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A Marxist who doesn't know about the Soviet Union . .
> it should at least be obvious the contry as a whole is drifting to the right
Actually, it's drifting back to the center. For the past few decades, it's been taking a sharp turn to the left. (Can anyone say "Hippie Movement"?)
> how our current president in essence stole the election
Good question. How exactly did he steal it?
> This was aided in large part by the media
What, you didn't see all the news shows with people claiming that Bush's election was a fraud? If the networks were cooporating, or even just idly standing by, they wouldn't have gone on about it for weeks (and months, now).
> If you consider fascism the most right-wing of all governments, than you can see how we are step by step becoming a fascist country.
Two things: First, Fascism was Italian nationalism. I don't see much of that here. Second, historically in our country, it's been the left-wing group that's aligned itself with socialism. Look at the social reformers of the 1920s, specifically the unions. While unions were necessary then, they often proclaimed socialist beliefs and intents. The natural follower of socialism is communism, which is simply socialism applied to politics. The government owns everything and decides what is right for the people. While the claims of communism are that the government will eventually dissolve itself, I don't think that's ever happened. Communist governments just turn into dictatorships or oligarchies.
If you're going to troll, troll intelligently.
Students should be competing (and tested) for intillectual competence, not thier physical prowess or ability to shoot down thier classmates.
Since when is natural selection dictated by anything besides that? We are human, our large human brains allow us to step out from the "circle of life" and take matters into our own hands. Without intelligence, our species wouldn't last a day if natural selection just ran it's course. Tools got us out of the trees and allowed us to succeed in a way separate from fight or flight.
What makes you think that just letting kids rule themselves would help anything? I don't think these 'taddle-tale' programs are worth much of anything, but you can honestly expect people to just R-E-S-P-E-C-T eachother in high school.
Letting kids rule themselves would only get the geeks beatup and the jocks would get dumber and dumber. How many of the football players would rule socially and end up beeing nothing after school?
sopwath
This is the job of the school. The school has authority and responsibility "in loco parentis", in the place of the parents. The schools should encourage students to come forward and "inform" the authorities of any potential threats. It then becomes the schools responsibility to investigate all information thoroughly before making a decision. This is where errors often occur - schools rush to judgement and often trample the rights of others. There should be no liability for being a concerned citizen, only for being an oppressive authority.
Actually, if you study basic human psychology - people tend not to report crimes when they witness them.
We have a natural tendency to "ignore" others. Maybe we hope that someone else saw and will report the crime we witnessed, but by in large, we don't want to be individually involved.
Despite what we'd like to believe people often have to be encouraged to do the right thing. If we encourage children to be concerned citizens from the beginning we will have a healthier society in the end.
If I see my next door neighbor commit a crime am I paranoid to report that information? No. In fact, as a concerned citizen I should be expected to report what I've seen.
... only then am I paranoid.
If I am delusional and simply decide that my neighbor might be up to no good and then I report him
We cannot expect people to police themselves and we should not punish those who are strong enough to report misdeeds. Labeling them as paranoid is incorrect, misleading, and irresponsible.
When I read the case in L.A., I see two children both whom made rash choices in judgement further exaserbated by irresponsible rash judgement on the part of school officals. I disagree that snitching is inherently bad - that it corrupts "democracy" as some have stated - The realtiy is Society is becoming fragmented enough that we as individuals need to serve as an extension of the police and report potential danger accordingly. The danger of this policy is evident in this L.A. case - Those who police the information need to use due diligence in exploring the potential danger and innocence of the situation. Getting Sued as is happening to the School board now, is an excellent example of checks and balances.
Katz makes this out to be an issue about turning kids into informants - it isn't. In fact, it's a good thing to have informants when the circumstances merit it. If someone is making serious threats of violence, why not have a system to alert authorities? Why not have a system where kids concerned about security can trust their warnings will be taken seriously? Kids want to be safe.
The only legitimate gripe I hear in this article is that casual threats are being taken too seriously. The fact that there are lawsuits are irrelevant - you get those from being too cautious or not cautious enough. Students should be able to relay factual information and faculty should make informed decisions about what's a real threat and what's not.
The fact is that if administration only reacted to serious threats and kids used good judgement in reporting incidents, there would be no reason to complain about such as system. That's certainly an attainable goal. So, it's an issue of poor judgement - not an inherently bad system.
A Professor at the University of Pretoria (South Africa), a guy named Prof. D. Oosthiuzen, had the entire class of final year students write on a piece of paper what they though each member in his or her team had to contribute to the project.
I though this was a particularly childish gesture, since in a team, each member contributed 100% in their own way. I was not impressed. For various reasons that was counter to what the course tried to teach us -: working as a team.
It's a dilly of a pickle of a iddly of a problem.
She did, quoting a classmate as saying: "We want to kill people; we're sick of them." (If I or anyone reading this called the police everytime we came across that comment online, a lot of teenage boys would be in jail.) She said the boy later threatened her for reporting his remarks.
Now... let me ask you, what would you do? I don't know about anyone else and what their experiences were like, but I grew up in the Roxbury and Jamaica Plain areas of Boston. If a kid told me back in grade school that he/she was going to kill me, considering some of the hardware that I know was carried around, I'd take that really frikkin' seriously. In the 4 years I was in High School in Boston, there were 8 kids killed by other kids, one teacher threatened with a gun in class and another hospitalized after taking a nunchuku hit to the head. And that was just in my high school, I'm not talking about over all the schools.
"A pupil who cooperates as part of their responsibility as a student on a campus . . . should be immune from this type of lawsuit," Cook said. "A lawsuit of this type should not even be allowed to proceed."
See, this is just as big a problem as student violence. What about the times when it IS true, and when it ISN'T? If this kid DID make threats to her, you're damn right the school should pay for her legal fee's if the bastard sued her for turning him in. But if it's found that the kid wasn't a nutter, and he's exonerated, then that chick should be sued and sued hard for ruining his life. And the fact is, it isn't if he is "guilty" and she is innocent, it is who has the best lawyers and the most money.
Nevertheless, the suit did proceed for 11 months, and the girl should not be responsible for the costs of her defense during that time, Schutz [sic] asserts.
Not if the allegations were proven to be true and the boy convicted. But anyone who falsely accuses another and causes that person to be humiliated, degraded and abuse deserves what they get.
Civil libertarians did sound repeated alarms, but they were ignored.
That's because most, like Katz, tend to end up sounding barking mad. It's one thing to express free speech, but I'll bet my ass that if someone walked over to Katz and said "Hi John, I'm going to FUCKING KILL YOU!" he'd a) learn quickly a new use for shirt tails and b) call the cops likety split! And how is it wrong if a student does the same?
I see Katz's point about students ratting each other out and falsely accusing each other. But from reading this story I'd say he chose a poor example.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Don't set up yourself. Use the address of the principal or your least favorite admin. I'm sure when the SWAT team comes through his door he'll see why "tip lines" aren't such a good idea, not to mention the revenge potential.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
When I see this, I don't worry about people being tattletales, but why there is even a law saying you can't say such things in the first place. After all, aren't we protected by the First Amendment to free speech? Why should it be wrong to say that I'm going to "kill X"? It's a blurry line to say when it's "serious" and not. The entire idea of such a law seems unconstitutional to me. It's like saying discussing a criminal act is illegal, if you're "serious" about it. Who decides "serious"? Should you be guilty of a crime before you've even done it? I remember once in 8th grade, I got detention, because a girl had hit me with a poster, and I was "about to hit her back". I wasn't, but that didn't matter. This is clearly not a good idea.
I do not think the need for people be protected justifies the need for jailing people for threats. That sounds like a 1984 police state to me. Definitely not free speech.
Furthermore, I just don't like the fact that the girl's family had to spend $40,000. We need a legal system that doesn't cost a winner so much, although this isn't as big an issue.
The worst areas for drug abuse are not the suburbs, it is the really rural areas far from a city, where there is really 0 to do except get wasted. At least that is what I heard. db
If schools say that it is their obligation to pay the legal costs for all cases, this would lead to potential abuse and fraud.
A lawyer and two students could conspire to abuse the system and get money from the schools. Student A acuses Student B of something and reports it to the school system. Student B sues Student A, and Lawyer defends Student A. School pays Student A's legal fees, Lawyer give kickback to Students. Settles out of court, with a gag order, no actual settlement need take place.
The Economics of Website Security
I don't know if anyone's said this already or not, there are too many comments for me to read in the time I have:
I am a 16 year old geek in Lone Oak High School. I have said numerous times stuff such as "If they let the geeks knock off who the thought needed to be, the world would be a better place." I've been lucky so far, apparently, as to who has heard me say stuff like this, for I have not been turned in yet. However, is there any reason I should not be able to say that? Honestly now, we all have the freedom of speech and, though I would like to very much, I'm not going to kill anyone, it's a damned joke!!! I should be able to say whateve the fuck I want to without worrying about being charged with making terroristic threats!
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
-- Napalm sticks to kids.
I live in Pasadena, California, and Lancaster is about an hour away from where I live. I can say, based on first-hand experience, that you are 100% correct in your assessment. The funny thing is, the communities in that area -Valencia, Palmdale, and Lancaster - advertise to prospective homebuyers with the slogan, "Where family values still exist". I leave it to the reader to devine exactly what "family values" they are referring to.
1) Nazi Germany (the Hitlerjugend and BDM). 2) Cambodia under Pol Pot. Neither one is a form of government I would want to see here, in any way, shape, or form ..
73 de N5VB (ex-KD5BIV) AR SK
Not implausible that the Judge would pick up on the societal attitude shift potentiated by Jon's editorializing, even if only 3d hand.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
I am absolutely horrified by the so-called post-Columbine trend which is quickly resulting in the further stigmatization of certain types of students in American high schools today.
While many choose to see these attitudes as promoting greater safety in schools, this point of view is extremely deficient; it ignores basic realities of school life and can produce a virtual elimination from the school environment of people who "don't fit in". I think I can speak for a good number of /.'ers when I say that had I grown up in this paranoid age it might well be impossible for me to end up occupying my current position, and even to be a productive member of society!
Granted, one cannot tolerate actual death treats within an educational environment. However this is not the point at all -- death threats have never been tolerated anyway. What we are talking about now is the cataloguing of information about non-violent, personal behaviours, opinions, and creative thought. To wit, one who insists on wearing a black trenchcoat to go to high school nowadays is likely considered to be a threat to his fellow schoolmates. No threat required, no anti-social behaviour even. The wearing of an article of clothing, even a non-descript one, is seen as a criminal statement. It chills me to think about the implications of this.
It chills me particularly because, as with all "social" standards, the definition of what is social or anti-social rests with the majority of people in a given environment. What this ultimately means is that if you choose, with your clothing, opinion, or even looks, to stand up for yourself and not count yourself in with the majority you will become the target of investigations by authorities whose decisions are not only very powerful, but also quite difficult to appeal.
But what disturbs me the most in all this is that the whole "reporting" attitude only leads to the further stigmatization of already-unpopular students sooner or later. So we end up in a situation where not only one is unpopular at an age where popularity is the be-all and end-all of social life, but that same lack of popularity will automatically result in being closely watched by the authorities.
In other words, after Columbine, if you're a nerd, or goth, or are part of any group that is outside the mainstream and easily identifiable, not only do you still have the jocks and other "popular" types on your back, but your local school administration is quickly becoming your enemy as well. So the very act of being victimized by someone who holds a little power over you makes you eligible to be victimized by a bureaucracy which has a lot of power over you.
Perhaps it's just me, but it sounds like a plan that Hitler, Saddam Hussein, or indeed any totalitarian head of state would be proud of.
I wish I was only being cynical about this, but that's what's happening now.
I guess it only makes me glad that I am not growing up in this day and age, and makes me appreciate the realities of not being an american.
My sig is too lon
I'm living in Europe.
I've been threatened by other kids too when i was young, but we knew nothing could happen, why ?
Because no one had guns, and we all knew that.
When i want to get a gun, it takes me so much procedures to get the license, that makes it quite hard to ever get one, and that's when you're an adult, try to get a gun when you're a kid, VERY though.
Kids will allways make ungrounded threats, you'll never be able to stop that.
Why don't you try to stop the weapons which make the threats hard and deadly ?
and also, besides that. Tipsters need a layer of accountability, otherwise people would lie about others they didnt like. Forcing them to be responsible for what they say can help limit the lies.
I was also thinking about the problems with this policy myself this past weekend. Here, I think, is a more viable alternative: making the losing party liable for the MINIMUM that either party paid in legal costs.
Therefore, if Microsoft throws 15 lawyers at you and win, you're only liable for a small fraction of what they paid. On the other hand, you'd get everything you spent if MS is found in the wrong. You can gauge how much you want to spend defending yourself vs. the likelihood that you're doubling your own damages if your case is frivolous.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
There is a simple, yet often misunderstood concept in the law, IANAL, but If I threaten you, for whatever reason, and you believe I will follow up on the threat, then I have assaulted you. You have legal recourse. It is called charging me with assault. (Lawyers please comment) That being said, the student was acting as an agent of the school and community. She should be defended as such. If she was paranoid, and the if other student was simply bullshitting(a legal term), then she should have used better judgement. She should be held liable for her actions if they are actionable. Rumor and innuendoe(sp) are no excuse for panic, IMNSHO. Paranoia and fear must be balanced. If this girl was paranoid and felt that many people disliked her to the point of actually hurting her, then she needs counseling. OR she needs to change they way she is, so as not to generate such dislike. Wubba!?
Incidentally, when I was threatened, and I felt I was actually in danger (a rare occasion, since I was usaully the biggest kid my age), I /carried/ a gun. Yes, that was illegal. Was it wrong? I don't think so. I hurt no one, and I had the means to defend myself from people who were similarly armed. So don't think that kids can't resort to guns for defense.
Jaeger
www.JohnQHacker.com
GodHatesCalvinists.com
That's cojones, hombre...- ------------------
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Doubtful. Private schools will respond to shrill, paranoid parents even more swiftly than a public school. No school board hearings, no nothing. They can institute what ever policies they choose, when they want, and can implement them tomorrow. "School Choice", a complete misnomer, is about destroying public education for ideological reasons. They make no sense to any rational educator.
Tort reform. The real solution here is to make the boy's parents pay for the lawsuit directed against the girl's parents -- automatically -- to discourage frivolous lawsuits. Note: the lawsuit against the school was not frivolous, but the lawsuit against the girl's parents was.
So-called "tort reform" won't address any of what you just described. In any civil suit, part of the proceeding is about who's gonna foot the bill. Besides, since you're not involved, who are you to say what's "frivolous" and what isn't? "Tort Reform" is really about taking away your average joe's ability to sue people who have wronged him in an actionable way. The people behind it represent moneyed interests that would like very much to be either statutorily immune to lawsuits, or at the very least make it impossible for anyone who doesn't have buckets of money to spend on legal fees to pursue actions against them.- ---------
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Sheesh. They don't make any effort at all to get it right, do they?- --------------
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Let me ask you something: Is it true that everyone involved with the public education system is just a stupid hack who can't make it in the real world?
Or is possible that people who have devoted their lives and careers to making education work may actually know what they're talkiing about? Personally, I beleive the person with the doctorate in education when they say that vouchers are a bad idea.
"Competition" works for businesses. Education is different. Of course, we all know that the evil, satanic, baby-killing homosexual agenda teacher's union is against vouchers, because they're all idiots anyway, just looking for a free ride on the taxpayers back...
Wake up. Public schools need MORE money, not less. If perhaps we offered more competitive salaries (hah-ha! there's a good use for competition in the sphere of public education!), then maybe we'd get some quality teachers out there. As it stands, I know tons of people I went to school with became teachers after college, only to give it up in a few years because the pay is crap, the parents don't want to get involved, and the taxpayers would rather pay for ballparks and prisons instead of a cost-of-living raise for teachers.
The other factor is that this is all supposed to help out poor kids, by letting them get out of failing schools. I got news for you. There isn't enough room for all those kids in private or parochial schools. I know that in CA, where I live, the diocese says that it could possibly handle maybe a hundred more students per locality, and all the private schools in the California Association of Independent Schools have said publicly that they will refuse to accept them, as though the vouchers would even begin to cover the expenses for a non-parochial private school.
Give up on vouchers, and fork over the extra dough for better public schools. Then we won't need the prisons, and kids in poor areas will learn something. So-called "failing schools" fail for a reason: the public at large has given them the collective finger, and rather than kick down for school repairs, new books, and well-trained teachers, they're given these awful solutions like vouchers and standardized tests.- ---------
-----------------------------------------------
I bent my wookie
-------------------------------------------------
I bent my wookie
Juvenile crime, like all other crime, has been on a steady decline for over a century now. It's at the lowest it's been for as long as it's been recorded. And yes, that includes violent crime. The "recent rash of school shootings" doesn't touch the trend. It's just the fact that it's *white* kids getting shot that makes it national news. Fact is, unless your school's in downtown Chicago or LA you don't need those metal detectors. All they do is waste money that could have gone to hiring some competant counselors, or actually done some teaching for a change, make the parents feel secure, and help get the kids used to their privacy being invaded and their rights stripped away.
However, idiot school administrators like you are doing a *great* job of reversing the trend of reduced violence. If you treat people like criminals, they WILL act like criminals. And the rage your constant invasions of their privacy cause has to be let out somehow. Kids don't have any less need for privacy then adults do.
The difference between juvenile crime today and 50 years ago is that today it's front page news for weeks. Much easier to keep people from looking at what the multinationals and politicians are doing that way. The difference is that schools today are much harsher than they were 20 years ago, making the kids in them much more likely to snap. And part of that harsher environment is the fact that arrogant administrators like you are constantly invadining their privacy, WITHOUT actually bothering to prevent the football jock from sticking their heads in the toilet. People like you ignore behaviour from the "popular" kids that would be considered assault with intent to commit great bodily harm if I did it to you. "It's just part of being a kid." When was the last time you stopped the quarterback from giving some burnout a hard time?
