TheAgitator.com
More Stupid School Administrators, Take…I’ve Lost Count
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008Let’s just assume they have no sense of proportionality or context. You’d think they’d at least understand the negative PR power of suspending a kid for taking a cell phone call from his father stationed in Iraq.
I am worried by the sheer number of stupid school administrator stories reported. Perhaps these should be tracked.
chsw
I suspect that in other contexts many of the people who posted angry comments to this story think rules are rules and must never be broken. So when the SWAT team blows apart someone’s house because someone inside has a smidge of the ghanja, rules are rules. Don’t violate them. If you don’t like them, complain to your legislator. Until they are changed, they must be enforced. Etc.
Here, however, they can acknowledge the stupidity and urge a little common sense discretion.
I hate to be on the fascist side of anything, so I hate to be “that guy” in this situation but…..
I’m appalled by the fact that kids have cell phones in school to begin with. I’m sure this kids father has limited opportunities to speak with his child, but if he was living in any other time in the past he wouldn’t have a personal communication device to use in the first place.
I’m sure if his father arranged to call his son’s school they would have graciously pulled him out of class so he could speak with his father in Iraq.
just a side comment - when I was a freshman in high school I took my fathers pager to school, and was suspended and referred to “human services” because only “drug dealers had pagers”
Oh, how times have changed….
“Context: the sum of cognitive elements that conditions the acquisition, validity, or application of any item of knowledge.”
I’ve been saying it for nearly two decades now: the greatest part of our crises now is epistemic: people are simply losing the ability and/or interest to think. The implications are enormous and should be horrifying.
We are now at least a generation into the sort of culture in which people were once herded into cattle-cars at rifle-point by people who could not or would not hear the sounds of their own consciences, because they were positively forbidden to reason to a moral conclusion on their own powers.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
I’m sure this kids father has limited opportunities to speak with his child, but if he was living in any other time in the past he wouldn’t have a personal communication device to use in the first place.
I don’t understand the logic of this. It’s a good thing that technology allows separated families to communicate. Why should the limitations of the past apply today?
I’m sure if his father arranged to call his son’s school they would have graciously pulled him out of class so he could speak with his father in Iraq.
Do you think its likely that the father has a) limited time to call and/or b) an irregular schedule? I would guess that it could be expensive to sit on hold from Iraq while an administrator shuffles through schedules and then dispatches someone to retrieve the kid.
In any event, it sounds as though the family got an agreement from the school to allow the phone but the school “forgot.” Sounds credible to me.
Kids have cell phones because times have changed. There affordable and work at being able to contact people. Their also a great way to verify if a person needs help. We don’t have to use a letter and pony like people did in the 1800’s, because we have a better technology. Read the article, according to it the mother says that the father did set up an arrangement to be able to speak to his child, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that any parent should be able to call their kid with out having to ask permission of the school. In the military there are times when soldiers aren’t given that much time to contact people, so you call people directly rather than go through a cue of office people.
From personal experience back when I was in school, my mom would have a heck of a time having to fight with the schools “office people” (everyone from the secretary to the principle) to take me out of class for doctors appointments that I ended up just staying home for the whole day after one too many arguments. These same people wanted me to give my medication to the nurse so that I could spend 20 minutes of my lunch break to get said pill on time, because they had a zero drug policy. Any drug be it aspirin or crack you weren’t suppose to carry. I ended up just carrying them around with me for the whole school year and never told anybody.
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; those who can’t teach are administrators.
This is one reason I am for vouchers. If a school does something you don’t like, you have no economic recourse. You still have to pay property tax or whatever tax you pay to subsidize your local school. If you could have some way to remove that from them, then maybe they’d listen.
Well, Tom, why even bother with any education at all if teachers are so universally useless?
Vouchers are a possible solution.
The problem isn’t that no one can think anymore, its that they don’t have an incenitve to think.
Thinking is hard. Thinking is risky. Since there is no consequences for poor decisions, why should the school administrator think?
