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Police Called Over 11-Year-Old's Science Project
garg0yle writes "Police in San Diego were called to investigate an 11-year-old's science project, consisting of 'a motion detector made out of an empty Gatorade bottle and some electronics,' after the vice-principal came to the conclusion that it was a bomb. Charges aren't being laid against the youth, but it's being recommended that he and his family 'get counseling.' Apparently, the student violated school policies — I'm assuming these are policies against having any kind of independent thought?"
What's the student supposed to get counseling for? The trauma the school put him through for no reason? More likely, so the school authorities can point to the fact that the kid got counseling to show something is wrong with him (and not them)
I'd like to recommend the authorities get some counseling. Either that, or a clue, but counseling is easier to come by.
Don't do anything to attract attention to yourself ever.
The school, which has about 440 students in grades 6 to 8 and emphasizes technology skills, was initially put on lockdown while authorities responded.
...Stu
The real question is why are we letting people this stupid in charge of educating our children?
So, it wasn't enough that the device from the poor kid (who showed some practical skills) was perfectly harmless, his home also had to be checked just in case he was a terrorist?
That's fucked up beyond 1984.
And the politicians wonder why it is that America has trouble getting kids interested in the sciences.
I can understand that an assistant principle might not have any idea how bombs are made. There's no shame in that. However, he probably should have talked to the child's teacher before he called the fire department. My guess is that the kid had to tell his teacher ahead of time what he was making. I have never heard of a science fair where you weren't required to pre-register your experiment. How hard would it have been to talk the the science teacher before calling the bomb squad?
Now, if the teacher thought that the device was a bomb (especially if he knew before hand that the kid was working on a proximity detector) then shame on him. I mean seriously, how hard would it have been to do a little research beforehand.
It isn't necessarily ineptitude that causes school officials to make decisions like this. The basic reasoning boils down to the fact that the school officials will take little if any flack for over reacting in the name of safety, but they will lose their jobs and be raked through the mud if they fail to react to an "obvious" threat.
Part of the problem is that no one ever gets rewarded for the issues they chose to ignore. So there is no benefit to the principal to ignore what they think is a possible threat even if the probability of it being a threat is vanishingly small.
The end result is that school officials with a high self interest will put their self interest in front of everyone else (the authorities who are wasting their time, the students out of class, the student directly involved, the parents who have to come pick up all the students early, etc), since they are more worried about the ramifications to themselves than the trouble they may cause for others.
it is stupidity. An intelligent principal could have ascertained the necessary information by sitting down with the student and asking questions calmly thereby by avoiding all the resulting mess.
Reading the article (I know, but someone has to :-) ) it seems that it wasn't a Science Fair project, it was just something the kid had been playing around with at home and then brought it in to show his friends. The kid violated school policies
No he didn't... the school policies are here:
http://www.mtechmiddle.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=58810&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=87933&hideMenu=1&rn=8708720
After looking twice I can't even find the part where it says "may not bring guns or knives or other weapons", let alone "may not bring anything that could possibly at a distance be mistaken for something dangerous".
and that is why they said he should get counselling.
Personally I think the school should pay for counseling, since the only reason he would need it is for the trauma of being treated like a terrorist :-)
So the school has a policy banning kids from being inventive and wanting to show that inventiveness off. Anyway - thats one kid the school system has scared off technology - well done San Diego Unified School District.
The ironic thing is that this is supposed to be a "Tech Magnet" school. Quoting from their mission statement:
All Millennial Tech Middle School students will cultivate their technology skills to enhance their motivation and curiosity to excel academically in order to become productive citizens that will drastically impact the developing information age.
All Millennial Tech Middle School students will cultivate their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics skills to enhance their motivation to excel academically in order to become global leaders and productive citizens in their chosen career path.
That sounds like the kids might be expected to construct fun things related to science.
Granted, it also sounds like you should expect your kid to be traumatized by the teachers. Not by the police, though.
School administrators are often failed teachers or P.E. instructors with a career in the classroom that can be measured in 5 years or less. They are truly inept and feel that a tasted of the education system of any kind makes them qualified to then lead entire schools in turn.
The man in this story is simply a moron who did not rationally discuss anything about the construction of the device with the child to draw intelligent conclusions. He had a knee-jerk reaction because that's what stupid people do when presented with things they don't - or refuse to - understand.
Sadly this is absolutely the norm in school districts all across America, and has been for a few decades. The education system isn't flawed, just that the standards for these types of positions are _incredibly_ low.
"The principal doesn't know enough about electronics..." How could he not know? He's overseeing a *technical* school. Does he ever venture out into the halls or talk to the kids? He's a fucking absentee landlord and deserves to lose his job two weeks ago. And shame on the parents for letting the gestapo inspect their house and suggest counseling after "da bomb" was determined to be harmless.
If they treated kids like this in the 70's, I would have been declared a threat to the free world. I taught myself how to solder when I was 10, and I was into building all kinds of electronics kits and projects. I was also into model rocketry and built multi-stage rockets capable of reaching altitudes of 2500 ft. I brought crap to school to show my class all the time. Luckily, I didn't grow up to be an international terrorist - I became an engineer. We are in deep trouble when our education system treats the kids that should be leading us to the next technology leap forward as criminals.
In most cases, "Don't make Admin look stupid, especially if they are." is implied policy #0.
This is in no way confined to schools, of course.
"The solution is going to be that eventually kids will get used to the idea that they shouldn't bring things in that scare their administrators"
*twitch*
" unless we can somehow reduce the risk that people are going to come and shoot their classmates,"
To negative numbers? The chances of a kid dying in a violent crime involving explosives at a school are so low that you need a scientific calculator to display them. Compare that to the mortality rate in high-school football: http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980610033631data_trunc_sys.shtml
The problem won't be solved until idiots that fail to understand basic statistics aren't allowed to graduate high school. Though jailing any idiot that ever excuses incidents like this with any permutation of the phrase "they['re] do[ing] the best they can".
There's a quote which I fear I cannot find in order to cite, but to paraphrase:
"If all the well-intentioned were killed at birth, the remaining evil-doers would be small potatoes by comparison."
The terrorists do not have to win in order for us to lose.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it