So you want to know the problem with our schools is? Look in the mirror. It's you.
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
Springfield, MA is a living, breathing ghetto. Our population, by percentage, is more than half Hispanic, thirty percent black, and 18 percent white. The white population controls about 70 percent of the city's wealth. We have the highest rate of HIV in the state, and a recent (as of a month or two ago) report shows us to be third in the country, if I'm not mistaken, for reported HIV cases. This HIV is not spread by sex, it is spread largely by intraveinous drug usage. Springfield is a city, and a ghetto.
That said, I'm still appalled to hear you say that all we students spend our time doing is "dealing drugs, getting alcohol and committing crimes." I attend an inner-city school, and I will swear on my Bible that the majority of students here do not participate in any of that.
My school--inner city as it is, with a largely lower-income Hispanic student body--is recognized as one of the best schools for artists this side of the state. With the richer, well-to-do towns of Wilbraham, Longmeadow, North Hampton, and Westfield (generally, the richer towns of the Berkshires) right next door, we are still the best art, theatre, and music school outside of Boston. Of our population of 2200 students, almost half is involved with the arts somehow. Combined with our sports program, over 70 percent of our student body is involved in extracurricular activities other than looting, drinking, and all sorts of debauchery that you would accuse us of.
Case in point, I just finished up Western Mass district chorus last month. We had 4 of 8 students make it in, a good percentage compared to our suburban competition. I held a lead in our school's annual Shakespeare production (which we are famous for in the Berkshires, as we perform as part of a fall festival of Shakespeare and are still regarded as the school to see). For you more racially-prejudiced folk out there, sorry, but the majority of our cast is hispanic, and damn good at Shakespeare, too. I auditioned for our just auditioned for the annual spring musical last week, and tonight was opening night for our production of Sophocles' _Antigone_, which I am lighting coordinator for. A few side notes: our National Art Honors chapter (of which I am a 4-year member) is one of the largest in WMass; over 75 percent of our class graduates to college annually; we have never, in the history of our school, had a shooting, even though only 3 unarmed security officers patrol the school (armed officers have been seen all of twice in the four years I've been there); our football team is the second best in the district, and our basketball team went on to the state championship only a few years ago (if you haven't guessed my high-school yet, here's a hint: UMass alumnus Travis Best graduated from here only five or six years ago).
But apparently, "the only thing [we] kids put [our] efforts into is dealing drugs, getting alcohol and committing crimes." Well thank you, sir, for informing myself and my classmates who read this that we are, indeed, nothing more than hoodlums in yours and many other's eyes. I'll remember that when I'm in the middle of another 6-hour after-school rehearsal (2:25 [dismissal] thru 8:30) next month.
Slightly peeved,
Forager
student of animation and the fine arts
Here's another interesting point which is loosely related to this story.
In the HS district I recently graduated from, there was what we called "the informant rule." It basically stated that if you were at an alcohol or drug-related party and not actually doing anything alcohol or drug related, but failed to report people who were, you could be suspended along with anyone who got caught drinking, etc.
This rule meant that, in effect, you couldn't even be a designated driver without risking suspension for failing to turn in the people you drove home.
What do you guys think about this sort of rule?
Come on, man, have mercy! ;-)
She is just 19!
And being wiccan (read:not part of the mainstream) she has much more chances to learn something clever versus regular church-going redneck Joe Sixpack.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
What America needs to own up to (especially it's courts) is that sometimes bad things happen, and there's nobody to blame. In others, the person to blame dies or has no money. Neither of these conditions make it acceptable to use a lawyer like a shotgun to try collecting money from everyone within a 100 mile radius. Sometimes when someone does something,bad things happen, and nobody could have reasonably predicted the bad outcome.
Lawyers that rule America have pretty much transformed the term "Act of God" into the "Gross negligence on the God's part". Everything that happens, be it spilled coffee in McDonalds or a child who falls of a window becomes a reason to enrich one of these vultures.
Another thing that happens is a constant responsibility shift. Our state prepares a bill that will oblige landlords to put special window bars to prevent children from falling out of windows for every teenant with children. 5 other states already have similar laws.
I'd say that the responsibility lies not with the landlords, schools, corporations or so, but with parents, students and people in general.
America became a paradize for stupid people. It is not the only country in the world where you can make your money by a hard work, dedication and talent, but it is the only country where you can make a big bucks by suing someone else because of something stupid you've done yourself.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
UK has become a testing grounds for nonsense, that is later propagated through the world :-(
It might be one of the reasons why they don't join the European Union because they'll definitely lose the ability to push ridiculous freedom-restricting laws.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
What has wicca to do with that?
Lack of responsibility for yourself is a desease not confined to wiccans only (I'm not one of them, BTW).
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
I was to say "I will kill the CEO of my company this Thursday at four." Would it be absurd for one of my coworkers to report me? Of course not! This is a legitimate threat.
You've got me convinced and I'd like to report this obvious underlying threat.
--- Simple solutions are always the best
Gimme a break.... is this the best he could do? Aren't there enough real issues that we could/should be dealing with here in America - without Katz having to go and fabricate one?
One example ladies and gentleman - that is all he offers. If this is such an epidemic, how come his supporting evidence appears to be so severely lacking? Because its bullshit - thats why.
BTW - how the hell is it undemocratic for schools to want to know just who is planning on blowing the place up? I guess that things like wiretapping are illegal too. Maybe we should also outlaw packet sniffers as well. Hmmmm... it seems to me that the CIA and NSA wouldn't even be able to operate if we kept going down that road.
"For every action their is an equal opposite reaction." - children as well as fanatic liberals need to learn this concept. For every action you take there are consequences - plain and simple. If I came into work and threatened to blow the entire place to bits - I expect no less than to be fired, tossed onto the street, and dragged off to the country jail. Why? Because I realize the consequences that shall result should I take that action.
We live in a society in which nobody really wants to take responsibility nor do they want to acknowledge their actions as being "wrong and ill construed" when in fact they are. You are solely responsible for everything that you say or do - if you keep that in mind you will not find yourself in quite so much trouble.
Children have no rights to things such as freedom of speech. Get over it. Children are being handed enough things on silver platters today - let them work for the right to run their mouths with a complete disregard for others.
All in all - Katz really ought to find something better to dwell on his spare time than the social rejects dwelling in highschools across the country today. I'm sick and tired of hearing how geeks are persecuted in schools. I was a geek in school and I did just fine - it seems to me though that Katz didn't and he would be content to spend the remainder of his life dwelling on that fact.
Go see a psychologist Jon - cause we are sick of hearing your shit.
Gam
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
Salem is a good comparison I hadn't thought of. Everytime I hear about these things I think of Hitler's Youth. Not only are we going to persecute you with ludicrous laws/rules, but we're going to get your dearest friends and family, the people you trust most, to report you when you don't obide.
I think what we are witnessing is a generation of children who have been raised by daycare centers and who are the victims--I don't use this term lightly--of divorce coming of age. The apologists for day care are beginning to recognize that day care is not as harmless as once thought, even though they still tell parents it not THAT bad. Same is true for divorce.
I would have to say that this generation of kids is turning into a pretty good group of nihilists. Maybe we can get our own October Revolution out of this. If they can do such supreme damage at 17, just wait until they are in their mid-to-late twenties.
I logged out and boom! A Jon Katz story on the homepage. Normally I keep him muzzled, but damn, I screwed up. So I read it. You never know when (or if) someone will buy a clue. After reading that article, I think he still owes me money.
So, on to the meat of my comment:
First off, anyone 15 and over (and living in North America, or another English speaking country) is, in my book, adult enough to 100% understand the English language, and more than adult enough to understand killing is bad. I'll assume they were both in the same class (and, the same age, the story is full of missing details). That would make them 15, going on what the LA Times says.
If the parents from Lancaster didn't want to spend the money, and the school didn't want to prosecute, then shit man, you aren't under a gun. Just don't prosecute. If you do and lose, TS! That's the way the pickle squirts!
Neither the stoolie, nor the nutcase (and anyone who suggests that everyone should die is a certifiable nut) deserve an ounce of sympathy. I didn't see anything about her insisting she be in the WPP, despite her claims that the nut threatened her. That's what it's there for. Use it. If she was denied, well, then I'd be angry.
If you are a nut and don't seek treatment, TFB. Although, one has to wonder if the parents of this insane man hadn't noticed this behaviour before. They need a little blame.
Why is it that anything that happens on school property makes it automatically 100% the school's job to deal with it? Heck, if I threaten the life of people at work it becomes (mostly) my resposibility to defend myself, and the victim's responsibility to prosecute me.
"Turning kids into informers is viscerally anti-democratic."
That's bullshit. Are you saying that because the police exist we therefore live in a police state? She had the right to not say anything. She also had the right not to personally sue the offender, and let the criminal courts take care of the matter. Take anything to civil court and lose, and you get no sympathy from me.
"there was never any evidence he planned to harm or kill anyone"
If I come up to you and say "I want to kill people." would you just toss that out the window? Which side are you on, anyways, Katz? The criminal's?
"[the boy] is threatened with jail for allegedly making a remark that would, in other times, be considered stupid or worthy of some suspension time."
In the Real World(tm) making death threats is serious. Very serious. It shows a plan to murder. Just plotting to murder is illegal, you know. If you think plotting to kill is just stupid and is for kicks then you need a check up.
Providing "snitch" lines is normal in Real Life(tm) too. Where I am, they have CrimeStoppers. And, if they use your evidence and the person goes to Jail, you actually get a cash bonus. *This* line is for anyone, not just teenagers. Most people think this service kicks ass. The criminals have a problem with it, I hear, though.
These snitch lines are needed. If they were easier for students to access before Columbine there's pretty good chance someone would have picked up the phone and gotten those muderers the help they needed before it was too late.
"Online, teenagers flame each other and everybody else all the time."
And adults don't? You've never seen people on AOL, have you?
"Anybody who's different or doesn't conform -- or who is angry -- can seem dangerous"
Total complete baseless bullshit. If you don't conform you aren't necessarialy dangerous. Look at Ghandi, he damn well didn't conform to being your average Indian. But was he a dangerous man? You're only dangerous when you start threatening other people.
"and kids often had a tough time distinguishing between run-of-the-mill obnoxious and posturing behavior, and truly dangerous behavior worthy of being reported"
Oh please. _Maybe_ there is a _little_ problem with distinction, but not understanding that to kill is murder? Like I say, if you don't understand that by 15, you need to be locked up for the good of society.
"It's the job of parents, educators and psychologists to watch our for and anticipate dangerous behavior."
No, we already employ people to do that. We call them the Police.
Just my 2 cents.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
--
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
>rational educator
There's no such thing.
Here, France, we have had such a problem as germans occuped our country, in 40's. For a nation of 40M peoples, they get 120M letters from "informers", victims were not sued, but killed, in death-camps. I ask myself, as my gran'ma died of it, if it is a good principle anyway ...
Okay, I'll bite:
There is an element in society that will give itself over willingly to the State, interpret the wishes of the State and carry them out willingly. It is just my impression that the Stalinist regime was more overt, and the only necessary active participant. They (State politicos)controlled the media through propaganda: they Wrote the text.
Here we have a media providing the de facto propaganda. What oppressive regimes don't provide here seems to be provided by um, evil corporations, I guess... ?
Once again, its the evil corps! Or is it Evil Cops? what's in a letter...
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Here's my theory:
People have had their general sense of anxiety pumped up by Madison Avenue who know that a person in that state is more susceptible to suggestion. You get it all the time: "Next, is your soft, fluffy pillow REALLY SAFE??? Or is it a silent pink KILLER!!?!?!? Eyewitness News at 7."
That's why I say anxiety is the drug of choice for millions of TV viewers... National Enquirer readers... Dr. Laura fans...
Now we walk around in this generalized high-anxiety state, all softened up and susceptible to suggestion, and all we want to do is relieve our feelings that its all coming down. Along comes the media, or possibly the State in the guise of the media, and just like any electronic huckster, promising the nervous nellies some sort of relief from all this mild panic, and we latch on to it! I think its called hysteria. The mob allows fear to grow and in its zeal to eradicate it, tramples (stampedes?) over common sense and reasonableness.
School, being a microcosm of Society is merely reflecting Social trends. And they are not good trends...
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Wow! I hope you never have to endure your child coming home from school in tears because his -teacher- called him stupid in front of the class. They focus their anger on themselves, because adults are often much bigger than life to them--and can't be wrong. Can they?
Let me clue you in.... Those words hurt for decades afterward and shape their lives to come.
So the next time that you want to sling the 'stupid kids' label at the children of people who would love to, but don't know how to escape the pit of public education, think about that.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
Yes, Jon Katz articles in Slashdot might have an impact on society, which somehow impact this judge's decision to hear a liability lawsuit... and as Wayne and Garth would say, monkeys might fly out of his butt.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I am a high school student, and though I don't live in the US, I've watched the recent developments in attitude toward students with much concern. I would like to tell you my considerations on the matter.
As a reporter in the school newspaper I had to interview our director. One of the issues the interview addressed was anonymous comments. The director said he disliked them, because a person's inability to identify himself meant that he had distrusted the director. I think that he made a very valid point. While in large communities (like the whole society) anonymity is a vital tool, smaller communities have to emphasize directness in such matters that rely on personal trust.
I think that it is impossible for a school to ignore such warnings, but the staff had to respond to them carefully and with attention, personally and with no press/police (unless there are serious grounds for such outside intervention). I see it very gravely that the school did not settle this matter quietly in the first place (my best guess is that they submitted to the ubitiquous xenophobia), and when it became public, their reluctance to stand behind the girl can be described as nothing but cowardly and indecisive.
As I see it, American society could use much tolerance towards all of its people. It appears to me impossible that such vital institutions as the education system are becoming mere tools of disintegrating the ties between people on the basis of hatred.
So, how many football-playing good-for-nothing piles of muscle did you turn in? ;-P
You did make my point, and that doesn't depend upon you agreeing with it. Control the masses and the masses will let you do just about anything.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You just made my point. Zero tollerance is about controlling the masses, or as you say "after hearing .... from a group...he (the politician) chooses the easiest possible solution" which is to control the masses. Anyone skillful enough to control the masses (via the media) into protesting can then do what ever he wants.
Nazi's controlled the media, and thus controlled the masses into protesting "jews". Then laws were written to control and then eliminate the Jews.
I hope you can see there is no difference.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You tend to forget that without the means of defending yourself, there would be no such thing as free speech.
The right to keep and bear arms is a direct inhibitor of those that wish to silence those of use that wish to exercise our free speech rights .
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Some Fifty plus years ago our country faced the external threat of Nazi Germany. A world war was fought to keep that from happening again. 15 years later, McCarthy was out looking for the bogie men in the form of Communists. 350 years ago, a bunch of people were in hysterics over the accusations of little girls and set out on a witch hunt. Zero tollerence isn't about guns, drugs, etc. It is about control of the masses. Fear is the greatest of all motivators. Irrational fear is the greatest threat to a free people, and our leaders know it, yet continue. Anyone using fear of the unknown as political motivation should be killed. "Anyone who gives up a little bit of freedom for a little bit of security shall deserve neither" (Paraphrased, Thomas Jefferson)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Good a $40,000 fine is a small price to pay for a Narc. I honestly think the appropriate penalty for that kind of scum should be far worse. I can remember when I was a kid a friend of mine from South Korea would tell me horror stories about the North and how kids were encouraged to narc anything and everything to their teachers.. nice to know we've caught up North Korea.
You really have completely missed the point haven't you.
However you should refrain from inflicting your ignorance and stupidity on other people.
mark
Don't rat on your peers.
--
Because after this negative publicity, programs like Pinkerton's WAVE will have a much harder time getting buy-in.
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. - "Big Al" Einstein
Indeed. And as such, I believe he comes in line after Speaker of the House for the presidency if everyone else dies. After 50 years his presidential bid would finally be vindicated! Anyone else here seen Kind Hearts and Coronets with Alec Guinness? Great movie! Guinness played all the noble victims of an aggresive and murderous social climber---bump off all the relatives closer to the title than you are and assume it yourself.
Movie remake pitch: Picture Strom killing Shrub Bush while Shrub is in a fox hunting outfit and then killing Dick Cheney in drag, both victims played by hmmm.... I like Kevin Spacey for this. Strom could be played by Bob Hope or the exhumed corpse of George Burns. It'd make a great remake with a twist ending: he could get caught but then pardon himself in the end.
Sorry for the dubious quality of this post. It's late and I'm still jet lagged from flying from Sydney to Washington DC a few days back. I promise to produce a more coherent screenplay later.
Paranonia breeds paranoia. Streess is everywhere
depressed people making comments, like that
obviously need help, not investigation.
Not a flame, but you are one of them, it seems,
that you would like to interrogate anyone who
says anything that would make you fear for your
life. Getting beat up is not a bad thing! You
learn from everything. Take every experience and
take whatever you can take from it.
Watch Fight Club.
Schools have become an ideological battlefield, with all sides of the political spectrum duking it out to see who can indoctrinate the kids the fastest. Children learn by example, an the example of school officials, parents, and society in general is quite poor.
Of course, pity the poor school official who can't win for losing. Ignore even the tinest threat -- perceived or actual -- and leave yourself open to a lawsuit. Ask kids to help you keep tabs on what's happening, and you're the Gestapo. Stop some kid from making violent statements, and have the ACLU on your back for violating the kid's rights to free speech. Give a kid a bad grade, and the parents sue for ruining their baby's self-esteem.
Yuck!
So schools have become paranoid, controlling, and generally ineffective. From grade inflation to enforced drug therapy, the schools have become a battleground, both psychologically and politically. It isn't just a matter of "evil" administrators -- what is wrong with the schools is a reflection of society as a whole.
