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Students Banned From Bringing Pencils To School
mernilio writes "According to UPI: 'A Massachusetts school district superintendent said a memo banning sixth graders from carrying pencils was written without district approval. North Brookfield School District interim Superintendent Gordon Noseworthy said Wendy Scott, one of two sixth-grade teachers at North Brookfield Elementary School, did not get approval from administrators before sending the memo to all sixth-grade parents, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported Thursday. The memo said students would no longer be allowed to bring writing implements to school. It said pencils would be provided for students in class and any students caught with pencils or pens after Nov. 15 would face disciplinary action for having materials 'to build weapons.'"
Sure why not when I could just break a chair leg off and bludgeon someone.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Maybe it's me, but isn't the proper headline "Students NOT banned from bringing pencils to school"?
After all, the district said that the teacher sent the memo without permission of the superintendent and that it did not reflect district policy. So we got an overzealous and whacked out teacher, which is certainly not news.
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Wew!
A warm welcome to the future head of TSA.
Yeah, THIS site is a respectable, trustworthy source of news.
I remember some time ago when it was the rage to fold paper and shoot it at each other with rubber bands. For awhile rubber bands were considered a "regulated" item, and getting caught with a piece of rolled up paper could get you in trouble.
But ya, mental teachers here I think.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Yeah, it looks like it's a complete non-story.
http://www.globe-democrat.com/news/2010/nov/18/school-pencil-banning-memo-not-official/
If only this were a singular case of nuttery in this profession.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
So much so that they'd rather take some dudgeon mongering website's word for what happened than to google the original sources and find out this is a non-story. Well, I don't mind being wet blanket, so I did it for you.
If you must know, a couple of sixth grade teachers got fed up with students playing with toy pens, then losing them and disrupting the class looking for them. So they decided to ban student owned writing instruments altogether, but rather than come right out and tell parents that their kids are badly behaved, they used a pen modified by one of the students to shoot spitballs as an excuse for the ban. Since using a writing instrument as a "weapon" conjures images of students stabbing each other in the eye with a pencil, that naturally garnered a lot more attention than the teachers expected. The acting superintendent stepped in, reversed the policy and wrote a memo explaining everything and suggesting everybody calm down.
But of course the story of a couple of beleaguered teachers being too timid to tell parents they'd raised a mob of brats isn't as much fun for people who like to complain about the nanny state.
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You've never visited Nannychusetts, have you? State motto: "We're not happy until you're not happy."
As long as everybody is equally unhappy, then things are fair. What would be unfair is for certain people to be happy when others are not.
It is easier to force everyone down a level then try to give people the means to raise themselves a level.
Since people are so envious of what others have, this also gives the ones taking happiness a power base.
Erm, well, according to the fount of all knowledge, Japan has a murder rate of 0.44 per 100,000, less than one tenth the rate in the US.
Still, never let facts get in the way of good old ideology, what?
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The problem with profiling is that it leads to a self perpetuating loop.
Drag aside and search everyone who fits the profile of those caught trying to smuggle weapons in the most in the last 6 months.
Lets say 80 year olds grandmothers.
now 80% of the people you search are old grannies, a few of them will have weapons and a few will have what look like weapons.
so 6 months later you decide to see if your profiling has worked: IT HAS! look! see over 50% of the people caught with weapons(in this case long sharp metal spikes which they claimed were merely for making clothes, as if you could make clothes with metal spikes! Ha!) in the last 6 months were grannies! LETS PROFILE HARDER!
of course the people you don't drag aside and search might be more likely to be carrying weapons but since we're basing our choices of who to search on the number of people caught it quickly begins to spiral and you catch less and less of anyone else and more and more from the group you profile.
I dismantled my crib when I decided I wanted to upgrade. Brought the thing out in pieces to my poor, shocked, aghast mother.
Did murder STOP? No. I didn't attempt to compare rates.
Yes you did. You stated that weapons control laws never "decreased" violence, not "stop[ped" violence.
