Schools in the Bogus Age of Terror

Daniel David May 14 (10:05 AM)
"You, my dear, are the “reactionary” and your particular favorite “reaction” is tired, dull, and thoroughly proven as failed policy."

Perhaps, but I've been working in what you call the "prison like schools" for twenty years and have seen first hand how people of your ilk and those that actually would agree with you here are hopelessly caught up in quick fixes and theoretical solutions to real problems. To suggest moving kids from secondary schools into colleges because of something you call "boredom" is to demonstrate clearly that you do not understand the problem. I know in California, beginning in 1977 with Prop. 13 funding for education began shifting the tax burden away from a more affluent tax base, that of property owners, to local counties and cities to devise ways of compensating the lost revenue. This loss of revenue shared by all resulted in a series of cuts for education that has drastically reduced programs, and incentives for young people and limited their choices for their futures.

A democrat (Obama voter like yourself) should understand

"failing prison-like schools (with) MORE, MORE, MORE money"

as you so inaptly put it, is a fallacy propagated and perpetuated by the right-wing. Money spent on prisons and war rather than on education is what you've bought into. As an Obama voter you have demonstrated once again your lack of understanding in general, and your preference for pretty rhetoric rather than reality. You dims are all talk and no substance.

Your ignorance is so apparent that it is clear that you have switched from being a repug to a dim recently in order to avoid the embarrassment of being a registered repug. Your posts here have met with ample argument, and up until now I haven't had to address your misguided views. Now, I happily jump into the ring to join the many who have given intelligent rebuttal to your reactionary statements.

WTF May 15th, 2008 12:04 pm

YEP!

andrew.herman wrote: I am sick of the right wing propaganda that today’s schools suck compared to “the good old days” when more than half of the country was practically illiterate!

I subscribe to that mode of thought, and hardly call myself a right-wing propagandist. While you may claim that half the country was illiterate, I came from a time when 21 and 22 year-olds were placed in positions of authority and responsibility that today people avoid. E.g., the median age of staff in the 1960s Canaveral or Houston launch rooms was 25, and these "kids" were responsible for both lives and billions of dollars in equipment. I was 22 when I was given a multi-million dollar piece of equipment and a helper, dropped into a remote desert in the middle of no-where, and left for 6 months with the advice "if it breaks, you are dead (and fired!)". Does not happen today.

Don't get me wrong: I place higher value on education AND teachers than almost anything. I'm not blaming teachers for the paucity of good education these days, teachers are doing the very best they can given bad policies.

Parents are the problem through dictating and manipulating policies.

The other problem is that the US today is largely a service-oriented society. There is little risk or discipline required in service industries.

"...(schools are) being made too useful to the policing mentality of zero-tolerance discipline, perpetual surveillance and unquestioned authority that mirrors a larger transformation of society. Security is the excuse. But obedience to authority has little to do with security, and everything to do with control. Schools in this bogus age of terror are the cheapest, most impressionable, most unquestioning incubators of mass submission."

Like waiting meekly in line at the airport for 45 minutes with your shoes and belt in your hand to be frisked; it has nothing to do with security and everything to do with conditioning people to passively accept What Happens Next. Welcome to democracy featuring not only corporate-controlled ballot boxes, but private mercenary armies like Blackwater, complete with mechanized armor and helicopter gunships (and immunity from posse comitatus and the UCMJ), and corporate-controlled concentration camps built by KBR.

They're inheriting a rapidly deteriorating unsustainable world circling the toilet bowl; undergoing catastrophic anthropogenic climate change and an accelerating anthropogenic mass extinction event with the impending complete and utter collapse of civilization as what's left of the fossil fuels it's based upon are depleted in a rapidly degenerating country that's economically becoming more feudal and politically more Fascist with each passing day. For the life of me, I simply can't possibly imagine what the youth of today are so pissed off about.

"I am sick of the right wing propaganda that today’s schools suck compared to “the good old days” when more than half of the country was practically illiterate!"

Propaganda my foot. I'm sure you are right about the amount of science. And it should be better than we got, for science. But thats a narrow area. But I'm here to tell you the kids we are getting, can't spell, most can't read that well, don't know beans about history and have trouble with in depth work. Maybe your State is different.

Top 10% usually do well in any case. But I'd stack my forgetful bunch from the sixties up against your 10% any day. Education is knowledge and being taught how to structure your thought process.

Todays schools are not as good....measurably.

Remember your top 10% had to have the SAT standard lowered so they could get in.