--
Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos
All about me
On another note, however, there probably should be closer attention paid to children. Not spying or smothering, but getting them involved more so that any difficulties they have in getting along with others can be addressed before things get out of hand. Youth activities didn't stop me from growing up a royal bitch (which I am) but they did teach me tolerance for others and not to fly off the handle.
Actually, that was Jonesboro, Arkansas, the site of a really bad school shooting some years back. They're all shell shocked over there, but suspending a kid for playacting is a bit over the top. And, yes, I do find this a wee bit embarrassing, being from Arkansas.
This brings me to the second thought. Zero Tolerance Policies are Zero Thinking Policies. I need not elaborate with this crowd, nor do I need to trot out the tired litany of kids suspended for accidentally taking mom's sack lunch containing her butter knife. If our school officials cannot be trusted to use good judgement then they need to be replaced with people possessing common sense. Another concrete example, once at a playground I saw an empty liquor bottle. I picked it up and put it in a trash can. If I had done that as a student on the campus of a school with a zero tolerance policy, I would have faced mandatory suspension or expulsion.
Final thought: there is not more juvenile violence, merely better press coverage of it. Think back to your hometown and your teenage years. Remember any incidents? Now consider Lizzy Borden, who hacked her parents to bits. Or the "righteous" teen girls of Salem, who got thier neighbors to kill one another. Leopold and Loeb, anyone? Anybody happen to know the average age of a soldier in the American Civil War?
What do kids learn from this? If you have a problem deal with it yourself, because adults can't be trusted. I doubt that is what we really want our schools teaching.
-- I Am Not A Terrorist.
I have an idea. We can reconvene the Committee on Unamerican Activities in the U.S. Congress, and have them assume control of informants. All such persons will be immune from prosecution or civil action, unless of course they too are found to be Unamerican in some way. That way, we will have centralized control over the troubling problem of unamerican teenagers. And then we can create an America Brigade of "good kids" that will wear armbands and report on, well, most anybody that doesn't join their patriotic organization. Yes, this is the ticket. We can rekindle the American spirit and send the trouble makers to jail. Won't it be great!
I think the difference between your situation and the one of the kid in the story making the threats was that your peers/teachers/school administrators reached out to help you through your problems. Whereas the administrators of this kid's school just threw him to the wolves (i.e. the police).
They seem to be missing a crucial point: words are harmless as long as they aren't followed by bullets.
Every /.er needs to go thru an anon. proxy server and show waveamerica.com what the slashdot affect is. Of course, at the same time filling out 2 or 3 false reports....make them loose time & _money_ and it will come to a screeching halt.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
(Offtopic) The only problem w/that is that teacher is usually a bigger homophobe than the student who was picking on you...I had a couple of lesbian friends in highschool that had this happen to them. They could tell the teachers until they were blue in the face, but nothing would change.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Perhaps. Should the school have been sued? Maybe. Should she? Hell no. For one, it prevents her right to free speech as well.
what about his right to free speach? Maybe if she had seen a couple of guns and some genades sticking out of the kids bag there is room for complaint.. but just saying something shouldn't result in actions like this.. I mean.. every time you verbally disagree with the government, do you think it would be fair if they took you to trial for suspision of being a terrorist?
This is the most hypocriticle thing i have ever heard considering all the free speach stuff that gets posted here..
BTW, I'm gonna kill you all (that way I get several thousand people to sue if any of you complain :) )
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Congratulations Jon Katz on writing something worth reading, especially on such a worthwhile topic. You kind of lost it towards the end though. An unbiased article is a much better article. Offer both sides, but let the reader make the decision.
Actual reply:
She did, quoting a classmate as saying: "We want to kill people; we're sick of them." (If I or anyone reading this called the police everytime we came across that comment online, a lot of teenage boys would be in jail.) She said the boy later threatened her for reporting his remarks.
He was immediately charged with making terrorist threats and intimidating a witness, and a juvenile court judge ordered him to serve six months' probation, according to the Times.
Maybe it's a culture difference... but what I find the most disturbing is the lawsuit aspect.
Schools have been asking kids to dob in other kids for years and years, they rely on it to some extent as a way of knowing what's going on.
But when did bad social behaviour in school lead to a lawsuit? I doubt the girl in question would have been sued if the boy in question had not been legally charged.
Here in Australia I am guessing that the boy *might* have been reported to the police, merely as a precaution, would definately have had detention or possibly suspension. If the police are so worried, counselling may have more effect than a legal charge.
People who are going to kill people don't actually worry about it being against the law.
Can you sue someone who provides evidence against you in the US? who pressed the charges... the school, the girl's parents or the State?
A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge threw out his suit, but not before the girl's family had spent $40,000 in legal fees defending her.
Again, maybe this is a difference in where I live, but if someone sues you and loses, don't they have to pay your legal fees?
As for the parents of the boy, if it was said in jest, and he's just on probation, why not let it go? do juvenile crime records effect the rest of your life in the USA?
What sort of lesson did these parents teach their boy about making threats? that if you have a good lawyer you can get away with it? that it's socially acceptable?
I know these school shootings have effected Americans quite heavily, but please remember behind the crime, behind the gun, there's a person with a problem.
...and the clocks were striking thirteen.
The idea of government schools encouraging students to rat out their peers just makes my skin crawl. Government schools seem to be taking on parental responsibilities at an alarming rate, with the hysterical reaction you could only expect from a bureaucratic institution managed by a popularly-elected committee.
Why not encourage students to rat out their parents for suspicious activities as well? This would certainly create a much safer home environment for government-educated students. You could create a special law enforcement unit just for this purpose. Just for kicks, we could call them the "Thought Police".
George Orwell may have only been off by a few decades, after all.
- Pithy comment goes here.
Recently, my own school has implimented several new rules which I have found to be overexaggerated in their meanings. Due to a single incident involving a student last year who filled a resealable Coke bottle with an alcoholic beverage, we are now no longer allowed to have drinks outside of desegnated eating areas. Also, due to a few dozen addicts who smoke in a certain area of our parking lot, as well as a so-called increase in fights, we are also required to report immediately to class upon entering the building. Loitering in the parking lot, or hallways, or breaking any of the afforementioned rules result in several days of detention. There's talk of assigned parking places as well as school uniforms. As for the alleged increase in fights, there have been two actual fights so far this nine weeks, and one unsuccessful attempt. In reality, this is a decrease, though the brutality of one was noteworthy. Keep in mind also that this is a highly acclaimed and academic suburban institution where crime is nearly nonexistant. In truth, every single implememtary event is completely isolated. At the beginning of this school term, we were also required to wear photo identification on our person at all times in a viewable and restricted manner. The consequences of failure to wear them are dually as harsh. Though many of these rules to hold some justification at times, they are also somewhat absurd. Not allowing socialization in the hallways or parking lot is slightly off in left field to being protective. High school is a largely social time in our lives, as well as being the only place and time that many of us have with our friends. They already have administrators patrolling halls constantly, as well as three commissioned police officers driving throughout the lot all day. That seems like it should suffice for protection, but I suppose the administrators must ensure our safety however they must, even if it means that eventually we must all dress the same and resort to paddling, like many private schools. If they are going to practically intern us in the building, they mught as well pass around wavers and legal papers so we are guaranteed some of our few rights as well as the very functionality of such papers. Public schools should remain a public place, not a concentration camp. I'm surprised thay haven't already began construction on crosslink fences and watchtowers. My previous school even had security cameras set up in many locations. I'm thankful they haven't taken away our open campus lunches yet. Though this is my last year here, I shudder to think of what my younger brother will have to put up with when he attends here in eight years. This is absurd that such precautions must be taken in a small residential school in a quiet suburban town. We have never experienced any civil acts of violence, drug traffic, or any criminal acts so far in the eleven years this school has been open. The few fights that break out are isolated and never last more than a minute. In a school ov two thousand students, small incidents are expected. Does this seem extreem to anybody else?
Hmm...the name, the title, the content...now forgive me if I'm wrong, but do you love Jon Katz? I dunno, it's a little on the ambiguous side, but...never mind. That couldn't possibly be true. Sarcasm is the greatest gift that has been bestowed upon the minds of men, by the way. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if you were crouched under his bedroom listening to Jon Katz audio tapes and watching him sleep while bits of saliva slowly drip onto your Dr. Katz t-shirt preparing your strike. Perhaps you should have him examine your mental stability while you're stalking him.
Kids will always cause trouble. Most of it isn't too serious. The real lesson here is in what happens when you get involved with the expensive, crap shoot legal system. Everyone walks away poorer and unsatisfied. A man's life will be happier if it doesn't involve doctors or lawyers!
Nothing is wrong with informing the authorities if you feel your safety, or the safey of other is threatened. Then it's up to the authorities to figure out if it is a real threatening situation.
No on likes a tattle-tale, but they're is nothing wrong in protecting yourself.
That being said yet, yes, without schools willing to stand up and defend whom they get the information from, then they're going to see a lot less information about what goes on in their halls.
"Microsoft bought up another little company!! I'm telling the judge!!!"
Just my opinion, but don't let that stand in the way of the truth ;)
--- I used to moderate, then I read the -1 articles and decided having to filter through them was not worth it.
This is nothing new for LA county. As someone who has worked for it, I can tell you that many departments within this county have a history of leaving people high and dry. Did us a favor and it got you in trouble?? Nobody ordered you to do it, you acted on your own initiative. It is a very familiar story.
One need not look farther than our nation's "war on drugs" to see that policies that are in the name of the "common good" (as dubbed by politicians mainly) are allowed to suck up endless resources and operate nearly indefinitely. These snitch programs seem only beneficial in the eyes of the public, with a few unpleasant side effects like the news story mentioned above.
Schools are in a position to add more of these ridiculous policies, rather than do away with the broken ones. As long as we focus on political correctness in our educational policies we're going to have absurd regulations like this.
I don't know about you, but if it were my peers who sent me up the river in the first place, I wouldn't want to be tried by them.
I agree about the kangaroo court comment though...
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
right, children never lie about each other when they get into fights, never make up stories about who said or did something bad... tell me, what school did you go to? Having never encountered this mecca for honesty, I'd like to see it someday.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
Are we there yet?
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
the scene of one of the more recent alleged plots that was uncovered by an informant. It's important to keep these things in perspective. A student informing law enforcement about a credible threat is not anti-democratic, or un-american, or even immoral. In fact, it's illegal not to report a crime (conspiracy to commit murder?) The catch here is that the informer needs to act responsibly as well. How do you teach students to tell the difference between a credible threat overheard in the lunchroom, and a normal episode of teen angst? Who knows? I wish there were an easy answer. I don't know if the kids in Hoyt were really going to do anything. I have my doubts that they really would have carried it off; but the fact remains that they were making detailed plans to do so. It is hard, then, for me to condemn the person who reported them. And if I have to choose between the suspects' rights to free speech, and the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that the other students, their potential victims, are entitled to, then I'll have to choose the greater society's rights first. The suspects acted, if not criminally, at least horribly irresposibly. The unavoidable fact is that there have been some killings. Regardless of whether or not they were overpublicized, or even glorified, they were real. This is the world we live in. If you're disillusioned and angry, know that the people around you may not look the other way when they see or hear your threats. Just the threat itself is likely to bring serious consequences. If you're a potential informer, be correct. Being wrong may bring serious consequences. In the end, this discussion really isn't about big brother or oppression; it's about looking out for eachother as responsibly as we can.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
>Most of these cases are being done by lawyers for free. If they lose, they pay a few hundred in court costs.
>If they win, they get thousands, sometimes over a million, in fees.
You're forgetting that lawyers have to earn a living too, whether you like it or not. A legitimate tort lawsuit is not something that a lawyer can prepare in an a day--the investigation and preparation can run up hundreds or thousands of hours, depending on the case. Not to mention expert witness fees and other expenses. You may not like lawyers, but you need to remember that most of them work very hard, whether they win the case or lose it.
--J
I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners. - Berke Breathed
I know this is late in the game to respond, but you missed my point entirely. There *is* a check and balance on the filing of lawsuits -- plaintiff's lawyers have to fund those lawsuits themselves. They may be "free" to the client, but it's not "free" for the lawyer working on the case. The investment of time and money that it takes to prepare a lawsuit (even a frivolous one) acts as an internal check on frivolous cases. I can understand that you may think that this is not a *sufficient* check and balance, but it is a check that does exist.
J
I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners. - Berke Breathed
Pain isn't just in peoples minds, it's received by and interpreted by the mind, and whether you ignore it or not doesn't mean it just ceases to exist once you decide not to believe in it. It was rather callous of you to state that the girl's parents shouldn't have been allowed to breed, I would say the same about yours since in my opinion they did not do a very good job of promoting adult behaviour in you.
As someone who was considered 'different' for most of my life I can sympathize to a degree. My pain was in some cases physical due to the fact that I'd get treated rough by a large group of antagonizers. Half the time, the school refused to do a thing until I took matters into my own hands and returned the favor on a couple of them. (although I ended up punished as often or more often) Had this informant system existed then I would probably not be here today as a result of a stupid prank by one of them and they'd be out free instead of in prison like I've heard that some of them are.
Yes at times I was anti-social and depressed, not fitting in due to differences in intellect, interests, and for some people physical disabilities will do that to a person. I have a feeling more of the outcasts who would turn out to be better people if just left alone, rather than the stupid jocks or popular kids that do dumb stunts and get thrown in jail, would be the ones informed upon. Not only are institutions poorly prepared to deal with the situations, but they create them out of ignorance or out of worthless teachers who look the other way or worse even help the antagonists. If I had any mod points you'd be flamebait or troll. Just because people don't belong to your tax bracket doesn't give you the right to demoralize or defame them on a public forum. Use some sensibility in your arguments.
And I could really care less if you or any cohorts of yours come back and flame me, I've taken worse before. I'll just sit here laughing at how petty you are to pick on others who have been less fortunate. Some people have an oportunity to rise above where they started, while others spend all their time sinking to even lower levels.
That seems to imply that the internet causes and was the beginning of adolescent stupidity. As anyone's grandfather can tell you, adolescents have been stupid for ages!
Without stupid adolecents through the ages, we never would have developed such innovations as "tricking out," dueling, speeding as an American institution, not to mention the creation of all sorts of absurd laws to prevent specific pranks once and for all.
--
--hongpong.com
All teachers (and administrators, councilors, et.al.) should listen to their students. If a student hears another student say something that scares him or her, they should be able to confide in their teachers, or their parents, and have their concerns fairly judged.
But teachers go too far when they encourage students to be on the lookout and report anything that they feel is amiss. This makes students generally more suspicious than they would have been.
Perhaps in a normal school-agecontext, a particular suspicious statement would not have seemed worthy for attention, since adolescents say those sorts of things all the time. But when students are told to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior, well, that could change the context those remarks are heard in by making everyone overly paranoid, wouldn't it?
To be clear:
I think it is OK for teachers to let students know they will listen to anything they have to say, even if it involves their friends. This creates a positive environment.
I think it's Not OK for teachers to actively seek to recruit kids as informants, and turn them against one another. That creates a negative environment.
It's a fine line to tread, and one I think many schools are on the wrong side of.
JonKatz said that crime is way down, and I believe it. It sure is WAY down around here..So why are they whining so much? What are they trying to accomplish? Turn us all into dried up shrunken sourpusses like Trent Lott? Turn us all against each other when we *should* be happy? I don't get these people. Why dont they just go back to irrelevance-land where they KNOW they come from...Or die, since they are almost there anyway, emotionally.
If it wasnt for the overwhelming apathy that they have induced, people would throw up in their faces.. *Nobody* thinks like that except for the idiot politicians.. I know who we should inform on.. The real perverts are the ones with the dirty minds.. the preachers..
Give me a break...
Flatpack:
Your lesson for today is that you can be right and still be a dick. Grow up.
Virg
Let's try this, since it's relevant to the case at hand. Let's add "Johnny said" to all of your truths. After all, these truths come to the attention of school officials through the informant.
1) Johnny said, "Adam has a gun in his backpack."
2) Johnny said, "Bob said he was going to kill Clarice tomorrow."
3) Johnny said, "David has been selling drugs to other kids."
4) Johnny said, "Ethan comes to school everyday with huge bruises all over his body."
Now, I defy you to hang something as important as your child's future on the assumption that all of these statements are "truths". In a court of law, they're called "hearsay". Did you forget that your "truths" come from informants (not observation), and that your informants are children?
Virg
there's excellent historic knowledge on children as informers. for example, the soviets have a statue in moscow of a child that informed on his parents. then there's the nazi's. now you can say that nothing from nazi germany came out that was any good. and you'd be wrong to think so. for example, during the nazi era children were routinely requested to find out things for the current prosecuting authorities. and with well documented success. so before you start down grading the painfully obvious; remember, hitler and stalin had a mother too. ;-)
Real Fine Troll Magnet = RFTM, not RTFM.
Find me in ~/.sig
I guess it would be like the television show "The Mole" or something. When I was in high school I did a lot of crazy stuff that I wouldn't want the police to know about, and I shared them openly with my "friends", but if I thought there could be an undercover cop there I would definately not trusted anyone....
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
If we made it so only non-anonymous informer information could be acted on, then wouldn't slander laws be good enough to enforce some sort of control? I think that anonymity allows many more people to be hurt then some amount of accounting.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
The government of that paticular school is responsible for the legal costs accrued during this episode. Flat out, they are the ones who took action, so they are required to ensure they do it legally, so they are responsible should the prosecution fail.
The real issue here isn't students reporting students, which is something they should do when the occasion warrants, its the fact that troublemakers like this kid can sue the people who report him.
Thats intimidation clear and simple, and its wholly helped along by the greedy lawyers that infect this land like a plague.
