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I Am Not a Student, I Am a Number
PapaZit writes "Students in Ruston, Louisiana are being forced to wear ID badges that include their Social Security Numbers in barcode form. The encoding format is simple enough that students have been reading the SSNs of other students, teachers, and administrators, and they're threatening to publish this information if they're not granted a more private ID system.
" Granted, students all across the US are being forced to wear ID tags - but this is one of the most egregious ones I've heard about yet.
Just like it says.
I spent twelve years dealing with the exact same crap these kids are going through now. It takes very little to realise that the system doesn't work.
1. Kids enjoy learning. It's a simple fact that children are curious about the world they live in, and fully willing to go out to experience it. What public education does is take these eager young children; prop them up in a desk; and force them to sit down, shut the hell up, and "learn" exactly what teachers decide they should learn. This stifles the creative process in many obvious ways, in addition to crushing the students' free-will. Students may memorize what they are told, and no more for the duration of the day, and speak only when told.
2. Students are treated like robots. This is easily exemplified in the recent high-school Orwellian incident of bar-coding students with their SSNs. Humans cannot live under such a strictly regimented schedule in which they as individuals are given second priority to the class as a whole. Speak when you're told. Do what you're told. This is when you do this. Don't question your teacher. The 8 good hours of the day wasted, and more at home with homework and studying for 12 years. Who here believes that conditioning a child to meekly accept what he/she is taught without questioning is a good thing? Hell, I'm not even talking about high school. By that time we're completely crushed.
3. Advancement is based on age. This defies common sense. Quick children are forced to idle while slow children hold them back.
4. Class requirements are communist. After an extent, forcing all children to learn the same things (true with very minor exeception through high school) is ridiculous. Some people aren't tooled for math, and some people aren't tooled for english. And there it is. After the basics. It's plain to see that an English major is not going to need trigonometry; regardless, we're all forced to learn it.
5. The perception that college (and even the latter years of high school) is mandatory. Not everyone should be going to college. In the past, higher learning has been a noble thing, but for scholars. I look around myself at university today and see drugged-out, ignorant jocks attending higher learning only because it's socially required to do so. They don't want to learn. They won't use what little knowledge they accidentally glean from this place. They will pollute the work force. Only bad things can come from socially forcing everyone to attend college.
6. Smart people are discriminated against. Everyone knows this from the Hellmouth incident discussions (not to advocate the Hellmouth incident). Homework is communistically enforced regardless of necessity ("responsibility is part of learning" -- bullshit. "Do what you're damn told so we don't have to evaluate you individually" is more accurate). Students must attend class whether or not they understand the topics. The effect is that an incredible amount of stress is placed on everyone. Nobody accepts orders to this extent without some side-effects. These are, but not limited to: bullying others (the strong-willed), becoming a robot (the weak-willed), and assassinating fellow students (the creatively stifled).
What it all basically boils down to is that it's human to resist orders. A child's parents should provide discipline; it is natural for kids to accept instruction from the ones they love; faceless authority should not. Kids are deprived of freedom, learning ability (and incentive), and crushed spiritually into the droning workforce.
I haven't experienced alternate countries' versions of public education, but I can't imagine they could be much better. I propose a complete overhaul: kids are evaluated based on individual learning progress. Throw them in a room with a teacher, give access to internet boxes, other references and the experimental possibilities and let them go at it. This is intermingled with instruction as to basics, but children should be allowed to pursue more or less of a topic as inclined. Teachers are there to answer questions, help with resources, and provide inspiration. After introductory basics have been provided (with minimal attendance policy, no required homework, and no compulsion to sit down and shut up like a robot -- grading is based on tests), the system becomes entirely a "show that you have learned anything" one instead of a "show that you have memorized and can parrot this" one. Those not inclined to learn further go wherever they want to go.
My changes are radical, but the fact is that children are broken in the US' public education system. This directly leads to the pitiful, uncaring workforce we have today. In drastic cases, it leads to Hellmouth. Humans can't accept two sets of parents.
Thanks for being an outlet.
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Silly rabbit. Sleep is for class!
To this day the part that most galls me about elementary, junior, and high-schools in this country is that the institutions where we try to teach kids about freedom and responsibility is run like a miniature fascist state or prison. On the cusp of adulthood we treat teenager like third class citizens. Let's think of all the rights kids *Do Not* have in school which adults in this country take for granted.
1. Free Speech: Beyond limiting simple vulgar language in school, most schools limit political and religious expression. Not to mention criticism of the school administration and it's policy's. While this usually takes the form of censorship of the school newspaper, schools have tried to punish kids for self-published web sites that are independent of the school.
2. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Schools reserve the right to search not only a student's locker, but also their bags, and even their person. Full body cavity searches are even administered with some frequency.