I have nothing but respect for good teachers and they don't hold the blame for this mess. But the results are measurably below the education of the 50's and 60's. Can't answer for before that.

“I’d put a good 65 HS education up against most BS graduates today and win. Its also what they are being taught.”

As a retired-teacher, I’d ‘put a good 1930’s HS-education up against most MS-Graduates today, and Win…

Yeah, the trouble is that in 1930 less than 40% of the US adults had a high school education so your idea pretty much compares apples to oranges. Today we try to educate 100% of America's youth. Today's teachers receive ridicule and scorn for doing their best with the large portion of society that used to drop out of high school and get mill jobs back when there were mill jobs.

In 1930 only about 5% of adult Americans got a college degree and today it's about 25%.

If you bet your money against today's top 10% high schoolers with the top 10% from the 30's, 40', 50's, or 60's you will lose all your money. I am a high school science teacher and a lot of the science we teach today wasn't even discovered until the 50-60's and it didn't hit the secondary curriculum until the 1980s.

I am sick of the right wing propaganda that today's schools suck compared to "the good old days" when more than half of the country was practically illiterate!

Don't listen to the propaganda!

"I’d put a good 65 HS education up against most BS graduates today and win. Its also what they are being taught."

As a retired-teacher, I'd 'put a good 1930's HS-education up against most MS-Graduates today, and Win...'
We are being deliberately dumbed-down and over-'Socialized' [in a way that leads towards 'compliant-Consumers' and 'accepting/ignorant-Citizenry' -- making us all-the-easier for being shat-upon...].

In reference to above...

'Common good' is defined as 'common ground'.

"Personal responsibility should always be at the forefront, but we have to also make provisions for the common good. Otherwise you have anarchy."

My personal view is that we have reached a state of near complete chaos. I define chaos here as a state of affairs without reference to and in violation of natural law.

It does not matter that soldiers can carry out arbitrary orders, it matters that what they are doing is supported by natural law, or at least does not so severely challenge the functioning of natural law that life itself is imperiled...

surely the case today... and one that is continuance from the advent of military societies wherein we see the emergence of desertification (destructions of habitat being accomplished as war policy and also civilian control programs), and whole populations without reference to ecological requirements, including human ecological requirements.

Common ground is the given. Intelligent and life-supporting education assumes responsibility for providing each and every member of its society with the understanding of our common ground and what leeway we have in regard to it (and helps indicate ways it can be enjoyed/explored/determined) and what things are best to avoid for the good of the individual and the whole.

To dramatize how fundamental our failing is on this point, consider that almost no member of our present military society even knows the ecological/behavioral significance of their own physiology and anatomy (Humans are herbivores: http://allinharmony.org). This ignorance alone underscores every human threat to planetary life.

Common ground indeed! Let’s recover it before it is vanquished by ignorance of our own natures!

"For example, the Spanish government under Francisco Franco, while still allowing some personal freedom, would be considered as authoritarian. On the other hand, USSR under Stalin would be regarded as totalitarian as it attempted to control many aspects of personal life."

Considering that neither of these political regions was entirely sovereign and both were police states, I think we are splitting hairs here.

Today, surveillance is comprehensive and invasive (certainly the schools are no exception here) as are the tools to control populations and individuals. These tools range from controlling capital, credit, privilege, etc. to demonizing and isolating groups and/or individuals (and these tools are also being used in schools, selecting some and inhibiting others; and adaptability/suitability to/for authoritarian models is more key in this selection process than anything else).

Finally, it is the combination of this type of educational program and the selections that are done in the course of it that has resulted in a society ruled by state selected sociopaths and served by people who are incapable of intelligently re-engineering their own reality.

And yes, the amusements in which children engage is part of the cultural training field (games of violence are widespread for a purpose)… and helps to substantiate violence as a conditioned response to containment/frustration…

Now, can we really not see the developmental pathways of those who commit genocide, generation after generation? Because it is not the ‘few’ who are partaking.

itsaNaziWorldOrder May 14th, 2008 12:26 pm

Gotcha.

Interestingly, the school was all White, this particular substitute was Black… I think he was seeking understanding by sharing info not generally available in those days.

Very interesting that it was all white. We were integerated by 1960 so black students were no novelty. But black teachers were. I think we had two in the whole school of 2000+

We may have gone.....but we sure didn't want to,By any stretch of the imagination! So that may have been what he was illustrating. You never know.

"And I would fire a teacher in an instant for pushing their own political or social views on their students. Either side then or now."