The kids must show the responsibility of being citizens by reporting people who are a risk to others. If we allow intimidation such as this to continue pretty soon we will end up with more Columbines because everyone looked the other way.
What in the hell do you think got us Columbine in the first place Jon??? Simple, pretending so-and-so wasn't serious... or we never heard..
Again, the real story is the fact the school proceeded with an unfit case, lost in higher court, and now refuses to pay legal fees for those who provided information to their case. Let alone the fact that the parents of this young girl should never have been sued in the first place... however lawyers being greedy souless bastards only want one thing, money. Justice is secondary
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Am I the only one that's sick of hearing about every issue with security in schools, lately?
As the article points out, if everyone got reported for saying something stupid, there would be a lot of teenagers in jail. Now I do think that people should report things that they might find could be potentially dangerous. While this sounds good in theory it is not very practical, since it rely's on personal judgement. What one might think dangerous, somone might not. We have found a problem. Since the Columbine and other shootings at school, school administration is naturally worried about this problem. I do think it is overblown. The problem is that these occurances are very rare, the media will do its best trying to convince you that it happens everywhere, which is simply not true. Kids dont go around shooting up schools all the time.
/. readers have gone through that sort of thing as have I. Some kids also cannot deal with this sort of thing and go around shooting people or whatever which is sad. If I ever let and of that crap get to me, I know there would be several less people in the world today, the fact is it didnt get to me becuase I didnt care, I dealt with it and moved on. The kids that let teasing get to them should try to deal with it and move on, things will get better. I KNOW this seems simple and I KNOW it mostly doesnt work so chill.
The problem with this case is that the school refused to defend the girl who informed them of a potential problem. This was and is NOT a good idea. If I knew that by saying something which might not be true would land myself in court and cause a huge legal problem, not to mention cause huge problems for my family I would think twice, or at LEAST try to find out more information before saying anything. I look at this school as completely irresponsible and they should be sued for not backing up the girl.
It has always been a fact that if you dont fit in with the popular crowd and if you're not a jock, etc... that others will tease and make fun of you. I know for a fact that other
The problem is not the kids that get so mad and depressed they start taking people out, the problem is that other kids are so stupid and thoughtless that they make fun of others for their dumb reasons. Maybe schools should start dealing with THAT issue and then they might start to see school violence start to decline becuase in my opinion I do believe these are related. As Rodney King said
"Why can't we all just get along?"
I do tend to agree with this, but I know it is just a fruitless hope that never will happen. I got through it fine and I wish the best of luck to those going through that crap.
Lord Arathres
stainless steel
...does this reminds you anything? Let's say, a police state?
Not only you cannot say anything, but everything is stretched to its extreme limits, far beyond "common sense" (there's no such thing as common sense in modern legislation, therefore it doesn't exist, right?).
Kids do what they have to do, and they got sued. Parents follow money and sue other kids, other parents, the school, and so on.
Next time I'll bump into a street light I'll sue some god for having created the earth, and perhaps I'll be done. What is left now?
it seems to me that the actual system is going toward a "everything which is not expressely allowed is denied" system, typical of all dicatorship.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
I will admit that little teenage girls may not be all that sweet and innocent and she may have had malicious intent on informing. However, even if she was trying to sow the seeds of distrust against her fellow class mate it pains me to think we would hold the little girl responsible for the harsh and unwarranted punishment doled out to the little boy.
Little girls (or anyone else) SHOULD go to the authorities when they see something troubling to them. Good parenting should be applied to comfort the distraught youngster (or oldster). Some reasonable action should then be taken by the authorities with the information provided. This reasonable action could be to do nothing if they feel or find that the information provided is unfounded. But it is then the authorities who should ultimately be held responsible for whatever action they decide to take.
If we must play the blame game I would hold the school and/or courts responsible for this madness. Merely allowing the lawsuit against the little girl to proceed is irresponsible of our court system. Making her parents pay the courts costs is unconscionable.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Wrongly accused who of what? Her only crime seems to be reporting to the "proper authorities" what she overheard. I did not read anywhere that the little girl was the one who made the judgment call to send this kid off to juvenile hall. It was either the school or the courts who decided this, so why aren't they picking up the tab?
she was spooked, and her parents are out $40k.
Yes, she probably was. So what, we have a tax on fear now? You'd prefer everyone keep their mouth shut?
[The parents] live there too and they can vote
Err... what kind of excuse is that? The defense to gunning down innocent people is that, "Hey, they can vote! They should have voted to protect themselves against guys like me!" Who says they didn't vote against this kind of stupidity and were just in the minority? You also suggesting like-minded people should segregate themselves accordingly?
So when the idiot train headed in their direction, they got ran over.
And when stupid people do stupid things, the rest of us should stand by and say, "Oh well"? I say NO to this kind of idiocy! We should unite and proclaim our displeasure on the Slashdot walls!
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
When I was a teenager many years ago, I was one of the fringe types that is frequently targeted as a potential shooter nowadays. And I had quite a temper, one that was manifested verbally on many occasions. But I never hurt anybody physically because I knew better. I knew that it would have been wrong for me to lay a hand on someone else just because I was angry with them. But there were many times when people had me enraged to the point where I uttered the words, "I'm gonna f'in kill you." I can't count the number of times that I have said those words in my younger days, even though I knew full-well that I wouldn't hurt anybody. With today's modern zero-tolerance bullshit policies, I would have been locked away, expelled, and who knows what else. But instead I graduated from high school and went on to a good college. Finished college with a 4.0 GPA and am now rather successfully employed in the IT industry. I am a valuable and functioning member of society. I just had a temper when I was younger. You are making the exact same mistake as the school administrators are. You are seeing black and white when it's really a big ball of grey. Nothing is that simple. Nothing is ever cut and dry. Allow me to extend your example to fulfillment. You say: I try to teach my kids two things on this subject. First, "I don't want to know if your sister bad mouths me when I'm not around." Second, "If your sister tells you she's going to strangle me in my sleep, I want to know about it." To take your example to it's logical conclusion based on the situation that we are discussing, when your daughter tells her sibling that she's going to strangle you in your sleep your first response should be to ban her from the house and your property and then to have her arrested and tried for conspiracy to commit murder. Now, I hope that wouldn't be your actual response. I would hope that you would sit your daughter down and talk to her and find out if she really said that, and why. And if she truly did threaten to kill you in your sleep, then I would hope that you would have the good sense to talk to her about the problems that are causing her to have this desire and get counseling for her to help her overcome this problem. That's what the response of the schools should be (with the assistance of the parents) in situations like the one we are discussing.
Maybe I am ignorant, but Jon Katz is not hired simply for school reports is he? If he is, I am quite sorry for being uninformed. However, as soon as I saw the story, before looking at the poster I knew it had to be Jon Katz, as only he would post things related to school. Cmon Jon, get some new stuff!
When I first read the article, one of the first things that popped into my mind was the movie, Swing Kids. In the movie, the Hitler youth require the Nazis-to-be to make reports on who supports Hitler and who doesn't (and actually used these reports). Although not totally analogous, it is something that might prove interesting to think about. Conversely, however, cooperation is what makes our society exist: we all rely on one another. Take Neighborhood Watch, for example. It has proven, at least where I live, to be useful. My point is, a good case can be made for either side, and neither extreme is desirable. I hope this comment isn't considered off topic or flamebait, as I merely hope to hear what people think about when it IS appropriate to tell, and when it is not, if at all.
I have to agree with you completely. It seems to me that this girl got sued for actions that the school took, and not for her own. If the school had dealt with the situation quietly and discreetly (one-on-one with the student involved) then this lawsuit never would have happened. Even if the girl was lying and made up the whole thing, it wouldn't have come to this. The school administration dropped the ball, and the girl and her parents are paying for their mistakes.
I may be wrong, but I'm never uncertain.
Your assertion that informing is inherently anti-democratic is absurd. A democracy succeeds when truth and facts are brought to light. It fails when a shroud of secrecy hides possible danger.
What you are probably correct about, though you completely misstep by blaming the informant, is that over-reaction to threats is equally bad as the threats themselves. It is dangerous to leave troubled kids to their own devices, and it is foolish to toss them in jail for making their thoughts known. Counseling, as you skimmed over in the article, is the key ingredient that seems to have been missing in the aforementioned case. Troubled kids should be identified early and counseled when nearing the edge. This is impossible without someone paying attention, and what better way to learn about these kids than informants? In 99 out of 100 cases, these kids are just going through some adolescent angst, but by catching that 1 kid you may be able to prevent Littletons.
Dancin Santa
What's this 'friend' thing I keep hearing about?
Given a reasonably level playing field, who would win a fight between a bear and a shark?
Whenever a kid does ANYTHING not socially streamlined in this country, there are a few idiots that point to this as an excuse to BLAME/BAN/PROTEST something. The real culprit of lost children is parental indifference, abandonment, and ignorance. Of course the ones who usually want to BAN anything are usually the most hypocritical and irresponsible. Protect your kids by raising them you dickhead, dont limit my freedom, and my kids because you are too stinkin lazy to take charge of your life.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
I am not a robot, like you would like me to be. I have a mind, and whats more, I have feelings and emotions that sway and control my body. Anorexia is not a rational thing, and I, I freely admit, am not a rational girl. Many of my boyfriends have said that that is my most charming feature! But you want to make me a robot, and presumably you would choose one for a wife. Well, I suggest you marry that plastic blow up doll in your cupboard, because you won't get a girl like me, or any girl of spirit!
And by that statement you convince me your life has been shallow, and that you are nothing but a callow youth with much to learn. Worrying about being fat is not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things, no matter how much it may traumatise your middle-class teenage life.
Not for you perhaps, but I am female. I am judged solely on my looks. I am convinced that it is my looks that have got me my job, my green card and my boyfriend. My looks are an important tool. And intelligent people use all the tools at their disposal! I can see that you don't fit into this category though.
Cynical? Not really, just experianced.
You don't fool me. I can tell you have been worn down by life. You do not have an optomistic or joyful outlook. Are you divorced? I thought so.
I ignore the rest of your quite deliberately hurtful comments.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
What's at issue is not "ratting" on other kids who have commited crimes - the problem is that kids are being encouraged to inform on kids who may commit a crime, because they are displaying supposedly "suspicious" or "dangerous" behaviour.
Yeah, like schoolkids are qualified to make that judgement.
If nobody ever re-invented the wheel, we'd all be pushing around flintstones cars, wouldn't we?
Umm... you do know that it was the bad guy who said that in Shakespeare's play, right? >br>
And bad guys can't have good ideas?
It's been about 30 years, but if I remember right that was Hotspur, and I would describe him as overly impulsive (like a teenager) rather than evil (like Richard III)...
If the tests are given every year, that sort of score-rigging becomes pretty obvious -- if you look at the improvement in scores over one year, I would expect a good teacher with previously low-achieving kids to come out on top...
I think you are right about the impact of the women's movement -- Up to about 1968 the only professions open to women were teaching and nursing, so they got a lot of women with qualifications far too high for the pay scale and status of those jobs, plus a few men who really loved the job. (And I remember one man that was utterly incompetent and had been so for 20 years, but was hanging on, IMHO, because he would have been incompetent at any job.) We've lost most of that core of over-qualified women -- except for the few that love teaching so much as to accept everything that's wrong with the job.
But that's not the whole story. Teachers' pay has increased greatly, but with no quality controls in place, the main effect of this is that poor teachers are less likely to remove themselves from the profession. Teachers' pay isn't much compared to good managers, engineers, and coders, but it is pretty good for someone whose only proven qualification was graduating in the middle ranks of an exceptionally easy college major. Smarter people graduate from tougher majors in the "liberal arts" and take lower-paying jobs such as McDonald's asst managers all the time. Teachers' status is rather low -- that might have something to do with peoples' subliminal awareness that there are no quality controls in the "profession."
What we need is a system in place to identify the good teachers, much higher pay for them, a new job title (for better status), and an up-or-out policy for the rest. For example, five years to make "instructor", ten to make "master instructor", or else you're putting in your application at McDonald's...
I went to school with someone who really was a threat -- 6'8, poison mean, and six months after graduation he murdered someone. Absolutely no one expressed any surprise when we heard about it. He pled insanity, was released about eight years later, and promptly killed five people.
Would a snitch system in school have made any difference?It might have put some bounds on his bullying in school, but it wouldn't have made a bit of difference to his nastiest tendencies, unless it gave him a reason to start shooting people sooner. He is a psychopath -- counseling doesn't cure that. Nor does anything else -- heavy doses of drugs, chains and cells, or execution can prevent them from killing any more, but there is no cure.
We can't lock them up until they do commit (or at least attempt) a violent crime. And as for recognizing the symptoms ahead of time -- a committee of psychiatrists much better qualified than anyone in the school system was somehow persuaded to let this guy out once after his first murder!
Maybe the teacher or principal ought to check things ought and apply a little common sense before calling the cops. Wait a minute -- maybe the problem is that neither the teacher nor the principal has any common sense. Consider:
1) Education majors are about the lowest ranking of any group of college students on standardized tests. (There are some bright kids in there too, but the average is abysmal. And I really wonder how the bright ones manage to deal with the stultifying brain-dead courses.)
2) The public schools are unionized, and the first priority of their unions is to make sure that no one ever gets fired for incompetence. The second is to fight any proposal for paying teachers depending on their competence.
So your average teacher or principal is a not too bright person who loves a risk-free environment. And now we want them use common sense and be willing to take responsibility for their judgement in a high-risk case... Lot's of luck. We're homeschooling our grandchildren.
As for these comments about making "loser's pay" etc, such a system was set up in ancient Rome. The court system was very much on the side of minimalism and to not waste the court's time. The accuser would have to put up some of their land as "Bail" or if they had no land, something deemed fairly valuable to them, and if it was determined that the suit was outrageous and the accuser was obviously just trying to harass the defendant, they would either lose their bail to the State, or to the defendant. Not saying it was a good idea, bad idea, or whatever, but it apparently worked pretty well.
When faced with a societal problem reactionaries attempt to supress the problem, never dealing with deeper issues. For to deal with the deeper issues, they would be going against their own interests.
In this case, the problem is "bad kids". Instead of atempting to solve the bigger societal problem of why so many kids are angry, depressed or alienated, they attempt to eliminate the "bad kids" using "informants".
Other examples of reactionary problem solving include the war on drugs, anti-abortion legislation, and gun control to a certain extent. These are their anwsers to drug abuse, birth control, and violence respectively.
World Socialist Web Site
I think this school phenomenon is more propoganda driven by the media and caried out by paranoia on the part of the student. It should be pointed that the media and state are almost one the same here is the U.S. If Stalinist Russia had the same propoganda engine we do, there would be a very strong link. Again, I'm not aware of the curcumstances in Stalinist Russia. There are definitely similarties here to the committe on unamerican activities, which could provide for some historical perspective.
At any rate, it should at least be obvious the contry as a whole is drifting to the right, reactionary proposals like this are ample evidence. Also evidence is how our current president in essence stole the election, and life has pretty much gone on as normal as if nothing out of the ordinary just happened. This was aided in large part by the media, who acted as a pacifier for the country. If you consider fascism the most right-wing of all governments, than you can see how we are step by step becoming a fascist country.
World Socialist Web Site
I think you could have used a bit of your own advice.
Ah well, I suppose I should respond to some of this.
Good question. How exactly did he steal it?
I said *in essence*, Bush is just figure head after all. You can you look at many things, including Florida election policy which favored wealthier areas with voting equipment. Disenfranchisement of minority voters. The unelected right-wing majority of the supreme court which intervened to stop vote counting, and ultimately ruled against vote counting. All of this added up to in essense of a right-wing coup, and an attack on democratric rights.
If this is not enough for you, you can also look on the World Socialist Web Site. They have examined the issue in great depth. You don't have to agree with their politics, to see the reality of what happened.
What, you didn't see all the news shows with people claiming that Bush's election was a fraud? If the networks were cooporating, or even just idly standing by, they wouldn't have gone on about it for weeks (and months, now).
As for the "pundits", I didn't see any serious dissent. There were some remarks made by timid liberals, but that's about it. As for the news media, the overwelming theme was that we should want this election to be over and accept the result no matter who was victorious. Disenfranchisement was played down, as was the decision of the supreme court.
Two things: First, Fascism was Italian nationalism. I don't see much of that here.
Fascism is not Italian nationalism, although Mussolini who coined the term was Italian and Fascism is nationalistic. I think the best definition is from Mussolini himself, you can read it here. To sum up, facism is a nationalist government with a strong dictatorial leadership in perpetual conquest.
Second, historically in our country, it's been the left-wing group that's aligned itself with socialism. Look at the social reformers of the 1920s, specifically the unions. While unions were necessary then, they often proclaimed socialist beliefs and intents.
I have no disagreement here, although just to note the union leadership from the 30's on have allied themselfs with the capitalist Democratic party.
The natural follower of socialism is communism, which is simply socialism applied to politics. The government owns everything and decides what is right for the people. While the claims of communism are that the government will eventually dissolve itself, I don't think that's ever happened. Communist governments just turn into dictatorships or oligarchies.
I think you have a misunderstanding of communism. Communism is a utopian society, the modern conception hasn't yet existed. When communists talk about the disolving of the state, they are talking about a world-wide phenomenon. The beginings of this can be seen in globalization. Yes, socialism is one country has been tried (Stalin, Mao, Castro), and it has failed for the most part. However, to even attempt socialism in one state is to go against socialism, which is the international struggle for the working class.
It's funny you mention oligarchies, because that is precisly the form that our "democracy" has taken on. In essence the supreme power resides in those few who have the lion's share of wealth.
World Socialist Web Site
"We abhor students who turn in their fellow students for illegal acts (after all, the police can only be involved if a law is alledgedly broken), yet we condemn adults who aid criminals by refusing contact police when they are knowledgable about a crime. Should we be praising the communities whose code of silence allows crime to flourish?"