3. Freedom of association. In the wake of Columbine many kids have been harassed for being part of their local school's equivalent of the Trench Coat Mafia. But even before this latest frenzy it has been common place for school administrations to directly harass kids who do not "fit in" or hang out with the wrong crowd.
Beyond these basic issues I think it is worth noting that school administrations routinely tolerate peer abuse that would be legally actionable in any other context, except prisons. Beyond, simple issues like verbal and sexual harassment, school routinely tolerate physical intimidation and assault.
In the current frenzy schools are simply becoming the full fascist entities they have always wanted to be. I can't wait till we have the announcement that some school will have all students wearing orange jumpsuits (to make it more difficult to conceal weapons, and discourage gangs), ID tags (to keep out non-students, and make tracking students easier), card lock doors, metal detectors, transparent book bags, random mandatory drug testing, and armed guards cruising the hallways. (Did I miss anything?)
Does this sound like a school to anyone?
Its bad enough that these kids are forced wear IDs and its even worse that they are using the supposedly provate SSN but whats the deal with the Pepsi logo also mentioned in the article?
Not only are they subjected to this pointless knee-jerk facist "security", measure they're forced to be walking coporate billboards.
Im glad some of them are standing up aginst this foolishness, and I think they should also boycott Pepsi products.
this is part of the IMO rather disturbing "prove you're not a criminal" mentality thats increasingly prevelant in the US today (show your DL for transactions, drug tests etc etc)
CHRIST!
* The NSA monitors our phone calls, faxes, and e-mails ("Eschelon").
* Secure encryption cannot be exported.
* The FBI wants the right to monitor our computers without us knowing.
* Wiretapping capability is built into the phone system
* I just saw on TV that politicians in California are trying to build some kind of remote shutdown into the engines of our cars to stop car chases.
* The White House is investigating what kind of new Internet laws to pass to prevent "abuse"
* They're meeting in Germany to come up with a universal censoring ("labeling") PROTOCOL.
* They're giving our kids NUMBERS TO WEAR, using their SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?!!! (Get them to accept this when they're young so they don't think anything of it...)
Maybe they should just tatoo the numbers on the kid's forearms. I heard that's been done before somewhere...
Every day I hear more and more examples of freedoms being eliminated. It's going slow, step-by-step, but it's happening. If nothing is done, in 20 years it will be so common and I'll seem like some kind of radical fringe terrorist... They'll probably come after me. Or maybe you.
Send a polite letter explaining why you think having the SSN as part of a student ID is wrong to: Dr. Charles Scriber Principal, Ruston High School 900 Bearcat Dr Ruston, LA 71270 Or Phone: 318-255-0807 or Fax: 318-251-2202
...why don't you read the CSPR Social Security Number FAQ? Also, check out the longer Privacy Rights SSN FAQ, which has a section entitled "How can a school use my Social Security number?" In fact, what the hell, I'm going to include it here:
P.S. Since I'm clinging to my privacy rights and posting as an AC, I'd appreciate it if a kindly moderator would bump the rating on this up to at least "1" so that most folks see it. Thanks!
I've tried very hard over the past few years to keep my SSN to myself, after a bad experience with a previous employer. My SSN showed up on my employee ID badge, my medical insurance card, my dental insurance card, my vision card, internal mailing labels, and my parking pass. The last item, of course, is what sent me over the edge. Not only is this grossly negligent, but there are numerous indirect ramifications. For example, my bank's account agreement specifically states that if I carry identifying numbers such as my SSN in my wallet with my ATM card, that (a) they consider it tantamount to writing the PIN on the card and (b) the bank is no longer liable/puts no limit on the loss you can incur if your card is stolen.
Unfortunately, US citizens are compelled to give their SSN (aka "TIN" -- taxpayer identification number, in IRS parlance) to financial institutions in the US. There is no way to avoid them using the number. However, other governmental agencies are prohibited from using the SSN as an identification number. Not so with private institutions.
I spent some time on the issue, found the federally-recognized generic SSNs (078-05-1120, and the series 987-65-4320 to -4329, typically used in instructions, advertisements, tv shows, etc) and made liberal use of them. When a unique number is critical, I ask the requester to assign a number that is unique _to_them_. For example, I have a number for all medical-related organizations and another for educational institutions at which I've taken classes recently, both distinct from my SSN. In this manner, I've compartmentalized the bases of information about myself so that it's much more difficult to develop an overall profile of me for invasive or marketing purposes.
I steadfastly refuse to give out my SSN for anything where it's not federally mandated. Yes, you can do it -- just be pleasant about it, and make sure the number you're using is unique to the organization so that you don't cause unnecessary confusion later on. If uniqueness isn't important, use one of the numbers above. On a related note, the home phone number printed on my checks is the bank branch's direct line, showing the same point: redirecting people usually works much better than stonewalling them.
One nice byproduct of this is that my junkmail levels have dropped to a very low level. Privacy is a relative concept, but it's not dead, and it's not irrelevant.
I think not...(*poof*)