I did not say 'pushing ones views.' It was a history class and we were getting a history lesson. I do not recall this teacher being interested in 'pushing his views' as assessing the state of mind of the students...

Interestingly, the school was all White, this particular substitute was Black... I think he was seeking understanding by sharing info not generally available in those days (that was historically accurate and unbiased) and interested to see what would be the reaction.

But my eyes were also on him... I wanted to see his reaction... and what I saw was possibly a hope flicker that although the students reacted in this particular way, maybe a seed for later reflection had been planted.

Authoritarianism and totalitarianism, from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

Definition

Authoritarianism means a form of social control characterized by strict obedience to the authority of a state. Hence, the term has similar meaning with totalitarianism, with the latter being an extreme case of the former.

Various differences can reflect the difference between authoritarianism and totalitarianism. First, authoritarian leaders, although often they repress their political opponents, may also leave a larger sphere for private life than a totalitarian government. Unlike totalitarian governments, authoritarian governments usually lack a guiding ideology, tolerate some pluralism in social organization, lack the power to mobilize the whole population in pursuit of national goals, and exercise their power within relatively predictable limits.

For example, the Spanish government under Francisco Franco, while still allowing some personal freedom, would be considered as authoritarian. On the other hand, USSR under Stalin would be regarded as totalitarian as it attempted to control many aspects of personal life.

"The American school system is modeled on the early and mid 19th century Prussian military system; it is designed to instill practices of regimentation and orderliness in students. Attendees at these model military camps sit in rows, march to the beat of alarms, and report to drill sergeants who masquerade as teachers and administrators."

Makes sense to me.

Our schools are nothing but training, conditioning grounds for soldiers and others necessary to the continuance of our elitist military society (the apparent and stark reality when one sees through the rather flimsy mask of 'democracy').

AdeletheCzech
"Eric Barth (at 1:52 p.m.) puts his finger on an important cause of teens and young adults becoming mass murderers: “They mirror what they see too often in the World around them where war, killing and violence (in sports also) is romanticized in the culture.” Of course, most progressives would insist that super-violent movies, TV and video games NOT be subjected to censorship, no matter what the effect on the next generation. "

PaulK
"$500,000,000 in one week. Grand Theft Auto IV, that game where you get street cred for pulling off carjackings and mowing down hookers, raked in five times what a blockbuster movie could do.

Who are we Americans to dally with the god of the underworld? Hollywood tells us with great joy, the technical details of planting nail bombs, of weapons, of murdering. We see 20,000 graphic or implied murders on the small screen as kids, where our grandparents all played Monopoly and grew up as capitalists. Kids who watch violence kill kids."

I posted these comments in another forum about GTA4 but they fit well here. This thought pattern can also apply to tv, music, movies, etc:

the game is for adults only it has a mature rating! Kids get ahold of the game because of parents that can't bother themselves to pay attention to what they are buying for them. That's the issue. I'm pretty sure that the things you describe in your post (he was talking about the same thing you guys are)would drastically go down in numbers if parents would actually do their job as parents! Instead they put their blinkers on and ignore everything hoping their kid is as good as they think he/she is until something goes wrong. When that happens they point the finger not at themselves where the blame belongs but at anything else they can think of. Whether that be tv, movies, music or video games. I've been thinking for the past several years that maybe people should be IQ tested before being allowed to have children and situations like this just cement that thought in my mind.

itsaNaziWorldOrder May 14th, 2008 11:38 am

I would disagree that your experience contradicts that statement. By the time you got there it was already changed. It changed somewhere in the late fifties/early sixties. The Socratic method was shoved aside.

Now, what we have here is the ability of one nutcase in a position of power (almost certainly psychotic) to direct the activities of the world community!

Don't doubt that for a minute. And I would fire a teacher in an instant for pushing their own political or social views on their students. Either side then or now.

We are going to have to revamp our educational system as it simply is producing a sub standard education. You always get more of what you allow.

Personal responsibility should always be at the forefront, but we have to also make provisions for the common good. Otherwise you have anarchy.

History shows us how and what to do, I just don't know if we'll do it.

"Our system was originally modeled on the Socratic method of teaching.A sucessful model Its been perverted. If you tried to teach a group of kids that weren’t “regimented” nor orderly you’d get the mess we have today. Make sure they “feel good about themselves and they will be “educated”"

I can't help throw in a little personal history in contradiction to the above...

I was so quiet and well behaved in school, at one point my teacher came to our house to ask my mother if she could tell her why when I clearly knew the answers, I would never volunteer...