But the student wasn't turned in for an illegal act; the student was turned in for verbally blowing off steam. It would be one thing if she had told the school that she saw him spraypainting obscenities on the side of the gym, but this is quite another. This is like overhearing me say, "I'd like to have a minelayer attachment for my car to blow up people who tailgate me" and turning me into the authorities over it. People blow off steam verbally; that's how we are. I've said things remarkably similar to what the student said, yet managed to graduate without launching into a shooting spree.
In my opinion, if schools are going to ask students to report "suspicious" behavior exhibited by their peers, the school needs to set some guidelines on what exactly needs to be reported. If a student is overheard actually making plans on how to barricade certain doors, covering certain points, etc., or actually threatening another student, yes, that student needs to be taken aside for counseling; the students who verbally blow off steam occasionally don't all need to be hauled in for disciplinary action and instant pariahship, though.
I don't abhor a student that turns in another student for an illegal activity, but I would abhor a neighbor who called the police because I said, "Man, I don't make enough money; I need to start robbing banks" while balancing my checkbook.
We need to move back from the current view that competition is bad, because all it's doing is giving kids nothing better to do than hanging around getting involved in crime
A bit bitter, aren't we?
Sheesh, where'd you get such a rosy outlook on life? Were you mugged by a bunch of drug-selling teenaged thugs? or are you just a general jack-ass?
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The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout
Freaking narcs...just take them out behind the gym and kick the shit outta them
ok, i don't get it. i'm assuming you might be wiccan, so i'll just state this...
you do not accept responsibility for your actions and feelings. you blame other people and corporations for them. you are anorexic because you sleep around too much. you make yourself a bloated fish and you are every reason in this fucked up world why we have tattletales and impudent asses who publicly can't keep their mouths shut about stupid crap.
i apologize for not replying in gold, but you my wiccan-email-powered friend are a conglomeration of social idiocy and downright awfulness. your mother should be proud and your teachers will gladly smile upon your face when you trip and bust your ass on some dude's penis.
sorry. here, i'll start over:
I can assure you that what I went through is not a fiction. It was the most scarring experiance of my life.
i don't know what to say about that.
it's complete selfishness.
it's all mental. you are mental.
you hate this forum. this forum, in turn, hates you for your shallow, sex-driven life. nobody appreciates an ass-wetter. anorexia nervousa is a laughing matter when it is YOU who makes others do the same with your very, very, VERY poor example.
you need to take responsibility for yourself and make sure you are the only one to blame. this goes for everyone and anyone who talks about murdering people in class can be really drunk too. i say stupid shit when i'm high all the time (i accept responsiblity for that; i played counterstrike for an hour and a half. i lost the game!)
so anyway, the fact still remains - someone's always responsible, but when it comes to making personal decisions in any global or private matter concerning that someone, it is that certain someone's responsibility. if they are wise, they will accept it and not blame the media or their parents for their shortcomings.
"wiccans". i wish in the future that i will never see an email address like that again.
sorry for the dab o' flame. i just hated that bitch's comment. peace folks.
Did anyone hear the one about the kid who was suspended over a chicken finger?
I think this was in the Central Florida area, i heard it on the radio, it was a big talk radio program... apparently some first grade kid was suspended for several days from his school for pointing a chicken finger at someone and saying 'bang, bang bang'.
I think this has to be the best example of the overzealous knee-jerk over-reaction typical of todays school system.
Educators today have to learn some common sense.
The part about teaching our kids the difference between a real threat and a kid blowing steam is a good idea and would work in High school and even some Jr. High, but most childrens minds do not develop reason until about age 12 (read that somewhere) so if Johnny first-grader makes a threat serious or not what should be done?
What is good/bad? If lawyers are considered bad and the bad guy says kill the lawyers is that good? Just wondering?
If the school is going to institute student-student informing as a de facto or an actual policy, they are going to have to sleep where they make their beds. (methaphor baaaad)
This new wave 'after Columbine' era is quite frightening to me, and this makes me very very glad I'm no longer in school. I was quiet, angry, made various death threats from time to time (mostly in jest or release of bile and usually while Quaking), didn't have many friends except for a small, tight-knit group.... Boy. I would have been locked up and watched on faster than you can imagine. And, I suspect that the geekier of you out there woudl have fallen under that same umbrella.
Is being dorky a crime? A loner? Angry? It seems that we are heading there, faster than I'd like.
Brant
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
Every script kiddy out there can relate to this very well... Remeber the TOS Bot on AOHELL... same thing except no lawyer fees....
--- My Karma is bigger than your...
------ This sentence no verb
Where your argument is falling apart, though, is when you blame the lack of self-control. Anorexia nervosa is about excersizing an extreme amount of self control. For many, the feeling of accomplishing something, of succeeding, of being able to control their body, and get where they believe the have to get in order to look good (and gain self esteem), is what drives them into it. It starts with a diet, and ends in an obsession in self control.
Try telling the family or friend of someone who has died from anorexia nervosa that it's not an illness. There are thousands of them.
As for competition, sure some element of competition can be fine. But not when it gets so extreme it divides instead of brining together. And not when it's excluding large groups by being centered around a limited type of activity (typically sports), which not everyone is interested in, or able to perform well in.
Never read the book, but if it's as chilling as the movie it should be worht checking out...
Schools are asking kids to report people without any scientifically well founded guidelines that ensures they narrow the target to people with any real likelyhood of ever comitting a crime.
The problem with encouraging children to snitch, is that it creates an environment where kids are encouraged to keep their mouth shut, because whatever they say may give them problems, or end them up in jail. That has a chilling effect both on free speech, and the way they react will also likely have a chilling effect on troubled kids willingness to talk to their classmates or school official about their problems, out of fear of being reported and turned over to the police.
What would you rather have? That a kid with psychological problems dare talk to their friends or their teacher, and get to talk about - and hopefully get help for - their problems, or that they keep it to themselves until it gets bad enough that they end up ruining both their own and other peoples lives with violence?
Sure, you'll eventually catch someone dangerous by having kids snitching. Just as you'll eventually catch someone dangerous by picking up random people on the street. But do we have any evidence that kids that are snitched on would more likely have comitted a crime that someone who isn't snitched on?
And are you willing to go down the slippery slope into a society where school, employers and government will know everything about you because someone at some point thought something about you was suspicious? And are you willing to accept a society where a weird taste in music, clothes, hobbies or behaviour may end you in jail - if only shortly - because someone thought you might become a criminal at some point?
It isn't a far stretch for targetting people over what's been "playground talk" for as long as there's been schools, to targetting people over other "features" of their personality.
Seeking help for troubled friends is one (good) thing. Turning them over to people that are likely to hand them over to the police and have them charged for making terrorist treats for blowing off steam is a completely different (bad) thing.
Overzealous lawyers are ruining this country.
My boss said he wanted to see more of me. So I gained 12 pounds. This post may or may not be sarcastic.
Like the article says, security in schools is basically very good. We don't hear about the schools where their are no problems. We only hear about violence from the media, who whore themselves out for ratings (not unlike myself, whoring for karma). They claim journalistic integrity, but don't report the 99% of the time when everything is "status quo". Incidents of major violence are rare. But I could be wrong. Maybe every kid brings guns to school. But I doubt it. Just like the real world, there are the 99%'ers who live life and don't make the news. But we only hear from the 1% who do insane things.
My boss said he wanted to see more of me. So I gained 12 pounds. This post may or may not be sarcastic.
... if I had been in high school now instead of a decade ago.
Back in high school, I was a total social outcast. And it wasn't until after I left that I found out people concidered me "most likely to return to high school with an AK-47".
I was shocked! I had no idea people thought of me in that respect! But when you wear dark clothing, keep to yourself, and face daily ridicule from "the cool kids", I guess some people worry that you're going to snap.
If I was in high school now, my locker would probably have been repeatedly searched, I'd be even more of an outcast (because people would actualy BELIEVE I return with an AK-47 instead of just joking about it), and who knows how that would have affected my development in those years?
I concider myself a well-adjusted individual. Back in public school I used to have a temper, but taking Martial Arts took care of that. Today I pretty much have a WTF attitude and nothing gets me seriously down, depressed, or angry.
Would I have still turned out this way if I been treated like anathema by everyone instead of (mostly) ignored? I can't help but think that this kind of attitude might lead to MORE social disfunction, a self-fulfilling prophecy!
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
Strom Thurmond; the dean of the US Senate...
Strom Thurmond; the dean of the US Senate...
the deadest fart on slashdot.
I agree with TheWhiteOtaku for the most part. I think that there is not enough upstream think about these sorts of issues in America, and that was touched on. I think that rather than informant techniques, there should simply be education about tolerance and acceptance. If people were taught to understand how very different people are, and realized that making fun of the "different" kids just made them angry and further compounded the problem. If these steps were taken, the real problems would present themselves - and should be adressed by the school administration accordingly, not the students. If you figure out what percentage of students actually would kill other students vs. how many would be report, you'd see that there are more positive and effective ways of dealing with the problem.
One last note: I'm not trying to argue with anyone, I just want people to see that there are more ways of dealing with issues than are apparent. Thanks for reading this.
to the students, they're just recognizing there isn't always a teacher/parent around to hear the threat. The problem here is not so much kids telling on other kids, but teachers and administrators who can't tell the difference between a serious threat and someone mouthing off. Perosnally, I think if a child feals threatened by another child, they should be able to tell their parents/teachers about it- placing the burden on kids to distinguish between "real" and "perceived" threats is kind of unfair, especially if the threat is coming from someone they don't know well. But the parents and teachers they tell then need to take appropriate action, and expelling someone for a childish threat with no evidence they intended to actually carry it out is certainly not appropriate.
Somehow, I could swear when I was in school (5 years ago) the teachers and administrators could deal with situations like this much better. Has the educational system really broken down this far, or is this just a small group of overreacting teachers and administrators making eberyone else look bad?
I must, one day, build a shrine. It will be a shrine to Jon Katz. As I read this article/column, I was struck by how often and how well Jon Katz makes his points. There's nothing more pressing now than the threat of the loss of our democracy and especially the loss of our democracy for the young (in public schools no less). The way that Jon Katz is able to focus in on this problem and attack with such fortitude is consistantly reaffirming to me and my sense of democracy. Jon Katz, don't ever stop writing. What will I do without you? I'll just have to curl into a ball. Keep them coming.
--
You can't imagine how much I really do love Jon Katz.
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You can't imagine how much I really do love Jon Katz.
(I filter all non Katz stories).
This article really pisses me off. I am sorry, but schools doing this to our children is wrong. I am only in college...how could things have changed so much in so little time?
Didn't you ever see "12 Angry Men?" You know, the movie where the sane guy notes that saying "I'm gonna kill you!" is something that is often said in passion, and is more often then not totally meaningless. We could all learn a lesson from old black and white movies.
I read an article the other day about a kid getting suspended for using a chicken finger as a gun. Oh please, whatever. When I am tired, I might hold a pen and make a little bang noise as I write. Is this threatening someone?
How about drawings? What if I doodle in my notebook and draw a picture of fighting? Is this a threat? My favorite thing to draw when I was in school was of a mass dogfight between two rival air forces. Is this bad?
Zero tolerance is bullshit! What ever happened to reality checks. Note the chicken finger story. Zero tolerance is really going to screw some people who don't deserve it.
This is just like that Starcraft story about people screaming "I am going to kill you" as they blow each other up on mock battlefields. And this shit is happening at colleges now! When will it stop? Where does it end?
----------------------
Kurt A. Mueller
kurtm3@bigfoot.com
PGP key id:0x4FB5FB1D
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
There is a BIG difference between verbally disagreeing with someone and threatening to kill someone. As many times as this kind of thing happens today, yes, we have to investigate these kinds of threats. Now see, I've disagreed, told you my points and not threatened anything. Free speech.
Who do we have to blame but ourselves? Sure we should have the safety of relying on parents or guardians to inform the school or local authorities of odd behavior paterns. If you will notice though the kids shooting up schools don;t have parents that are capable of watching for this.
So we want to drag the schools down saying they are wrong for their attempts to stop these horrible acts? Schools are already under funded and when the shootings happen they get the lawsuits thrown at them from parents saying they should have been on guard to students acting this way. GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS! Its the parents of the kids that need to be in tune. America as a whole is making school a daycare or caretaker for their kids instead of being an active part in their life.
I will agree and say its a sad day when a girl has this much trouble because she was doing what she was told. I hope she wins the lawsuit to get her legal bills paid for. I hope her and her family rot in hell if they try some multi million dollar punitive damage suit against the school though.
Razzious Domini
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.
This is a ridiculously offensive comment. This is like saying that alchoholism is just a ploy to make money for AA. While I agree that psychologists have talken helping people and created a multi-billion dollar business of sedating the public, that doesn't mean the problems don't exist. Before ADD there were hyperactive children. There still are hyperactive children. The only difference is that there are doctors who are willing to prescribe Ritilin the moment your child misbehaves. Your using poor logic. Bad Doctor + Misdiagnosing Medicine != Disease Does Not Exist This is much in the same vein as having a doctor amputate the wrong leg. Would you say in that because there was nothing wrong with the leg that was amputated that amuptation is never necessary? Oh, and please don't get me started on how insensitive your remarks are. You need three sisters to slap you around for that comment.
This system has so many bottle necks it isn't funny. The police, the courtsystem, school officials, school staff, etc....
Now even if you only accuse one person a day (preplanned with friends) this system will fail and/or it's abuse will be noted. The police/officials do not have the time and cannot spend the time neccessary for this kind of a system to work. It assumes that only a few kids will be turned in. I say turn everyone in...
If you look at how the goverment has always done something with boundaries they break them. A good example is the fuel tax, its suppose to be a temporary thing for WWII then it was a temporary thing for the fuel shortage in the 70s and now look today, the fuel prices are crazy and we are still paying a tax on it. I think that in 5, 10 or maybe 20 years down the road this same mechanisms will be used to inform on parents, family members or friends. This will break all loyalities and family units. I believe that no one should mess with kids and especially if they are going to turn them into the goverments eyes or ears. I understand the concern but it is going over board.
Indeed. As a highschooler myself I have qucikly learned to tone down my language. Only last week when I was doing a skit in my drama class that just happened to include the word "god" I was sent to the principle for a reprimand because it, "might have offended some people in the room." It's almost getting to the point that whenever I meet somebody I have to ask them, "can you legaly testify against me? Cause if you can I can't talk to you." Now I know that the Supreme Court has ruled that many constitutional rights don't aply to children. I think that many lawyers have taken this to mean that we no longer have the right to freedom of speech. They are gravely mistaken. It is interesting to note though that it's perfectly okay to cuss out a cop, your parents and you can even get away with a lot of stuff to your teachers but as soon as you say that you don't like something about somebody people start raising red flags. --GoldBishop (irc.eskimo.com #goldbishop) freedom of speech is free, free speach isn't
The problem with "loser pays" is that it makes large companies untouchable.
They already are for the most part. The only way anyone can afford to sue a larg corp is if they are so obviously liable that a lawyer is willing to accept a percentage of the award as his sole fee. Even then, you have to be able to afford a lot of time off from work.
It's really a seperate problem. Court (civil or criminal) costs a lot more than many people have. This is especially true in cases of civil suits against a much wealthier opponant (like an individual vs. a corperate).
I imagine that there's not a single silver bullet. A good start would be a grand jury system for civil suits. The plaintiff must convince a civil grand jury that their suit has merit before they can even contact the intended defendant. That jury can either let the suit go forward, remove some defendants from the suit, limit the damages sought, or throw the whole thing out.
As for the corperate vs individual, I don't know what will fix that without bankrupting the whole system or providing individuals with woefully sub-standard representation (much like criminal defendants get now).
There's no illness called anorexia.
Actually, there are TWO illnesses called anorexia. There's anorexia nervosa which is believed to be psychological in origin and there's a physical form which can derive from a number of causes including nerve damage, long term conditioning or using too much speed for too long.
The nervosa variety is way over diagnosed (IMHO) especially by ameteurs, but it is a genuine illness that can progress to death by self-starvation. When connected w/ bullemia, one of the problems is that regurgitation becomes an involuntary response to consumption of food. No amount of not being silly and eating food seems to help that w/o other therapies
Modern society seems to need all of these conditions to justify the appaling lack of self-control which is now the norm. How can anyone rationally argue that there's an illness which makes people miserable in winter? But no, it's "quick, get the drugs!", as if pumping chemicals into your bloodstream is the solution to anything.
Apparently, it is a response to limited exposure to strong light (more specifically, the hormonal response of the pineal to that light). It too is real. The treatment of choice is regular exposure to full spectrum artificial lights during winter, not drugs. How rational is it to call something a crock (to paraphrase) without even bothering to find out what the prevailing theories are and evaluating them first?
I might also point out that the vast majority of western medicine (and much eastern and western folk medicine as well) involves "pumping chemicals into your bloodstream". Of course, technically, eating also falls into that category (unless you're also convinced that food is not composed of chemicals).
The School's really don't have much of a choice in the matter. If they encourage people to inform, they get the above mentioned result. If they DON'T, then they face lawsuits for not taking proper precautions to ensure the safety of the students.
That's a big part of the problem. You can sue anybody for anything at any time these days. If you sue enough people (groundlessly) there's a fair chance that the civil court 'lotto' will pay off.
Perhaps the best answer for schools is to do the best that they can. If they get sued for some nonsense, tell the parents who are suing: "FINE! We will give you every penny that the school has, and shut down for the year. We will tell EVERYONE exactly why their kids have no school to go to. We will name names. ENJOY!".
The only problem is that some schools deserve to get sued for outrageous behaviour. What it comes back to is that court and lawyers have become so expensive and capricious that effectivly, we don't have a system to redress grievances and establish liability anymore. It's much more of a 'richest and least ethical wins' system.