Actually, I am pretty sure that measure is to counter violence, but since when has "weapons control" laws ever resulted in decreased violence? [...] But does that stop murders and mayhem? Nope! It just making the killings more gruesome and painful.
You explicitly said that strict gun laws did not decrease the amount of violence found in Japan and that it did in fact make the murders committed there more gruesome.
Not to mention that declaring all non-perfect solutions to be of negligible effect is a fallacy in itself. We may be unable to completely stop murder but that doesn't mean that measures taken to reduce homicide rates (such as making firearms less available) are automatically pointless.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Based on the rest of your post, I don't think you are advocating this position (merely stating why someone would do this). Still, I'd suggest that anyone who agrees with this notion to read Harrison Bergeron, where "equality of outcome" is the central theme. This is where we will eventually be led.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I have long felt that Harrison Bergeron should be required reading in every law school in the country.
On a separate but related note, I am afraid that a significant percentage of registered voters in the US would think your sig is referring to some of Cher's costumes.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
This is a common argument from americans.
It's also an especially retarded one.
All this leads to is a policy of escalation. I get a gun to defend myself, of course the robbers are going to get guns. Bigger ones too. So then I get a bigger gun, and next thing you know you're being menaced by people with machineguns.
In the end, guns don't help you defend yourself. They only ensure any encounter with something you need to defend yourself against will result in a fatality.
Canadians have, per capita, as many guns as americans do. But 99% of them are hunting weapons, not designed to be used against other people. And in the city where I live (600k people), we have less than one murder per year.
And I don't have to lock my door at night. And I don't need a gun to defend myself.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Said just like someone who has never been shot with a sword.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Technically suicide can be construed as murder, in which case Japan is well ahead of us with 24.4/100k compared to our 11.1/100k, the difference being more than enough to make up for the gap of 4.6 in our murder rates. (also from Wikipedia)
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If it makes you feel better, Massachusetts is in that part of the country we call New England.
I teach at a small charter high school here in N. AZ. Aside from grading papers, the bane of my existence is that students come to school WITHOUT so much as a single pencil with which to write! They have their cell phone, they have their cigarettes and lighter, and they can afford piercings and tattoos, but not a single pencil! WHAT was that "teacher" thinking?
Weapons of Maths Destruction
Like edawstwin above, I attended both public and private schools in the U.S. - in fact, three of each.
While there is truth to the assertion that some private schools are much better than others, this doesn't take into account how bad many government schools are. I attended one private school that is one of the best in the United States, and another which was the Baptist-run type referred to, with underqualified teachers. Despite this handicap, that Baptist school still performed better than the local government schools, at least up through 8th grade. They just didn't have funds for proper laboratory work, as they only charged - in 2010 dollars, about $2000/year. However, every single student at that school could read and do basic math, which by itself is an improvement over the government schools.
Perhaps the British author of the post several stages up is the victim of another phenomenon: namely, he doesn't see the many students from government schools who dropped out or never learned to read because they don't apply to universities in England. A private education is an indication that a family is interested in education, and so the children are more likely to attempt to avail themselves of educational opportunities, even when they are something of a stretch. In school districts where the residents are relatively wealthy the schools tend to be reasonably good, so these already-advantaged students are also more likely to attend the government schools, again skewing the results.
As one last aside, note that since 1970 real spending per pupil at government schools in the U.S. has more than doubled, with - so far - nothing to show for it. But then, as John Taylor Gatto has noted, government schools in the U.S. have not failed. In fact, they have fulfilled their mission perfectly. We should be aware, however, that their mission never included educating students.
Dunno, when I was in school, I had at least one knife on me every single day for most of my school years. Plus lighters and a torch.
End result? Teachers came to me instead of walking down to the main teacher's lounge when they needed to cut anything or start the Buthane in Chemistry.
Now I am working. And I carry a Victorinox Swiss Tool while doing desk work.
So yah, ban all them weapons!!!111