I guess growing up in Southern Ohio, the one lesson I learned early was no one liked a show off (someone who knew things they did not) …

So, for years, I sat in class... never learning a thing, perfectly behaved... until I just had to know when the interesting stuff was going to kick in, when we would actually be told things I had not already learned on my own... I was in the third grade; I asked about a math problem... my teacher answered that may be covered in the sixth grade or possibly later...

I went home, announced to my mother that I wanted to quit school and asked her to hire a tutor... at which point she informed me that I was going to go to school because it was a law!

I could not believe I was being asked to sit still, hour after hour, day after day, listening to things explained that I already knew (and at times knew were wrong) … I think this was the moment I learned how to ‘go dead’ (suppress my life force and reduce my functioning to that allowed or required by the system, work or school..)

Fast forward to high school… one day we had a substitute teacher. At the time, in that working class neighborhood school, I was the only one speaking up about the war in Vietnam… but this day someone else spoke much more eloquently and provided us with much info I did not know…

And when he finished, he asked the class how many thought that the Vietnamese were a threat to America. None did. He asked the class if any thought we should be there fighting. None did. And then he asked the class, How many would go to Vietnam and kill if asked to do so by the military… AND EVERYONE RAISED THEIR HAND stating that they would do as they were told even if they thought it was wrong!

Now, what we have here is the ability of one nutcase in a position of power (almost certainly psychotic) to direct the activities of the world community!

I don’t think revising our educational system is an option. When we are all tired enough (or disgusted enough) with corporate sponsored bloodshed; we’ll get serious and figure out how to encourage a sense of personal responsibility for one’s own actions, rather than a sense that we must be responsible to an authority (regardless of whether that authority is right or wrong) or conform to group/peer/social pressure.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace in a
continual state of alarm (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing
them with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

--H. L. Mencken

Tristam has delineated successfully that this is another phenomenon of hysteria.

Hysteria is sometimes generated purely by fantasy—witchcraft for example or Satanic child molestation cults—but often there is a real threat but it is simply blown out of all proportion.

Hysteria is very important to authoritarians as they are invariably protecting you from some ‘dire’ threat. Even when the threat is statistically miniscule such as death by “terrorism”—the threat is repeated, echoed, and constantly built up.

1. More fatalities occur "each day" from auto accidents then occur from terrorism for the "whole year".
(1.2 million deaths per year Worldwide)

2. More fatalities occur worldwide each year from animal attacks then occur from terrorism.
(Stats for US only 1882 deaths - 79/90)

3. More fatalities occur each year from falling down stairs then occur from terrorism.
(Just for the Netherlands 1700 deaths in 1999)

4. More fatalities occur "each day" from medical malpractice then occur from terrorism for the "whole year".
(US stats only - 120,000 deaths worldwide 1.4 million)

Another threat is the militarization of our police forces into SWAT teams who respond to the most minor incidents with overwhelming and unjustified force.

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=10382

My sister, possibly the dullest white person in the country, and with no interest in politics (or much else) is on the “terror” watch list. She is checked for traces of bomb-making materials every time she flies. The link is simply her name…a very, very common name…a very, very dull white American name… (No, it is not Hussein or Mahmudi)

Orwell meets Kafka at the airport.

An elderly woman working at the DMV in a small town in Arizona explains to me that she does not want a home computer because that would make her vulnerable to the “terrorists” when they attack. The chances of terrorists attacking this town are about the same as the likelihood of H.G. Well’s Martians attacking the town…but you can’t be too careful.

The most common form of teen death, of course, is from accidents—especially auto accidents. Suicide is also a very high cause of death among teenagers.

http://www.statisticstop10.com/Causes_of_Death_Older_Teens.html

Homicides are indeed a threat but mainly in poor ethnic neighborhoods fragmented by gang, drug, and turf wars.

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/death/ageteen.htm

The transfer of the language of the “terror war” to schools is deeply disturbing and not part of any rational plan to actually defuse the core causes of the American infatuation with violence. Turning every social problem into a “war” and a “terror threat” is part of the problem, not the solution.

Of course, if your ultimate goal is to create a surveillance state/police state then hysteria and irrational fear is an important tool.

New American mottos:

The enemy is everywhere and we must be everywhere to protect you.

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

"Provide an opportunity (via testing) to allow SOME students to graduate early and move on to college or junior college. Give them a magnet, and harness the energy of THEM to achieve faster than their peers."

Can't see anything wrong with that.