Security in schools is bad. Talk about an oppressive environment... it's no wonder children are screwed up. Security isn't the way to fix much deeper social problems.
I think Zero-Tolerance is needed, if somebody does something severe enough (i.e. brings a gun or heroin/cocaine/whatever to school).
What's needed is a Common Sense(TM) Policy. I read of a school that expelled a kid who brought a fingernail clippers to school, claiming it could be used as a weapon. Every incident should be reviewed on a case by case basis. If I was a school administrator where something like that happened, I'd fire the teacher/principal that expelled the kid.
The NY Times Sunday magazine has an <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home /20010204mag-legalman.html"> article </A>
on this phenomenom.
The author claims the less class structure in society,
the more laws take over. Thats the price.
Though it is not that private schools "could" choose to be different. It is that at least some would so choose, to try to get a competitive advantage.
I don't have too much of a problem with the accuser being sued. People should be held acountable for their actions, and the option to sue someone who commits slander/libel should remain.
The real problem with the example given, is that $40,000 was spent in defense, on a case that was eventually thrown out. It should not cost that much to defend.
We need to get defense cost down sometime, so that if some asshole who I quote decides to sue me for libel, or some megacorp decides to intimidate/outspend me in order to get their way, I can withstand the attack without having to be rich.
Note: I really mean we need to get the costs down. I don't mean that the cost should be shifted to another party (e.g. the government (i.e. everyone)).
$40000 is just a ridiculous amount of money for something that should be extremely simple. The defense should essentially be, "Prosecutor, put up or shut up." If it costs $40000 to hire a legal expert to speak those words (in the correct language of course), then we have a serious flaw in the legal system.
The common wisdom is that only fools represent themselves in court. We need to change the conditions that are causing that wisdom to be true. We need to make legal representation and consultation into useless luxuries rather than requirements.
In my arrogant and not-so-humble, but uninformed opinion, doing this should be pretty easy: just simplify the law. If all people are expected to obey the law, then it shouldn't take years of specialized education and experience in order to understand the law. I'm not so much in favor of shooting all the lawyers, as in am in favor of making them obsolete.
If you take away the $40000 figure, and instead, the accuser only spent $4, then this wouldn't have been much of a story.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
flatpack,
As the father of a young son myself, I spend a bit of time reflecting on the example I set for him.
Would you like your son to emulate your behavior?
How would your wife feel about seeing you dump on a young woman who readily admitted that she has struggled with emotional problems?
Why not spend time developing personal character and demonstrating a life of compassion and concern for others instead of simply tearing them down? You'll get along with others better and as a positive side-effect, you'll like yourself better, too.
Or would you have your son grow up to be as cynical and venom-filled as you?
I pray that this is not the case.
Regards,
anomaly
God loves you and longs for relationship with you. For more information about this, contact me at tom underscore cooper at bigfoot dot com
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
The solution to this is that if the loser's costs are less than the winner's, the loser doesn't pay any more than his own costs. So if you sue Microsoft (or they sue you) and you lose, your legal bill will at most double. To this add some rules to keep the actual cost honest, and it eliminates the majority of objections to 'loser pays'.
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At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
high-powered assault rifle
.30-06
to be on the lower end of the "high power"
range.
Rifles that fire cartidges in this class are
not be at all practical for full-auto use
in a shoulder fired rifle, as they have too
much recoil to be controllable. Not only
that, but the cartridges themselves would be
too heavy to carry sufficent numbers for
sustained fire in an individual weapon and
would require box magazines that would be
of unweildy size for carry by individual
soldiers. Also it takes a big, heavy rifle
to take the beating that a high powered
cartridge dishes out, and that isn't
compatible with the purposes of an "assault
rifle".
.223 Remington) or 7.62x39 Russian
or the newer 5.45x39 Russian. They use low
powered cartridges because capacity and low
weight are more important than power, plus
they need to be controllable in rapid fire.
:)
That little bit generally proves you don't know much about guns. "Assault rifles" are not "high powered", and "High Powered" rifles are not "assault rifles".
It is not surprising that most people don't know the difference, as the media either doesn't know either, or intentionally misinforms people in order to create sensationalist scary stories.
"High powered" rifles are almost always bolt actions, although there are a few semi-autos. There is a little bit of variance on opinion as to how much power a cartridge has to have in order to be considered "high power", but many people consider, for example
"Assault rifles" generally fire medium to low powered cartridges such as 5.56x45 (a.k.a 5.56 NATO or
and if you take me that seriously, heh, well then, i'll just have to kill you too
Well, I don't take you seriously, but this really isn't the kind of thing that people should joke about, as well as it isn't good to perpetuate the disinformation of the media.
Sheesh. They don't make any effort at all to get it right, do they?
It sure seems like they don't. Unfortunately I think journalistic integrity is about as endangered these days as the bill of rights.
Maybe that is a little cynical. I suppose one shouldn't ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity, but it is awfully tempting to do so.
In the case of person A suing person B, then person A has to put up the amount that they are suing for, and pay out if they lose. This seems ridiculous only if you don't know how court cases work in reality:
Most of these cases are being done by lawyers for free. If they lose, they pay a few hundred in court costs. If they win, they get thousands, sometimes over a million, in fees.
If they have to pony up the amount they are demanding (and it will be provided through organizations that will spring up like the existing insurance companies or bail bondsman), then they will only take realistic cases that they stand to win (that have a good premise), and won't request ludicrous sums on money (in the millions). If they consistantly take cases on bad premises, then the bondsmen who provide the money will not let them continue.
Sure, there are big holes if you envision certain cases, but our current system has a horrible case of dysentary, and we are hemmoraging through our legal system. I think this basic concept is fairly sound, and just needs a few tweaks. Comments?
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Common Sense: Void, prohibited by lawyers
I'm beginning to think that "loser pays" and penalties for frivolous lawsuits are looking like a better idea with every passing day. . .
It's either that, or implement the Shakespeare Solution:
First thing we do, we kill all the lawyers...
If you read this story, you'll note that just today police announced the arrest of three high school boys in Ft. Collins, Colorado (an hour or two north of Denver) for planning a "second Columbine", which is what a number of girls reported them saying. In this case it sounds somewhat bad - the kids had some diagrams of the school, a number of guns, and a propane tank ready to go (though I'm not sure from reading the article how much of those items the kids really had gathered together rather than just having them laying around the house).
I agree with other posters that there neds to be some sense of context that remarks are taken in - but I'd also say that if students really felt in danger, they should be able to report it without having to worry about getting sued.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If I told my parents about something my brother did, I would get in more trouble than my brother. Same for him if he told on me.
I'm glad it was like that. My parents, my mom especially, taught us the important social skill of not being a tattle.
Even as an adult, I dare you to try that kind of crap in your (as long as it's sane) workplace. You will be hated, and not just by the the person you told on. The person you told would probably hate you, too.
It was made clear from high where I work that crap like that would not be appreciated.
Of course, if you wanted to make sure that everybody wouldn't work together and fear you and each other instead, you'd run your company like these schools. Seems like a great way to avoid any sort of revolt, don't you think?
We abhor students who turn in their fellow students for illegal acts (after all, the police can only be involved if a law is alledgedly broken), yet we condemn adults who aid criminals by refusing contact police when they are knowledgable about a crime. Should we be praising the communities whose code of silence allows crime to flourish?
Of course not (well, _I_ don't think so...). In other words, the problem is with the law itself, not the students response to it. Informing about known crimes is considered good citizenship and possibly even necessary to a functioning society. Instead of attempting to promote the code of silence that allows any number of illegal acts to go unreported, we should look at adjusting the laws to take into account situation and youth.
Yes, I agree with you that schools are more dangerous for queer kids. Yes, this is wrong. Yes, teachers often don't give a shit. This is wrong too. My main point was that kids cannot buy guns with which to defend themselves.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
OK, kids can't buy guns or carry them. The point was that they can't legally use them as SB intended. Was it wrong for you to carry the gun? Maybe. If you were a kid like some kids I know, yes. If you were a kid like my brother, probably not.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
"I'm part of a persecuted minority in this country due to my sexual orientation, but I'll take my .45 over hate-crime legistlation any day of the week."
.45, that's fine for you (an adult). But, a kid doesn't have that option. Even if they did, a kid did have a .45, still might prefer not to use it (as a threat), since the other guy might have a bazooka.
Kids can't own guns. You wouldn't want them to. I'm all for individual rights and personal responsibility, but kids don't have responsibility. (Not that I believe an arbitrary age cut-off is a good thing - that's a separate issue).
If I were still in HS, and I were threatened on account of my sexual orientation or for any other reason, you can bet I would tell a teacher. That's what they're there for. School is a place for learning, where you ought to be able feel safe, concentrate on classes, etc. Not everything people say should be taken seriously, but most people can tell the difference. If you don't feel safe, you're not going to be able to focus fully on school - and you ought not to be required to live like that. So, if you want to solve it with your
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
My tax money goes for public schools and only public schools. Making babies is expensive and parents should know that before they start fucking around. If they can't afford to send their kids to the good schools, then don't make the babies. Its that simple.
I'm not about to make the public schools worse by drainging away a large percentage of their funds and turn them into non-functional holding cells for stupid kids. The current situation mixes good students in with a few bad and the result is that most kids end up out of school being able to read and do some semi-useful work. If some of the current plans go through, there will be a huge divide between schools as well as a class divide and it will result in a massive increase in stupid people roaming the streets. These stuipd people are a liability to me and I'm not going to stand for my tax money making it worse. You want to send your kid to a private school, fine but keep me and my money out of it.
First, a history lesson:
If you are fortunate enough to be a legitimate United States citizen, the chances are very good that you aren't working a regular job at a younger age than 14 or so. With a very small handful of exceptions, that is the youngest a minor can be and hold a job in the state I live in, and I've lived in states that had 16 as the age.
Contrast this with the child factory workers of 100-150 years ago. 'nuff said, I hope, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up.
Now, a bowl of Reality Chex:
First of all, not all kids use illegal drugs.
Not all kids that try drugs become habitual users (stupid-ass DARE propoganda to the contrary!)
Not all users of drugs are dealers of drugs.
Not all users/dealers of drugs are utterly devoid of other interests or even morals.
Kids on sports teams use drugs, sometimes. When I was in high school, they certainly drank like a school of fish, which is illegal for high school students.
And it's the kids who ARE doing things other than typical high school b.s. (Big Deal Sports *or* drugs and such) that are getting kicked around by the Thought Police. A close friend of mine had the misfortune to be student teaching when Columbine hit. The world lost an excellent teacher because he refused to make a career out of turning in his own kind. He has long hair, a black trenchcoat, and used to play Riff Raff in our local RHPS. *sigh*
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
The justification may have been different, but what about all those medieval teenage girls who became nuns and starved themselves, and sometimes ended up saints for it?
Same thing, different context: fear of sensual pleasure, as signified by food and sex, and pride in the ability to deny oneself these things. Taking control of one's body when the rest of life seems to be out of control. Et cetera.
Just because we didn't have the same term for something doesn't mean the thing didn't exist.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
When I was in high school, and my best friend and I tried to report someone who had made a series of threats of rape (to us, and to at least five other girls we knew about), we were not believed. We were told he was just flirting. (Yeah, sure, being thrown up against the wall with the words "I'm going to fuck you before I graduate if it kills us both!" is just flirting...NOT!) In fact, the perpetrator of the aforementioned threats was informed that I had "told" on him, and followed me around for several weeks threatening my life. Needless to say, I did NOT turn THAT in to the school administration!
Then again, when one student stole two lollipops out of another student's locker (mostly because the stealing student was pissed that the hoarding student had bought all the blue raspberry lollipops from the local convenience stores and was selling them for ten times their original cost), the hoarding student's mom pressed criminal charges against the stealing student. For 20 cents worth of lollipops that her son was selling in violation of school rules!
I guess it depends on who you are. The would-be rapist was a senior football and basketball player, member of several extra-curricular activities, and one of the tiny handful of non-white students (I could literally count on two hands the number of non-white students in grades 7-12 when I was there), so if all else failed he could always play the race discrimination card. And that would work because there were some horrible instances of racial intolerance too, at least one of which involved the siblings of the would-be rapist.
The thief (talk about petty larceny, yes I know it's really "petit" larceny) was a seventh-grade nobody stealing from another seventh-grade nobody.
Go figure.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
If you get rid of the teacher's unions, there's a very easy way to force out political dissidents (especially those who speak out against this sort of garbage) for alleged "incompetence" -- stick them with all the low-achieving kids, and penalize them because their classroom's ranking on percentile-based tests is so low.
The real problem with the quality of teachers today is the women's movement. (And yes, I am a woman and consider myself a feminist - hold your flames, please!) Teaching used to be a career for the handful of women that wanted a career, and for the handful of men that really wanted to be involved in education. Teaching, now, attracts a lot of "traditional" females who have no other idea of what they might want to do with their life. The non-traditional women who were in classrooms in the past are now going into the fields that are now nice enough to be open to them.
Teaching also attracts a lot of control freaks who want to prove that they're smarter than the kids they teach, unfortunately.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Yes, school counselors tend to do more harm than good.
I was forcibly sent to one after pulling an admittedly silly stunt that indirectly led to two other girls (people I barely even knew!) getting into a fistfight.
She did severe damage to my mechanisms for coping with the insane environment that was my high school, and she also broke confidentiality on me twice (once it led to weeks of death threats from someone 5 years older and much larger than I was; the other time, it nearly destroyed a friendship).
She also liked to convince people they didn't have the brains for honors courses, even when they did....
Fortunately, she never made THAT mistake with me!
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
A decent troll on your part, but not good enough. It's still obvious.
/too/ believable.
If perhaps you threw less "catch phrases" in there it might have gotten by. Your bit of fiction is
thank you, pull through.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
Student informing, encouraged and epidemic in American schools since well before the Columbine killings, is an irrational, anti-democratic practice that SNIP
I guess it would be better (err, more democratic?) if students got together and voted to suspend each other, instead of reporting kids who appear to have severe problems? If someone threatens to kill somebody, I'm sure as hell going to at least report him to someone in a position of authority. If you don't like it, don't make empty threats in public.
Now, I agree that the authorities got carried away in this case, and I think the kid is perfectly within his rights to sue over it. But I don't agree that reporting potential killers in any way threatens my constitutional rights.
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
The problem is that usually the ZT policy implies broadness of crime in addition to severity of punishment. It's great for board members who need to assure panicky parents that yes, they are leaping everytime somebody says "Boo!".
ZT policies often treat a device as a weapon if it *could* be used as one, regardless if it would make sense to. For instance, were I a high school student, I doubt that many schools would appreciate my having a "Ranger"-model Victorinox knife in my pack (which, incidentally, is completely opaque -- another policy violation in some schools) -- despite the fact that I'd be STUPID to use it as a weapon, since it lacks a *locking* blade (and therefore the risk of slicing off my own fingers, should it be used as a weapon, would be unacceptably high). But many administrators would, no doubt, act regardless of that little detail; it's certainly a lot more menacing than a nail file.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Hold on a second there! Many of the comments I've read suggest that the student who was sued was _wrong_ to tell school officials what she overheard in a public area. What? If she heard something that disturbed her or scared her, she absolutely has the right to talk to someone about it. I don't mind the arguement over whether or not the school overreacted, but I whole heartedly disagree with the suggestion that the student should not be allowed to talk about something that disturbed her, no matter how trivial the matter may seem to you.
If there's any "guilt" in this case, it lies with the school that perhaps overreacted and the parents of the "dangerous" student who decided to sue the so-called informant.
And as far as schools turning student into informants goes, it's been happening for years. Students have routinely been told to "tell a teacher" if someone is abusing them or threatening them. Anyone have a problem with that? The problem here is not one of students talking about other students or even their parents, it's a question of how those comments are pursued. It's up to the adults in the matter to make the call between the need for a counselor and the need for the justice system.
RC
My nephew just started high school in the U.S. after moving here from another country. My god, but that rule book was fat. When I was in HS we had smoking area - anywhere outside was OK, too. I didn't, and don't smoke, but I never had a problem with it. He comes from a country most kids his age smoke, including him. He's not allowed to smoke in my house, but he can go out back, for for a walk, and no problem. Not only can't you smoke AT ALL on campus (and neither can the teachers), but you are not even allowed to carry a pack a cigarettes - not even one cigarette, unlit!
A lighter? No way - considered a weapon, he can face expulsion. He wore his baseball cap on the first day - oops, big mistake. There's an hour between the time he gets picked up at the bus stop until first class - so he took his walkman. Confiscated the second he got off the bus.
While we were waiting, and I was thumbing through the rule book, I asked the secretary "this isn't one of those places they throw you out of for taking an asprin, is it?" I was joking - expecting the logical answer "of course not", but received "Oh, they're very serious about drugs here. Yes, he will be suspended if they catch him with anything."
So a lot has changed. It's very difficult, because it seems that, while the majority of "tips" are ridiculous, some actually work - you never know if these kids might actually carry out some of their threats, but when you raid the house and find homemade bombs, maps of the school, and lists of people to "take out," I think there's enough certaintly to assume someone is dangerous.
How to handle this situation, though? I don't know. It is someone's civic duty to let authorities know of potential criminal behavior. I've called the cops on drunk drivers a few times myself. But if the authorities screw up - i.e. they investigate and take the wrong actions, then I don't believe the girl or her parents were liable for anything. And they weren't, the money is to recoup lawyers fees - I'd say there is a case for counter suing the boy and his family, but it is difficult. It's hard to say that kids should just never say anything - people get put in very difficult situations. If they say something, they can get in trouble, and if they don't, people may be hurt, or worse, and they may still get in trouble when it was found out they knew.
It's not as clear cut as "don't tell."