There can be no justice when any rules are followed without flexibility. I understand the no cell phone rule, but there must be circumstances where that can be violated. It was not his girlfriend or his drug dealer that was calling. Or his buddy to discuss drinking plans or “where you at.” It was his dad. In Iraq.
Who the hell is downvoting Nick and Hannah and upvoting Pierre the luddite? That doesn’t make any sense to me at all, especially on a libertarian blog in 2008.
Matt,
Some wag has been downvoting what would be considered ‘normal’ or good responses on all the posts for the last day or so.
To the anonymous wag, maybe you should find another blog to read the comments of.
Zeb, disregarding the grossly distorted version of Tom’s statement you’ve made, why do you think that teachers are the only way to get an education?
Students are not allowed to have cell phones at the school.
Why does it matter that his father was in Iraq?
This reflexive “but his father is a soldier in Iraq” exceptionalism is silly. There’s no indication it was an emergency, just a routine call.
tde - Somehow I doubt that any call from a soldier in Iraq is “routine.”
Also, you’re “the rules must be followed because… well… they’re the RULES” attitude is disappointing. As has been documented on this blog, zero tolerance and rules-for-rules-sake attitudes have caused a lot of unnecessary pain lately.
I could care less about rules or laws, god knows I don’t worry about either.
I just hate phones, dont think everybody needs to be walking around and talking on one, and I don’t buy the BS argument that kids need them to be safe
His dad could send a letter.
Yes, pierre, we know you’re a luddite. Enjoy being annoyed while the rest of us play with all the neat new things that are invented in the future.
“tde - Somehow I doubt that any call from a soldier in Iraq is ‘routine.’”
Why?
“it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that any parent should be able to call their kid with out having to ask permission of the school.”
Oh really? So children should be able to receive any call from their parents at any time while they are in school? What about calls from siblings? Calls from grandma and grandpa? I am just trying to figure out the limits of this rule.
Oh, and should children be able to call their parents at any time while they (the children) are in school?
Is there a cut off at high school or do you think that college students should be able to receive calls from mom and dad at any time?
This principal needs a new job in a new location.
Crib girl in an Istanbul brothel sounds about right. Then she can be a real whore instead of an NEA whore.
tde - It’s not routine because his dad is half the world away, in a war-zone, with all the time-zone and weird schedule problems that would cause for phone calls.
“Oh really?
So children should be able to receive any call from their parents at any time while they are in school?
What about calls from siblings?
Calls from grandma and grandpa?
Oh, and should children be able to call their parents at any time while they (the children) are in school?
Is there a cut off at high school or do you think that college students should be able to receive calls from mom and dad at any time?”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
If the parents are ok with the kid having a cellphone at school then why the fuck should we care what you think? Or what anyone thinks? As long as it doesn’t disrupt class (this kid didn’t) then there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
I have a very lax policy on cell phones in my (college) class.
I tell my students that they adults and if they get a call in class I will assume that it is very important.
I’ve never had a problem.
Occasionaly a phone will ring and someone will slip out of the room. Alomst invariably I get an email saying that a child was sick in daycare. Once someone’s wife went into labor.
I believe Hannah was implying parents at least have a right to speak to their children whenever they feel it is necessary. School administrators are overruled by parental authority, period. Although many schools are trying to write rules to change that.
When the school discovered the child was speaking to a parent at the parents request, the matter should have been dropped except maybe for a lesson to the child on how he should properly handle such a situation.
If the parent becomes unreasonably disruptive with phone calls then the administrator should discuss this with the parent.
Common sense really isn’t all that difficult for most people. Unfortunately, I think it is one thing that can’t be taught.
compare: “it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that any parent should be able to call their kid with out having to ask permission of the school.”
with
“As long as it doesn’t disrupt class (this kid didn’t) then there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.”
tde - Ok, I compared them. They’re perfectly compatible viewpoints.
I let my kid take pencils to school. But if he stabbed another kid in the eye with one I’d be a little pissed. See how that works?