I wanted to mention that we have whats called a Tass test in Texas that everyone has to pass. Its resulted in teaching to the test. Thats the kind of testing we don't need. Or whats being used in NCLB. Useless.

ruthru,

At 10:01 pm yesterday (above), you call my statements "reactionary". Yet mine were original. Provide an opportunity (via testing) to allow SOME students to graduate early and move on to college or junior college. Give them a magnet, and harness the energy of THEM to achieve faster than their peers.

You, on the other hand, think you're gonna just get politicians to give failing prison-like schools MORE, MORE, MORE money.
You, my dear, are the "reactionary" and your particular favorite "reaction" is tired, dull, and thoroughly proven as failed policy.

AndyUK May 14th, 2008 4:03 am
I feel that your “gun culture” in the US has much to do with this

Sorry, history shows this has no truth. Just an easy target for laziness in education.

Some suggested there was no excuse for a dull curriculum and no cure for kids too smart to be bored by one. I'd suggest that much of learning is dull....2x2 or 1776 are not exciting in themselves. But its a base which you must have or you produce our current crop of illeterates.

PDF....I'm mostly with you.

thaddeusstephens May 14th, 2008 7:34 am

Our system was originally modeled on the Socratic method of teaching.A sucessful model Its been perverted. If you tried to teach a group of kids that weren't "regimented" nor orderly you'd get the mess we have today. Make sure they "feel good about themselves and they will be "educated"

Poets and artists generally can see things best:

QUALITY TIME (Iris DeMent)
(c) 1995 Songs of Iris ASCAP

She's got a phone in one hand, a hairbrush in the other
and she says, "Life's too short to stay home and be a mother"
She says she can have it all 'cause that's The New Deal
so God give her a hand, 'cause she needs one for the wheel

When he gets home from work, it's well after seven
But he drives a nice car so he thinks he's in Heaven
and his kids hardly know him but they've all got nice clothes
and in just a few hours more overtime he can pay-off that boat

And they've got nice big houses, and they've got nice big cars
and it looks, from the outside, like they're really going far
but there's trouble in the engine and we're junkyard-bound
if some moms and some dads don't start hanging around

When they get around to dinner they're damn near half-dead
so they drive through McDonald's and put the kids off to bed
But they're upwardly mobile and everything is fine
'cause when they do get together, it's quality time

And they've got nice big houses, and they've got nice big cars
and it looks, from the outside, like they're really going far
but there's trouble in the engine and we're junkyard-bound
if some moms and some dads don't start hanging around

They want stickers on the music, they want the laws turned around
They want the cops to run Beavis and Butthead outta town
They say they care about their children, but it's just too damn hard
To turn off that TV or sell off that car

And they've got nice big houses, and they've got nice big cars
and it looks, from the outside, like they're really going far
but there's trouble in the engine and we're junkyard-bound
if some moms and some dads don't start hanging around

There's a whole lot of people who can't make ends meet
and on the wages that they're earning, I know a family can't eat
But I'm talking 'bout people who would sell their kid's soul
to keep up with the Jones', no matter the toll

And they've got nice big houses, and they've got nice big cars
and it looks, from the outside, like they're really going far
but there's trouble in the engine and we're junkyard-bound
if some moms and some dads don't start hanging around

When they do get together, it's quality time

Nice to see the grand plan is falling into place so quietly. Train the kids young to fear athority or else so they stay like little lock step robots the rest of their lives.
We are still spinning off the Vietnam protests 30+ years later. They don't want a repeat of that and even today are getting to a point that doesn't work. Go ahead protests all you want the ballot box doesn't play a part ( Diebold) of the elector process in America anymore. When is the last time but for a few weeks before an election the elected person in your area listens to your needs and wishes? The rest of the time he is to busy getting a BJ from some corporation

One of the very best classes I had in High School was where we built a building. It wasn't a full "house", but more of an administrative building. The archetectural drawing class did the drawings, the woodshop classes built the framing, and the other shop classes did all the various tasks to build the building. It was a wonderful exercise in teamwork and community. It also saved some school budget by doing it ourselves. That's the kind of practical, hands-on things that I think would help everybody.

The current crop of "me" centered, "bling" cultured brats are not impressing me very much. I see it locally when I watch my neighbor buying his 17 year old daughter, as her very first car, a 2008 BMW Z-4 roadster! Just hands her the keys! He's a nice enough guy, and pretty smart, but I'm wondering what the ^%$# is he thinking?? Where's the incentive for her to make something of herself? Where's the sense of pride in achievement?

