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(1) I spent the last three years working in the Michigan legislature and there were times I shared your frustration. However, there are honest ones and I worked with them.
(2) In a nation of 315 million people, of course there is going to be opinion either way on most issues. My point was a serious organized effort and evidence of it.
(3) Little rebellions may indeed have a role in some situations. I am of the opinion - having spent 33 years in the public school system - that rules are better challenged and changed by going through established procedures - both on the student level and on the parental level with both the school and the Board who made the rules in the first place. It has been my experience that in school rebellions are not looked upon favorably and rarely get the results they strive for. But that is just my experience.
(4) Again, a policy that you judge to be "idiotic" has been judged by others as wise and necessary. Again, there is a way for parents to challenge this without using their kids as pawns and telling them to break the rules to advance the parents agenda.
(5) what does culture of the Japanese have to do with one national standard in the USA?
(6) You asked for reasons and I gave you some that may be in the minds of the advocates. No more and no less than that.
In the end, some parents felt that it was threatening to their child for another child to make a motion to them that imitated a gun shooting at them. You are free to feel that is going too far, but for some obviously it was not going too far.
I am sorry but I do not watch Dr. Phil so I cannot comment about your statement in that area.
Nope.
It is absurd, but that's what zero-tolerance policies presume. The wider the zero-tolerance policy becomes, the more behaviors become presumed for ill intent.
I can see your point and would concede that zero tolerance can result in miscarriages of justice. But again, lets get back to why the policy was instituted in the first place and we can see why districts all over America rushed to the policy.
So it is impossible for any child to take the motion of a hand being imitated as a gun fired at them as a threat? And you know this how exactly as it puts you in the mind of every kid in America on the receiving end of such a thing.
What you call an imaginary gun is a threat of possible violence according to others. Can you agree on that?
You're a statist haymarket. Of course you think this.
Mob rules is 9 times out of 10 not wise. Individual people are often smart. Mobs are not.
You're the one that said that you would prefer a system like the Japanese has since it has given "amazing results". It's relatively singular culture is why it works there. It never would here. The US has too varied a culture comparitively.
I taught Government for the most part. You can bet your life that ones Constitutional rights was a major part of that course.
Only by those that want to erase all sense of independence and have an agenda against guns...that much I would agree on.
Nor is drawing ones thumb from ear to ear across the throat. Is there any doubt about what that means?
I've seen your beliefs on what peoples rights are Haymarket. Suffice it to say that your version and mine are different.
Huge difference here....kids have been playing with imaginary weapons in purely play for thousands of years. Drawing ones thumb/finger across your throat from ear to ear however has been universally considered a threat for the same amount of time.
We never played cowboys and indians at school and Ill bet most people didnt, either. That was something you played in your back yard or an open field, but not at school. Nobody took their toy guns or dollies to school...thats stupid.
Not only did I inform students of their rights - but I also gave them in writing this directive: if I tell you to do something, please do it. If I ever tell you to do something that is illegal, immoral or a violation of your rights as laid out in the school code and student handbook, not only should you (1) NOT do it, but you should most certainly (2) get up and leave the room, (3) proceed directly and speedily to the principals office where you should (4) file a written report against me, and (5) petition the Board of Education to have me removed as a teacher for this serious offense against you.
Statist? How does you calling silly names out of the right wing playbook further any debate. Unless you are a anarchist, you to believe in the necessity of the state. So lets stop the nonsense.
Mob rule? Who is supporting mob rule?
It seems that with these two things you have now put reason and rational discussion aside in favor of the usual far right tactics.
as to the Japanese system:
You said that the first time. Again, I ask you to explain this as I see no reason Americans cannot have an American standard across America for an American system of public education for Americans.
Really? What rights that Americans have have you seen me not support?
A threat is a threat is a threat and the person on the other end of it is the one to decide if it is taken that way.
And I see no difference in the example I gave as the same exact reasoning that is used to mock the gun threat can be used to mock the throat slashing threat also: its done with a finger and can do nobody any hard in any way.
But I am cheered by your acceptance that use of a hand to signal a threat can indeed be serious.
That ensures that a student and/or parent really has to work for it, doesn't it? Some of that is to protect against unnecessary complaints, but it likewise serves to keep an imbalance (justified or not).
Except it is not the person that is on the other end of that imaginary finger gun in the middle of playing cops and robbers that is deciding if it is an actual threat. A third party is.
I've also never claimed that a hand signal cannot be considered a threat. But when two (or more) kids are playing cops and robbers and both kids are using their imaginary finger guns I'm pretty sure that no threat is being issued. I'm also pretty sure that you realize that but wish to continue considering ALL of them as threats.
Don't think I really want to get into this. You hedge and haw so much on certain rights that you always avoid saying out right what is clearly implied in the majority of your posts.
I might participate in such a thread but I'm not about to make such a thread as that would be a call out thread.
So it is impossible for any child to take the motion of a hand being imitated as a gun fired at them as a threat? And you know this how exactly as it puts you in the mind of every kid in America on the receiving end of such a thing.
You wanna criminalize angry looks now too? Maybe we can take "staring daggers" at someone and translate it to an actual knife attack. It's the only logical step, right?
I know....how many of us use the stabbing motion and screeching from Psycho to indicate a crazy person....it's not remotely a threat, it's a universal identifier (in America).
Of course that is true. We do NOT expect children to personally judge and prosecute every supposed act against them. That would be absurd in the extreme.
I would agree about two kids playing cops and robbers in a pretend game situation. And I would think that sort of thing needs to be looked at and possible changed.
It protected both the individual student and me as the teacher and the school itself. But far far far more importantly, it protected the learning environment in the classroom for thirty other students who did not have their learning upset on a daily basis by some person who thought their ability to disrupt and disturb were more important than thirty other people. I owed at least that to every kid handed to me to educate.
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