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
I think studies have indeed shown that the drug problem is worse and more widespread in the subburbs.
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
If you accept my supposition that the guy is dangerous, the amusing part of the story is theres nothing that can be done about him. Being a crazy bastard isn't a crime -- we have to wait until he brings a gun to school ...
My point is -- even when you've found "the wackos" there 'taint much that can be done about it!
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
I'm reminded of what Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) wrote: "God created the Idiot for practice. After that he created the School Board."
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
I have no idea why they would choose that name. Didn't they ever see that ABC afterschool special about "The Wave"?
you cant have it anonymous, that opens up even more room for suits and overturning. A person has the right to confront their accuser, and even if the school/police use the tip as a starting point for an investigation...many judges will throw it out if the starting point is tainted. THROW OUT EVERYTHING. Thats why anonymous tips, dont really work.
How can anyone rationally argue that there's an illness which makes people miserable in winter? But no, it's "quick, get the drugs!"
I assume you're talking about seasonal affectation disorder, which has a chemical basis. And the favored treatment for it is light therapy, not drugs.
as if pumping chemicals into your bloodstream is the solution to anything.
I take it you don't believe in antibiotics or vaccines? Insulin shots for diabetics? Or do you think that the brain is some magical entity that doesn't follow biochemical laws like every other organ?
As for competition, it's healthy in making sure that people don't end up without any kind of spirit at all. Without some form of it, children will end up shiftless and lazy, which is pretty much what we're beginning to see today.
Give me a break. People have been saying that "shiftless and lazy" remark for millenia. If it were true we'd all be immobile by now. Look at the facts; nowadays people work harder than their parents and grandparents did. More children are working at a younger age. More people put in 7 day work weeks. More college students work part- and full-time.
--
follow these easy steps:
(1) go to Radio Shack and buy one of those voice disguise toys
(2) find a pay phone in the shopping mall
(3) at 9:00 PM, call your High School's answering machine and leave an anonymous paniced message stating that you saw a boy with a whole bunch of guns 'n stuff telling his friends how he was gonna blow up his WHOLE SCHOOL!
(4) Name yourself as the boy in question.
(5) get suspended the next morning
(6) sue your school for damages
happy days!
I totally agree with your analysis of the over-exageration of a childs actions.
I live in Orlando, FL, and was listen to the radio the other day while they discussed an EIGHT year old boy who, during lunch, picked up a breaded chicken finger, pointed it at a class mate, and said "Bang, Bang".
Consequentially, the boy was suspended from school for three days.
Now, if this were anything other than a small child being not just ignorant of his actions, but actually commiting them in the name of fun, there would be a problem. So if I see some neighborhood children down the street playing cops and robbers, or cowboys and indians, or any one of those infamous childhood games, I should immediately alert the authorities because they are "possibly" going to actually harm someone from it? I'm sorry, but we've just taken this whole worrisome scenario to another level.
Revelations 0:0 - The beginning of the end.
The real difficulty is that we've had 40+ years to breed a pathetic excuse for a public education system that actually just exists to enforce the classist aspirations of the elite. Crabs in a bucket will climb over each other in an attempt to escape, but simply pull each other down. Administrators are paid to enforce this model and tell school boards that they have to accept it.
Schools are steadily growing worse at over reacting to everything, from aspirin to normal adolescent boundary testing that is essential to our growth as independent adults. Students, in many schools, are viewed more as enemies than pupils, and certainly not partners in their own education experience. How anyone learns in these schools is a mystery to me.
John Taylor Gatto has a lot to say on this subject. I heartily recommend "Dumbing Us Down", for anyone who wants the perspective of someone on the inside. I also recommend "The Underground History of American Education", which is his own essay about what he sees as the factors that have led to this mess.
And why is it the students job to snich?
Ask the Nazis in the 30's. But it comes down to finding all the people who are different and don't fit in the model. Some of them are free thinkers and many of them are dark skinned. I'm white and I know how racist the system was -designed- to be.
Parents should, but don't far too often, take active roles in their children's lives. Teachers are so overburdened in most districts and so underpaid, that they are incapable of knowing their students well enough to understand them. Policies in many places create artificial divisions between teacher and student a between the students themselves.
Again, this is how the system is designed. Isolated kids from families. Isolate teachers through burdensome regulations. Keep everybody apart, lie to them when you gather them together, and demonize the opposition. Kinda like Al Gore and the Democrats do.
High school is a destructive enough time in many peoples lives already. TO further alienate those already on the fringe by these over-reactionary policies is just inviting more Columbines....
There are no mysteries here, people. Knee jerk defense of the system and more money isn't going to fix this mess. Kids are suffering. Education reform, NOW.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
Thank you for pointing these out. The clinical term is mass hysteria, and the colloquial term is witchhunt, which you point out. A more recent, better documented, and with chilling aftereffects that are still being felt is McCarthyism--the witchhunt for communists. Warped Factors by Walter Koenig (Checkov on Star Trek, Bester on B5) has a superb first-hand account of this era (but the book is a little boring). Bottom line: we never learn.
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I saw this a couple of years ago in my own high school... they kept a list of people who were 'likely' to cause harm to their peers, or act out violently against teachers or staff. The mentality that this exposes is one of utter fear... instead of looking at the facts, and realising that incidences of school violence are extremely rare, they're going on the assumption that there is at least one 'dangerous person' in every school, possibly more, and whether or not said persons ever have shown evidence of violence tendencies, they should be watched extra-carefully. How, then, do most of these non-violent types end up on the 'list'? Well, naturally, 'the-boy-next-door' isn't the most likely candidate, so, perhaps even subconsciously, the 'wierdos' wind up being watched, not only by teachers, but now, apparently, by their own mistrustful peers.
With the 'rash' of school violence in the past few years (read: the 'rash of school violence in middle-class white areas), school boards and lawmakers are going hog-wild with rules and legislation that in past days would be considered conservative fringe, laughable, or even outrageous. They're made into veritable media events, with each and every moralist telling us the horrible wrongs of society that have caused these horrible catastrophes. Random violence happens every day in poorer areas of cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, etc., but it doesn't make the news, because it isn't news... at least anymore.
We all know the tune by now:
"Another gang killing in South-Central L.A.? Well, that's a shame, but it's not like we're running out of poor black kids from the ghetto... but when a middle class school in Colorado gets shot up by a couple of heavy-metal fringe Goths, well, that's the boy-next-door who's getting shot at... as American as apple pie."
When people who aren't used to violence suddenly get exposed to it, they get scared, and then their peers get scared, and everyone overreacts. We all know that having students inform on one another is reminiscent of McCarthyism... it's dangerous and I think that this kind of stuff is the knee-jerk reaction of an institution that is terrified of an over-blown problem, and is struggling to find ways of dealing with something that they don't have any control over. Preparedness is one thing... having a plan of contingency in case of such a problem is one thing... but having anonymous accusations is quite another, and we all ought to know the difference. Shame on everyone trying to get away with this. You're buying into a Stalin-esque paranoia.
---
"Cut word lines. Cut music lines. Smash the control images. Smash the control machine." - William S. Burroughs
I am not a robot, like you would like me to be. I have a mind, and whats more, I have feelings and emotions that sway and control my body.
Indeed you do, and from the sounds of it, it's a desparate craving for the attention and approval that you never got from your parents. I'm sure you're a hit with the boys aren't you?
Anorexia is not a rational thing, and I, I freely admit, am not a rational girl. Many of my boyfriends have said that that is my most charming feature!
LOL! I bet they do. When men of your age see a girl who so desparately wants to be popular, they know they're in for a good time! Girls like you don't seem to realise that the approval of others is not any way to make yourself feel better, and because of this you'll do anything to make yourself feel wanted.
There's a word for that you know.
But you want to make me a robot, and presumably you would choose one for a wife. Well, I suggest you marry that plastic blow up doll in your cupboard, because you won't get a girl like me, or any girl of spirit!
Unfortunately for you, you're jumping to conclusions, which is a bad thing to do. I am quite happily married with a young son thank you, and my wife is a lovely, intelligent woman who knows what her place in life is and doesn't have any of your issues.
As for spirit, yes I bet you've got "spunk" in bucketfulls.
Not for you perhaps, but I am female. I am judged solely on my looks. I am convinced that it is my looks that have got me my job, my green card and my boyfriend. My looks are an important tool. And intelligent people use all the tools at their disposal!
And when you've only got one tool, it doesn't take any intelligence to realise it's all you can use.
I can see that you don't fit into this category though.
No, I don't fit into your category at all. And thank God for that!
You have no idea how it hurts me to hear that said. Are you saying that the pain I suffered, the anguish, was all a figment of my imagination? I can assure you it is not invented.
Pain is in the mind, and in your case it was your mind that invented it all. And why? Because you weren't intelligent or strong enough to realise that self-worth does not come from being a carbon copy of Brittany Spears or whichever slut was the icon at that time.
I come from a good looking family, and we have always placed a huge value on looks, especially my mother (the main reason I moved to America). This meant that when I was young and impressionable, and bombarded by media images, I had a false bodymap, and I always though I was fat, even though my weight fell to less than 50 pounds at one stage.
Indeed, it sounds as though your parents shouldn't have been allowed to breed at all, what with their wonderfully modern attitude to their children. Whilst I'm not a fan of eugenics, some people just shouldn't be allowed to breed.
I can assure you that what I went through is not a fiction. It was the most scarring experiance of my life.
And by that statement you convince me your life has been shallow, and that you are nothing but a callow youth with much to learn. Worrying about being fat is not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things, no matter how much it may traumatise your middle-class teenage life.
And drugs helped me a lot, even the recreational ones. Frankly, I just don't understand cynical people like you flatpack.
Cynical? Not really, just experianced.
I can take the flames and the jealousy, and the awful emails and sexual suggestions, but this is too much.
Jealousy? Of a child like you? Bwahahahaha. I think not :)
Give me a break. People have been saying that "shiftless and lazy" remark for millenia. If it were true we'd all be immobile by now. Look at the facts; nowadays people work harder than their parents and grandparents did. More children are working at a younger age. More people put in 7 day work weeks. More college students work part- and full-time.
The only thing that kids of today put their efforts into is dealing drugs, getting alcohol and committing crimes. Have you ever lived in one of our cities? The kids there do nothing apart from hang around doing these things, because they've never had any discipline or a good schooling system that encourages team sports and other activities.
We need to move back from the current view that competition is bad, because all it's doing is giving kids nothing better to do than hanging around getting involved in crime.
...and its especially bad karma to get shot. They don't have a Federal witness protetion program for the fun of it, you know. So, do the right thing, and lose everything you ever worked for in life, friends, family, jobs, your very identity. Or, if you want to stay who you are, risk getting shot down on the street one day out of the blue. And its even worse for those who don't qualify for protection. Yup, they didn't think I was in enough danger, even though when Spike McKiller gets out on parole due to overcrowding, he'l be knocking on my door to say 'hi'.
I don't advocate doing nothing in all cases, but the previous poster has a point, and in the the end, you have to weigh the consequences very carefully, beause they are huge and permanent.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
The "WaveAmerica" name couldn't have been more appropriately chosen. If you don't know about "The Wave" (the novel), this article provides a good summary. Blue-Eyed is also a good resource to inform kids about other totalitarianism practices.
-Marcel
When I went to school, we had a name for these kids... "Tattletales". I can think of many, many instances in which someone "told" on someone else, simply to get them in trouble. In some cases, the tattler was punished when his tales were proven to have no basis in reality. The fact that they're now government-sponsored, largely unaccountable, and their words are accepted as divine providence scares the hell out of me.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
The perfect solution to this would be to not charge the kid for uttering those words. First would be to talk to the kid and have the parents involved. Tell the kid that these phrases spark fear in a "post columbine world". If the kid is reasonable, he will stop or watch how he expresses himself. If he is not, then you start with detention, then suspension, then expulsion, THEN involve the law. All the while the kids parents are part of this process. There is no need to have the authorities involved so soon. Having the police and the court system involved so soon only leads to situations like this. This is a simple solution but it is not always easy. There are poor school administrators, bad parents, and even bad kids. However, every attempt has to be made to educate the administrators, the parents AND the kids about what effect words have on people.
And DARE has been proven time and again to be a totally worthless program. But because the police receive funding for it, no one will DARE say anything about it.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Which is why if you're ever involved in an investigation, you say "I don't know and even if I did I wouldn't tell you."
That is the *stupidest* advice I've ever heard. Turning in someone for smoking behind the gym is one (bad) thing. Turning in someone who is making threats on others' lives is a completely different thing.
To give the police no information when you've got some, you are allowing a criminal to walk. If your best friend was shot, hell if you saw some stranger get shot, and you knew who did it, you wouldn't tell the police? What kind of stupid-ass idiot are you? You are implicitely condoning the criminal's action by not helping the police apprehend him.
It's bad karma to harbor criminals. It's bad karma to not help seek counseling for troubled friends.
Dancin Santa
I come from a good looking family, and we have always placed a huge value on looks, especially my mother (the main reason I moved to America). This meant that when I was young and impressionable, and bombarded by media images, I had a false bodymap, and I always though I was fat, even though my weight fell to less than 50 pounds at one stage.
I can assure you that what I went through is not a fiction. It was the most scarring experiance of my life.
And drugs helped me a lot, even the recreational ones. Frankly, I just don't understand cynical people like you flatpack.
Its people like you that make me think about leaving this forum, and make me wonder about the evilness of human nature.
I can take the flames and the jealousy, and the awful emails and sexual suggestions, but this is too much.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
The question is where do you draw the line? And why do people ignore that school related violence was on a downturn before these measures started popping up? And why do people believe that a child is qualified to see the signals of another kid being dangerous?
The main danger isn't the kid who go around saying they're going to kill someone. The danger lie in kids that are deeply psychologically disturbed. Sometimes the two intersect, often it doesn't.
Have anyone actually checked whether there is a larger intersection between those who say they'll kill and those who do it, than between say, those that play football and those who kill?
No. Because it's so much easier to just assume that anyone who is "different", or anyone that is careless about what they say, is dangerous.
And another issue is what they'll be asked to report next?
What will the school officials, without any psychological training, or actual verification procedures in place, decide may be "contributing factors" to violence?
It isn't that far fetched that someone may start thinking about requesting kids to report religious beliefs (because they're scared shitless about kids flirting with satanism), music interest (ohhh, those scary heavy metal and death metal people), political affiliations (those dangerous anarchists and other political extremists, on both sides of the spectrum are surely likely to be plotting politically motivated killings - kids these days), etc.
Or maybe they'll ask them to report their classmates parents? Because of course they affect their kids, and before you know it they've turned them into killers...
How long before parents starts seeing the parallels to Hitlerjugend?
And how many see the irony in the name of Pinkertons program, in light of the movie "The Wave", about a class experiment that ends up in pupils snitching on each other in the worst possible fascist style?
This is a very slippery slope.
The student in question held the nickname "Unabomber" throughout most of his highschool career. Most all of the student body would joke with this student about his reclusive tendancies as well as pull pranks on the student. This joking came to a head when the student in question brought a camera case aboard the bus during his senior year. A few peers joked with him about the contents of the case, and the student went along with the joking...even going so far to come up with a general and false list of comments along with a proposed location of where it was to be placed. Too all student's involved it was assumed that the Joke was understood.
Later on in the day, the administration went to work on an anonomous tip, even interupting the Principal and Vice Principal during a seinior assembly. The administration went on to pull all known parties involved into the office and interview them heavily. The incidents were gone through, as well as the student's locker was inspected as well as the alleged "Bomb" inpected to be found to be a valid LOADED camera. (I lost a good roll of film doing all of this..er..ahem *the student* lost a good roll of film.)
After the all clear was given and the student was found innocent, the administration then discussed "Public Relations" with the students involved to, and I quote the Vice Principal, "Diffuse all rumors that may have spawned from the investigation and that the tipper may have started, no pun intended." In otherwords, deny everything pertaining to it using tact.
The rumor never lived past the first day and the rest of the year went on without any even. The students involved still joked about it for the rest of the year, but never in the public's ear. We never did find out who the anonomous tipper was, however, after calmly talking to other students and geting convincing answers, we have concluded that it was most likely the bus driver that decided to do the school a public service...and interupted a decent assembly to get my ass out of classes. The whole ordeal lasted roughly 4 of the six hours.
----
Windoze....WINDOZE?? weee dun neeed nooo schtinkin windoze!!!!
...but isn't school a place to learn what you need to learn in order to find your place in the world? And isn't the social interaction that is forced upon students supposed to be a way to figure out how to deal with the many different (and sometimes difficult) social situations one might encounter later in life?
Realize that these are kids that are still developing their skills, social behavior, and trying to figure out how they fit in with the rest of the planet's population. What these kids need to understand is that it's ok to be different. That's what makes the world a stronger place. What the school administrators need to understand is that these are kids that need guidance in their lives. Easier said than done, I know.
Things like this won't get better, though. Most HS administrations are politically based, not focusing on helping future generations develop into functional members of society.
And, yes, threats of all kinds have been a part of growing up for almost everyone. Of course it needs to be dealt with. But I don't think that it's the administration's duty to shelter each and every student from each other. That would be counter-productive in their social development.
Despite what many people (espeically many school administrators) would like to believe, kids don't change from generation to generation. Kids will always form social groups that clash with other social groups. That's just human nature. You need to keep the individual acts of violence in check so that things don't get out of hand. But these kids really need to learn how to deal with their peers without too much outside interference. It's all part of the learning process.