If we teach that life is about gathering possessions and impressing others, we're ignoring the idea of self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and self-determination that truly moves us forward as a society.

The American school system is modeled on the early and mid 19th century Prussian military system; it is designed to instill practices of regimentation and orderliness in students. Attendees at these model military camps sit in rows, march to the beat of alarms, and report to drill sergeants who masquerade as teachers and administrators.

The way to keep "order" in schools is to have something to teach/learn that's truly and clearly worth a damn. I think most Americans are bored to tears, despair, drugs and violence with their own "wonderful, best in the world" lives....There is no excuse for a dull curriculum and no cure for kids too smart to be bored by one....But to examine and re-create what schools are for cannot be done unless we examine and re-create what this SOCIETY is for---and selfish profit, wanting/getting/buying/having things, clearly isn't going to sustain anybody much longer....

WTF ~

I'm right with you on this one, I am shocked and saddened by the way habitual childhood offender are coddled; only to watch them grow up into habitual adult offenders. Follow the trail back from any incarcerated violent adult and you'll find a toddler who was left to "express himself"; a child who was "acting out"; a teen who was "troubled".

Follow back the skid marks, and you'll find the cause of most wrecks.

Personally, when I look at the progression of this societal problem, I'd have to say the ultra-permissive, "anything goes" sexual attitudes have led us to this place. "no-strings" sex has led to "no-rearing" children. It's a sad truth that is coming home to roost. Schools cannot and should not be the primary molders of a youth's character. It takes parenting; which we see far too little of.

Just one guy's thought.

PDF

Round up all these violence-prone kids and send'em to Iraq. Real combat with its' consequences cures imaginary violence in diary entries. Also kid soldiers will not be encumbered with a police record.

I think that most people have missed the main reason why this is happening in the US.
PaulK was closest, when he talks about the culture of ever more violent films and computer games, because the constant bombardment of blood, death and brutality, has desensitized people to real life killing.
I feel that your "gun culture" in the US has much to do with this, the acceptance of powerful weapons, which would in many countries, only be used by armies or civil defence forces.
When you finally move away from thinking that guns are "sexy" or "cool", and stop producing media which glamorises mass killing, then the problem will start to go away.

"But obedience to authority has little to do with security, and everything to do with control. Schools in this bogus age of terror are the cheapest, most impressionable, most unquestioning incubators of mass submission."

And that submission conditions people to be able to commit the genocides and atrocities that war-makers demand.

Who did you suppose would be fighting those 'wars without end'? This same culture of violence and submission to authority has been spread around world.

(Did anyone mention the drugs that are mixed into this cocktail, 'legal' and illegal, and the agents behind that tragedy?)

I applaud the author of this article.

This subject is very long overdue for some serious reconsideration.

We first and foremost need to question for and in what we are conditioning our youth to participate. Because from my vantage, blind submission to authority looked like the objective even in the sixties...

And the health/stability of future societies will not be based upon the ability to take direction so much as the ability to discern better directions.

We need to lose this culture of elitist hierarchy and control (with the ‘leader’ and his obedient and loyal followers) and replace it with a culture capable of producing mature, sovereign, conscious, caring, concerned and environmentally and socially response-enabled community members.

If these Kids are really Armed to the Teeth, could they just march to DC and attack?

Get a new tat when they're done killing politicians?

Spray some cool graffiti and come home?

Like a Civics Field Trip? They could get credit.

$500,000,000 in one week. Grand Theft Auto IV, that game where you get street cred for pulling off carjackings and mowing down hookers, raked in five times what a blockbuster movie could do.

Who are we Americans to dally with the god of the underworld? Hollywood tells us with great joy, the technical details of planting nail bombs, of weapons, of murdering. We see 20,000 graphic or implied murders on the small screen as kids, where our grandparents all played Monopoly and grew up as capitalists. Kids who watch violence kill kids.

Why can't we just not educate our kids to kill? Wouldn't that be simpler than metal detectors?

We're not in a bogus age of terror. It's real. But it's all home grown. No Arab has shot an American drug dealer in many years. That carnage is all local kids.

Daniel David: "establish tough tests that enable juniors and seniors to test completely out of high school ASAP (with a first-class diploma) and move directly to junior college. We need a culture of “learn what you have to learn and get on outa here”.

Another reactionary statement from DD.

Daniel,

Most of the kids in JCs are already so far below standard that these schools function more like continuation schools for drop outs. Dumping problems on higher education has never been effective. The standards will just continue to drop. Fixing the problems of public education are going to involve a long term committment to funding them properly, cutting administrative bureaucracies significantly, and yes, addressing the repug mentality of trying to find quick fixes to 30+ years of deprivation.