My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
One thing that will likely become a problem is that people can very easily use informant channels, particularly those that are anonymous like 800 numbers or email to harrass people they don't like. All they have to do is make an accusation against someone and then wait for overzealous officials to tear into that person. Given zero tolerance policies and the general lack of critical investigation into the accuracy of accusations, this could cause a lot of innocent people grief. Even if officials do take time to investigate properly and the innocent are exonnerated, many people will continue to doubt, fear and distrust them for a considerable period after that. And in the schools, guilty until proven innocent is the norm, not the other way around. Sometimes even being proven innocent isn't good enough, especially if it looks like an official goofed. They will often refuse to rescind punishment in order to save face for themselves. Not to mention that the standard for "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" doesn't seem to figure into school decisions. Kids are considered guilty unless a school official's opinion is that they are innocent beyond any doubt. Kids don't get the option of a trial by their peers either. Schools usually operate as the worst kind of kangaroo court.
This is hardly a new issue. .45 over hate-crime legistlation any day of the week.
There have been tattletales for as long as there have been authority figures.
The way to deal with them is simple - stand back and let their bad karma catch up with them.
People really do reap what they sow. It's a law of nature. Reporting things like an individual blowing off steam or smoking behing the school building is simply asking for the universe to pay you back with interest.
Which is why if you're ever involved in an investigation, you say "I don't know and even if I did I wouldn't tell you."
If you don't, others will fail to respect you and you will fail to respect yourself. And you aren't helping anyone by informing - authorities are under no obligation to protect you, and even if they try, they won't be very effective.
It's up to you to protect yourself - that's why we have the second ammendment in this country.
I'm part of a persecuted minority in this country due to my sexual orientation, but I'll take my
--Shoeboy
A fellow student at my high school felt intimidated by me and a handful of friends; we made no secret of the fact that we thought her GPA was padded with easy classes, and that hard classes were avoided so as to keep that sacred GPA high. We never sought her out, never said anything obscene or even really questionable, but she complained that she was being harassed. A school counselor called several of us, separately, into her office. We weren't told what we were being accused of, or by whom, but were expected to recount every guilty stain on our consciences until they found what they were looking for.
Even after the counselors had slipped her name, we were not allowed outside help (even a phone call to our parents). The right to counsel, limits on self-incrimination, the right to confront the accused, the right to competent defense, the right to an impartial judge (arbiter, whatever) -- all of these go away in a "counseling" setting.
What happened in that room almost did add a speed bump to my career; a guidance counselor unhappy with how things were going tried to have my college recommendations revoked. Fortunately, it failed.
The penalties of the legal system may be, at present, being used out of scale to childrens' offenses, but the protections and safeguards of the legal system are absolutely necessary; even more for children than for adults.
I think a more appropriate response -- rather than pulling the cases out of the legal system -- is to appropriately deal with the two problems of cases which are brought to harass, and punishments which are administered for being charged. Punishments, or repurcussions of any form, have to wait until a trial's done. Cases brought fraudulently or to harass need to be thrown out quickly, and severely punished. Between these two, we could build a real system which protects the accuser and the accused, which keeps the innocent safe and makes sure only the guilty are punished.
I hear the accuser in that case is now, as am I, happily graduated from college and building a life for herself. I doubt she ever intended anything like the scene which resulted.
All of this was years pre-Columbine.
-- Brian T. Sniffen
Lancaster California, from my (detached) view, seems to be a town full of iodine seeking crank junkies and intolerant white-folk --
...
NAZI GANG CALLED KEY PLAYER IN DRUG TRADE
California town sees rash of hate crime
Grammy Min discuesses trial for not keeping records on crystal iodine sales
I could be wrong in my opinion, but I find it kind of fitting that Katz would choose an incident in Lancaster to examplify the blight of school informants
Personally I am eagerly awaiting the first incident in which someone is stabbed with a regular, plain, number 2 pencil. So we can watch the schools react to that. They can't very well ban regular #2 pencils. They've already banned mechanical pencils and in some cases pens because the casing can be used to build some rather fierce projectile weapons. Are we going to be reduced to doing our HS homework in Crayon?
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
- School choice. The public school and taxation system financially constrains parents to send their children to these schools. Private schools could choose to have less insane policies regarding informants, non-prescription medications, and good samaritans.
- Tort reform. The real solution here is to make the boy's parents pay for the lawsuit directed against the girl's parents -- automatically -- to discourage frivolous lawsuits. Note: the lawsuit against the school was not frivolous, but the lawsuit against the girl's parents was.
So really, there are at least three ways this incident was atrocious: the school's informant rules, the lack of school choice, and the lack of tort reform. Try not to confuse them.The School's really don't have much of a choice in the matter. If they encourage people to inform, they get the above mentioned result. If they DON'T, then they face lawsuits for not taking proper precautions to ensure the safety of the students. It's a catch 22. I think the best possible way to do it would be to make it anonymous, to avoid the above result, but that leaves the open hole for pranks to get people in serious trouble. I can't see any "perfect" solution to this, but I don't think that the current system has failed completely. (and in relation to a comment i saw as i was clicking reply, yes, no matter what the outcome, the lawyers get rich off of it.)
I am !amused.
The difference in the psychology between Stalin and America regarding this phenomenon is that the belief and therefore the motivation that this is the way a citizen improves his lot in life has been transferred from a motivation to help the State (Stalin) to one that helps - what? - I'm grasping at straws here, because it doesn't feel like the motivation to turn in a fellow student is to, um, 'please' (for lack of a better word) the Institution, played in this case by the school.
:) }
Here is what I am saying: in Stalinist Russia comrades were explicitly directed to turn over their peers to the State in order to protect the State. In modern America we turn people over to the cops to protect what we believe is our own interests - our freedom from terrorists, if you will.
I believe that this connection is artificially created by an hysterical media. And the behavioral reinforcement comes from within by officials who are swept up in this hysteria. Hotter heads are prevailing because good citizens are compelled to "do something" about this "big problem".
Of course, media attention only fans the flames, creating more copycat kids who shoot up their classmates; it only increases our paranoia, anxiety, and alienation from our (their) peers; it only adds to the stress of getting through the day. It does not help the situation in the least, because there is no problem that can be 'fixed' in a rational manner. So, I guess I have answered my own question: children turn in their peers in response to, and to serve, ultimately, the media!
The Media plays the role of the Stalinist State in this instance. But the media appears soo innocent!
On a lighter note: This clearly points out the need for School Vouchers and reduced Gun Control. Hey, if the rolling blackout problem can point out the need to rape the pristine Arctic Wilderness, then any logic goes...
{I like Jon Katz, too, man, but not that much...
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Students informing on one another and their eldersis the stuff of chilling novels and shameful history. The difficulty of the current situation is that there are appropriate times to inform, which are blurred, and there are certain levels of responsibilty missing in our system. Schools are steadily growing worse at over reacting to everything, from aspirin to normal adolescent boundary testing that is essential to our growth as independent adults. Students, in many schools, are viewed more as enemies than pupils, and certainly not partners in their own education experience. How anyone learns in these schools is a mystery to me. And why is it the students job to snich? Parents should, but don't far too often, take active roles in their children's lives. Teachers are so overburdened in most districts and so underpaid, that they are incapable of knowing their students well enough to understand them. Policies in many places create artificial divisions between teacher and student a between the students themselves. High school is a destructive enough time in many peoples lives already. TO further alienate those already on the fringe by these over-reactionary policies is just inviting more Columbines....
There is no guarantee that the content has been read or understood.
Here's the real question, though: Do you really think he's a threat? Not 'is he odd?' many people are harmlessly odd. Geeks are a mild varient of this. Autistic people are an extreme varient. I have some neurological weirdity (passed on to my kid, who doens't live with me, so I doubt it's psychological at this point) that's been diagnosed as many things (including autism) and I definetly act odd. I talk to myself, a lot. Not necesarily 'normal' conversation (which many people do from time to time, at least) but random words or noises (hence my name, as 'rark' is a commonly used sound for me). I move strangely, and can occasionally be found rocking or spinning or otherwise engaging in behavior that is definetly uncommon in human adults and seems to unsettle those around me. I wear 'odd' clothes, esspecially when I'm stressed, because I'm super-sensitive to the way fabrics feel against me, and the feel of certain fabrics rubbing my skin or rubbing together is much better (very calming) or much worse (chills up my spine/fingernails on a blackboard) than any 'normal' person would know from personal experience. Maybe his raincoat gives him a feeling of security -- pressure on his skin, or maybe just that no one can see his body. Maybe he can't control the talking to himself (I can't -- I can suppress it for a little bit, but if I get distracted then it's all over). Maybe the pointing is so that he can 'get his bearings' (I tilt my head over for a similar effect). Maybe he 'gestures' because he has to be able to move to talk (I'm like this..I can't talk when I'm sitting still, I have to rock and move my arms to make words)
You said he makes 'threatening' gestures -- are they clearly threatening, or is it possible that because you (and others) already see him as a threat you're interperating movement that in other people woudln't alarm you as threatening? If they are, does he know that they are? Except for those gestures, nothing else you said would lead me to believe that he was a danger, though he certainly does sound like an odd character.
I should note here that I am probably the nicest person you could ever meet. I go out of my way not to hurt people, and to help people when I can. If anything, my greatest challenge is to not let other people ride roughshod over me. I have really lousy social skills (in part because I have severe language issues, I'm not sure how much of it is 'other stuff' -- not taking in information like other humans, and esspecially not taking in language correctly, from birth, is a pretty big speedbump in trying to learn social skills) and tend to be more trusting than possibly I should, but the other choice is to be too paranoid -- there's no reasonable 'middle ground' here for me. I can't 'read' people like most people can. I do many things that are similar to the guy and people find me similarly 'creepy' -- something that irks me. I know what it's like to fear things, and while I know logically that I have more fear than the 'average' person, it pains me to know that I'm 'causing' some level of fear in other people. I'm not looking to be everyone's friend -- I'm intensely shy and being with other humans, even those I like a lot and who like me, is exteremely tiring for me. But I do wish that people woudln't automatically go 'She's acting differently, I'm scared of her now'.
To bring this back to the original topic, these behaviors are ones that were actively discouraged (i.e. punished) when I was in school. The teachers enlisted the help of other students to find when I was doing 'bizzare' things (like walking on the sides of my feet or rocking or moving my head around oddly) and so the other students discovered that they could get brownie points for 'getting the weird kid in trouble' -- I didn't need any more help in being socially isolated.
So my only real point here is that the 'whackos' are already seen as a threat by society and schools even when their not. You're a thinking individual. Please don't compound the problem.
Why not encourage students to rat out their parents for suspicious activities as well? This would certainly create a much safer home environment for government-educated students. You could create a special law enforcement unit just for this purpose. Just for kicks, we could call them the "Thought Police".
DARE, Drug Abuse Resistance Education, is notorious for brain washing school children into turning in their parents.
Asking for citizens to turn other citizens in reeks of fascism and repressive Soviet rule under Stalin.
If the incident is sufficiently noteworthy, people will _automatically_ turn others in -- there needs be no urging.
As for anonymous: you pointed out the problems of such a system -- even less accountability than we have now. This is no small prank here. We're talking about a 'tipoff' that can send a kid to jail for six months, or more. Think that geek's ever going to Harvard, no matter what his grades? I think not. Want an anonymous tipping system? I don't.
As for not 'encouraging' people to inform -- the approach should be no 'active' encouragement, and stringent face-to-face meetings between the accused and the accuser, and then a decision should be made. And if the accuser is shown to be in bad faith, then there should be a significant punishment for abuse of the system. (Intent to harm other person using government funds and resources..., yadda yadda)
That's the only possible way that we can be back to normal. Otherwise, this thing will just spiral out of control.
Teens will no longer trust their friends with anything that could be used against them. Wouldn't this make violent people even more paranoid and anti-social? Paranoia and social isolation were some of the things that caused Columbine. These programs don't get to the problem's cause at all, and are sure failures.
Given a reasonably level playing field, who would win a fight between a bear and a shark?
It's all a matter of context.
Now, lets' say the CEO does something I don't like, and I say, off the cuff, "Geez, I'd like to take that bastard out". Probably harmless. But still, it should be investigated, or at LEAST given a cursory examination!
Apparently, if you were a student in school rather than an employee in a company, you would be taken to the principal, suspended on the spot, arrested, and questioned. AT LEAST. Quite possably, you'd do time for that 'terroristic threat'. Sound fair?
The student who blew the whistle, in this case, did precisely what she was supposed to do. She heard a threat with no context and reported it. Did the school overreact? Perhaps. Should the school have been sued? Maybe. Should she? Hell no. For one, it prevents her right to free speech as well. For two, she was providing credible, correct information about a possibly dangerous situation to someone in a position to do something about it.
An overheard comment with no context is WORTHLESS in evaluating a threat. Only the truly paranoid will treat it as anything else. Otherwise, it becomes IMPOSSABLE to safely talk about a role playing game (or any sort of tournament, especially something like assasin or paintball). How is that NOT a violation of free speech (schools are part of the government, so free speech definatly applies).
As far as the student goes, she did what she was told to do by an authority figure that she's supposed to trust. SHE (her parents) should sue the school (as they are) for telling her to do something that landed her in court. No matter how hard they try, schools are going to have to take responsability for their actions and inactions just like the rest of us.
What America needs to own up to (especially it's courts) is that sometimes bad things happen, and there's nobody to blame. In others, the person to blame dies or has no money. Neither of these conditions make it acceptable to use a lawyer like a shotgun to try collecting money from everyone within a 100 mile radius. Sometimes when someone does something,bad things happen, and nobody could have reasonably predicted the bad outcome.
In the end, what is crucial here is to remember that anything you say can be overheard and misinterpreted. If you don't mean it, don't say it. It is easier said than done, but is the best way to prevent problems like this one.
What if you DO mean it, but only figurativly? Have we lost the right to speak figurativly? Are we so (clinically) paranoid now that we can't be expected to apply context and common sense to what we overhear? How long will it be before saying "I'm going to beat you! (at checkers)" becomes a felony?
Zero-tolerence does not work -- there is no ground for common sense and specifics of the case, and in some cases, enforcement can vary depending on whom is doing the enforcement -- what's to stop a teacher saying that a flip-comb couldn't be used as a weapon? In addition, zero-tolerence does not allot for those brain-fart mistakes that result from the hecetic morning (a good example, thankfully not z-tolerence enforced, is that I need to wear safety shoes in my workplace, I did happen to forget these one day, and wore tennis shoes - forturnately, nothing bad came of it, as I stayed out of the hazardous areas).
I think with this, and with failures of the 3-strikes law for convinctions in CA (with the example of a guy getting significant number of years for stealing some candy on his 3rd conviction), is going to push away zero-tolerence policies, and go back to at least some sensable way to determine guilt before placing judgement. It can punish those that has no intent to commit a crime, and cost millions in lawsuits as seen here. If the school did have in place the informent program but took steps to make sure that students weren't tossing around random blame nor to fully investigate the effects, then none of the lawsuits would have happened, and the student that was blamed would have not had been expelled in the first place.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
If anyone says "I'm going to kill people here",
should we just ignore it? Laugh it off? Pretend
it never happened? Hell no!
I agree, to a certain extent, that adolescents AND
adults say things they don't mean. Investigations
do need to take this into account.
To presume, however, that the solution to this
problem lies with students(or anyone else) ignoring
everything they hear is patently absurd! What if,
for instance, I was to say "I will kill the CEO of my
company this Thursday at four." Would it be absurd
for one of my coworkers to report me? Of course
not! This is a legitimate threat. Now, lets' say the
CEO does something I don't like, and I say, off the
cuff, "Geez, I'd like to take that bastard out".
Probably harmless. But still, it should be
investigated, or at LEAST given a cursory examination!
Threatening others, while certainly easy to do, and a
way to let off steam, is not acceptable, under any
circumstances. This is not the sort of thing that
can be argued is harmless to others. If this student
had been serious, the safety of the whole school
was at stake.
The student who blew the whistle, in this case,
did precisely what she was supposed to do. She
heard a threat with no context and reported it.
Did the school overreact? Perhaps. Should the
school have been sued? Maybe. Should she? Hell no.
For one, it prevents her right to free speech as
well. For two, she was providing credible, correct
information about a possibly dangerous situation
to someone in a position to do something about it.
In the end, what is crucial here is to remember
that anything you say can be overheard and
misinterpreted. If you don't mean it, don't say it.
It is easier said than done, but is the best way
to prevent problems like this one.
(My apologies for the odd formatting. Posting through
lynx will do that to you.)
This whole "snitch" business is yet another attempt by school boards across America to absolve themselves of any and all culpability by making students and teachers responsible for reporting any and all threats. In this way, a school board can make the claim that it is in no way responsible that little Johnny shot up the school because nobody every reported that little Johnny threatened to do so.
This is very much like "zero tolerance": Force zero tolerance policies so that school boards and other administrators never have to open them up to responsibility by doing the wrong thing. It's a no-brainer for them: Everybody is treated like the criminal they are, so nobody can sue for disparate treatment.
Parents need to take the initiative and teach their children the difference between a "real" threat ("See this AK-47? I'm gonna blow some jocks away") and a "perceived threat" ("I wish I could kill every student in this fucked-up place"). All too often, vague or unspecified threats are being taken way too seriously by school officials -- again, it all boils down to school administrators not wanting to have to shoulder any blame in the event they actually use an intelligent decision-making process to separate the wackos from the disenfranchised. It's much easier just to assume every student is a criminal, especially for intellectually-challenged school boards.
Anonymous tips should start a counseling cycle, which can be as short as one session, to determine whether a kid is serious, or is was just stupid. When possible, these early sessions should be removed from permanent records, to reduce the negative affects and allow kids to occasionally make mistakes.
Despite Columbine, it is still safer for kids to be in school than outside. Making the random comments of adolesents grounds for criminal charges is unreasonable and unforgivable. It fosters an "us against them" mentality, and further isolates borderline cases. It sounds like the ideas of politicians or insane school boards (zero-tolerance policies), rather than rational ideas from those who know kids best, who work with them every school day.