The last thing they need is another test.

I was going to make some comments, but TheLorax, lucklefty and Eric Barth beat me to it. You guys/girls rock.

I like Tristam's analysis. He's very insightful, and he's not afraid to speak his mind. He's sees where all this is leading, and there are those who don't see, or who do not want to see. That of course is their privilege.

Mass murder? Iraq.

QuakerDave May 13th, 2008 2:39 pm

Amen!

WTF May 13th, 2008 5:31 pm

Aren't you really just saying that its impossible to learn without discipline? And that if you misbehaved there was an immediate punishment?

I'd like to suggest that we take a look at the product that is being produced by all the feel good policies over the last 40 years and wake up to the fact that its not working.

I'd put a good 65 HS education up against most BS graduates today and win. Its also what they are being taught.

As I remember it Dave our "motivation" was the fact that dropping out, misbehaving, threatening teachers simply wasn't an option. It wasn't tolerated. When you allow something, you usually get more of it.

And as to Tests, they just teach to the test. Don't mean to be so negative but education as it is now disgusts me and cheats our kids.

WTF,

The reason more of your Jesuit-educated friends went on to college and success on average than those from the public schools on average is most likely because of both the parental push and the money capability/commitment of parents who can choose private schools to begin with. It wasn't just because of your Jesuit teachers paddling people (even if they did "enjoy" it).

The best thing we could possibly do for public high schools is establish tough tests that enable juniors and seniors to test completely out of high school ASAP (with a first-class diploma) and move directly to junior college. We need a culture of "learn what you have to learn and get on outa here". The magnet should be finish ASAP, not stay and play whatever is "extra-curricular."

I live in a state where kids are bored and lots drop out. The educators here are learning that getting them into a dual enrollment at junior college grows them up fast and keeps them motivated and improves graduation rates. Drop 'em out or push 'em forward? Why are we so dumb to just be "discovering" this whole avenue of motivation? Does anyone have trouble imagining a 16-year old being more serious in a Community College class half-populated by ADULT students?

I have been fighting the use of the prison vocabulary, such as "lockdown" in our school system for years to no effect. They do lockdown drills with police dogs in the halls and don't let the kids read or anything. "Lockdown" in prison parlance means that the cells are locked, because there has been an assault or other dangerous behavior by the inmates. I don't want children growing up with the idea that their schools are prisons and they are the inmates.
School administrators who should care about "language" think I am quaint. Probably as quaint as the Geneva Conventions. I shall try again with the new superintendent.

When I was at school, we had corporal punishment, both private and public floggings. It was run by the Jesuits (I think they enjoyed it), and my entire class turned out well. Most went on to college, nearly all are successful and well-respected citizens.

Sorry, I do not buy into today's nappy handling of kids. I believe today's over-zealous, over-protective, and over-caffeinated parents are are making things worse for kids. And trust me, things are hard enough as it is, and kids do not need any well-intentioned but mis-directed help from parents.

Nomex suit on!

QuakerDave - Given recent violence in schools near you, I understand your concern, but I don't think Tristam was saying to ignore the warning signs. Rather, he was pointing out the disproportionate police state response to troubled kids that mirrors our siege mentality in the "war" on terrorism. Charging a middle or high school kid with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction when he had no means to carry out something he only thought/wrote about is highly disproportionate. As the author notes, it requires parent-counselor interventions, not felony charges and a permanent criminal record.

I've heard a lot of griping about the "youth of today" and I think it's nonsense. These kids are bright and capable. A lot of them aren't buying what the White House is selling.
Unfortunatly, they are living in choke hold.
In Florida:
They aren't allowed to have a locker and have to carry all their books everywhere.
They aren't allowed to bring a plastic picnic knife to school and use their fingers to spread the condiments unless they make the sandwich before school and let it get soggy.
They have cops standing in their hallways and metal detectors at their doors.
They can't even pull out a nail file without getting tasered or pepper sprayed.
Soon they'll have to attend class in handcuffs.

It's hypocritical to point fingers at them and call them troublemakers. (At least it is for me)
Most of the "satanic images" or "death plans" are just outlets for emotional stress and puberty. Only a very seriously disturbed person would actually act on it. The random element will always exist and no locks, metal detectors, or "zero tolerance" policies will stop them. I think the best way is to listen to the kids and try to get to know them. Extend a little trust to them and see what they do with it. They will give you the best warning that one of them "may not be right".

"Witness the Daytona Beach police chief’s fetish for the word “scumbag,” now emblazoned (as “scumbag eradication team”) with an obscene image on shirts for the teenagers in the department’s Police Explorer program."

What's wrong with that? An eradication team that happens to also be a bunch of scumbags.

If the Daytona police chief wants to advertise himself as a scumbag, i say, "let him". i mean, if the shoe fits right??

however, he shouldn't be teaching kids how to be scumbags too. that's just deplorable.

sad, very sad...

Aryan Male Supremacy; Gender Slavery; Human Slavery; Massive Child Abuse (installs free-floating rage in both genders); Constant War; & Genocide. Their installation and justification is the institutional sub-text for the entire system. It certainly isn't training in critical thinking, is it?

As you said Eric Barth 1:52 pm "...After generations of adolescent bullying that school authorities did little or nothing about, we get this “zero tolerance” stuff..."

Pack behavior is normative in American society, we are based on exclusion, "who's in" "who's out". Starts in school along with training in group victimization - tacitly supported by all Authority. First you overwhelm "the little shits" with physical violence and intimidation that goes on all day every day and sometimes after school. Then the victims are spit upon and scorned as "weak". Sound like foreign and domestic policy to you? The rights of conquest. You bet we're "educating" the same ones who grow up and sodomize children in front of their mothers in Abu Ghraib. They are us. They are the products of a system of 'education' that is completed in basic training - kill on command - kill anybody who pisses you off - your only loyalty is to other men, your Brothers.

I did say Aryan Male Supremacy.

The schools simple traded one "Pack" with another, "Cops". They know all about knocking people down and spitting on them. Containment and Suppression.

Pieces of 8.

No, "zero tolerance policies" aren't the best answer. And sometimes (here's a surprise) the police go overboard. But.

I teach in a middle school. In the past few years, we have had an increasing number of incidents wherein kids have been threatened and weapons have been brought to school.

A few years back, at my high school alma mater, a kid who had been bullied since grade school came to school early one day and wired a nail bomb inside another kid's locker. Head height. Luckily, another kid told a teacher, and no one was killed.

In a suburban district near my home last year, a high school student brought an assault rifle to school and blew his own head off in front of his classmates.

Perhaps Mr. Tristam will be nice enough to recount his views for us the next time a kid brings a high-powered weapon to school and kills a bunch of people, after repeated warnings such as "threatening messages and satanic idiocies on his MySpace page" are ignored by the grown-ups who should know better.

Hopefully, that next kid won't kill me, or my students, or your child, either. Our kids should be able to go to school each day and come home safely on the school bus.

Not in a coffin.

"What almost all these allegations have in common is disproportion — the disproportionate fantasies of the alleged perpetrators, whose frames of reference are cribbed from a culture that blurs the lines between video games, entertainment, celebrity and violence; and the disproportionate response from schools and law enforcement, whose overzealous narratives incite fear by feeding into overheated anxieties..."

Tristam writes this AFTER Columbine and the many "lesser" school killings that followed, and AFTER the Virginia Tech massacre! To call these adolescent fantasies "disproportionate" implies that he has learned nothing from recent history. Eric Barth (at 1:52 p.m.) puts his finger on an important cause of teens and young adults becoming mass murderers: "They mirror what they see too often in the World around them where war, killing and violence (in sports also) is romanticized in the culture." Of course, most progressives would insist that super-violent movies, TV and video games NOT be subjected to censorship, no matter what the effect on the next generation.

BTW, did you know that one of the networks has a prime time "hit" in which the protagonist is a serial killer? Long live the lst Amendment. (Ugh.)

After generations of adolescent bullying that school authorities did little or nothing about, we get this "zero tolerance" stuff which is basically just an excuse for adults to turn off their brains. Its a quick fix, one size fits all solution for social problems that the authorities don't want to deal with or have given up on. And then, of course, there is the law enforcement mentality that everyone is a potential threat, enemy, "scumbag," etc., etc. Why are kids so often unruly and violent on occasion? Guess. They mirror what they see too often in the World around them where war, killing and violence (in sports also) that is romantized in the culture.

My daughter's high school put a no tolerance policy in place last year. Now whenever there is a shoving match, etc. the police are called and several cruisers arrive to arrest the kids.

I thought schools were there to educate children, not police them into obedience.

The government doesn't really want to educate all those kids. But it does want to socialize them. The empire needs more clerks who can fill out a tax form. And stay stupidly quiet.
Hoa binh