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Speaking of drinking and driving. I have no problem with DWI laws and their intended purposes at all, and I think someone getting behind the wheel impaired is incredibly selfish in disregard for other travelers, and/or cocky ("oh, I can handle it"—until you can't).
However, a friend of mine from Baltimore told me a story (non-school-related) about one of his nephews partying in Ocean City. He and his friends were staying at a house and went bar-hopping, but did the responsible thing and took a cab. When they got back to the house in a cab, a cop was sitting in a driveway a few doors down. They went into the house. A couple hours later, it began to rain, and the guy realized he had his motorcycle parked on the street, uncovered. He went out, opened the garage door, and drove the cycle into the driveway (a couple feet from where parked) and into the garage. That cop was still parked a few doors down, and he put on his lights and drove over there, breathalyzed the guy, and busted him for DWI.
Even though he was technically driving (a few feet) on a public street, it was obvious what he was doing, and that same cop saw that he used a cab rather than drive when he came home drunk. The judge didn't throw out the case either, and he was convicted of DWI and had his license suspended along with a huge fine. In that case, the motivator was probably revenue rather than a refusal to see forests for trees (Ocean City, being a big Spring Break town, counts on being able to bust as many as it can for revenue purposes, as many such towns do). Again, not a ZT issue, but your story reminded me of that.
(Of course your story is even more an outrage because your friend was trying to keep a drunk off the road—whereas my friend's nephew was simply taking care of his motorcycle, but probably should have known better than to expect a town cop there to be understanding.)
edited 21st Oct '13 4:29:17 AM by WeAreAllKosh
Seriously, schools are turning into witch hunts. Delinquency is infectious! Kill it before it spreads! You were within 50 feet of underage drinking, you are INFECTED with delinquency, kill it before it spreads!
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub."We don't need no education/we don't need no thought control"—do those lyrics now have even more meaning in the US, than in the Postwar Britain Roger Waters grew up in and was alluding to?
Because the object of all this seems to be on conditioning kids how to think (guns (even imagery thereof)/sex (even imagery thereof)/anything potentially "mood altering"/various PC targets are "evil", and authority is not to be questioned in any way or else), rather than actually educating them, and teaching them how to think critically.
Authority gets respect if it is rational, fair, and its rules make sense with most peoples' inate sense of morality (i.e. whether their conscience tells them deep down that they are the right thing). When authority's rules don't do that, they learn to cynically regard authority as simply something that can hurt them if they don't follow its dictates—which is a conditioning which can have some scary implications if that or subsequent authority turns out to be directing people toward evil ends. And it can lead to no respect for any authority, even that which is rational and just.
edited 21st Oct '13 10:48:35 AM by WeAreAllKosh
Screw that - 'the gun is good, the penis is evil' is a literal truth of American media. As in, it's codified into the rating systems.
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While that's lamentibly true in media ratings systems, I was referring to various ZT cases where a kid gets in trouble for even drawing pictures of guns, having gun-related magazines, etc. Flying off the handle over pocket knives is related (although pocketknives, unlike pictures, can be weapons themselves, typically they are not carried for that purpose, and often those kids busted may have forgotten they had them in their pockets). Point being, some sensible judgment and discretion by authority figures (if the system allows it) would determine that such students aren't "dangerous" and expulsion would be an inappropriate response. (Confiscation of pocket knives may be more appropriate—giving back at the end of the day first time, not until the end of the school year second time, would probably teach the kid to check their pockets before going to school. Gun mags (and nudie mags) may be confiscated and given back to the student's parents.)
Basic point was that authority is respected when it makes sense to most reasonable people. When it becomes draconian and scary without restraint or thoughtfulness, it (and possibly, in impressionable minds, all—particularly non-familiar—authority they face subsequently) will be disrespected. Understandably so I would add.
A related issue to ZT (or, ZT for teachers)—teachers getting in trouble for hugging students who were deeply distressed (like crying) or in need of comfort. No doubt due to an extention of the idea that "adults touching children is inappropriate", again applied without any sort of discernment—and fostering an increasingly inhuman environment. I remember reading a case of this awhile ago.
edited 23rd Oct '13 12:58:43 PM by WeAreAllKosh
It can go to really insane degrees sometimes. I got in trouble for taking batteries to school once. I wear hearing aids. Hearing aid batteries are basically useless for anything else. They're also really small and come in a clearly marked case. What the hell did they think I was going to do with them? Trick people into eating them? I kind of need them to hear, and they're expensive.
edited 23rd Oct '13 12:45:00 PM by Zendervai
One possible (but nowhere near plausible, IMO) concern is that they're concealing a pill of something illegal.
Hell, that makes about as much sense as suspending someone for chewing a pop tart into the really vague sorta-shape of a gun.
Broward County (FL) School District reconsiders Zero Tolerance policy.
TLDR: Having lead the nation in arrests of students, Broward County (among other districts elsewhere in the country) is experimenting with alternatives for handling non-felonious misbehaving children, including but not limited to things such as counseling and performing community service.
About damn time.
The next thing we need is a headline that reads 'Elementary School Student Chews Twinkie Into the Shape of a Gun; School Staff Don't Give a Fuck'. Because it seems like that's still the exception to the rule. :\\
edited 3rd Dec '13 10:42:30 AM by Meklar
Join my forum game!Zero Tolerance is freaking crazy where I live. Hats, scarves, bandannas, and gloves are banned because they MIGHT be gang symbols. Phones are explicitly prohibited. No Tylenol or any sort of pain killers (even though gym class is flipping army boot camp). The sad thing is, the elementary school has it even worse, in my opinion. No toys, handheld devices, or anything that could be counted as a weapon (that last one goes for us, too). The last one goes to absolutely crazy extents. No tag, no Cowboys and Indians, no horseplay (falling/tripping counts, depending on the teacher watching recess), no talking about hunting, no talking about guns in general, it's insane. I remember one time in elementary school I was caught cutting a piece of paper in a "gun shaped object". I was cutting out the letter L, and it was for an assignment. You bet I got into trouble over that.
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Do you live in a warm area? Because labeling things like gloves and scarves as banned objects could result in kids getting really sick during the winter.
Yeah, phones are okay, but "Gun shaped objects" goes a little far. Teach the kids that guns are dangerous if you don't know how to use them, but don't go too far. Not everything L shaped is a gun. It might just be an L.
If the kid comes in with a really realistic fake gun, check it to make sure it is actually fake, but if it's blatantly fake, I don't really see the problem.
edited 3rd Dec '13 12:08:00 PM by Zendervai
If [kids] need [phones] to do things like call parents, they can pick them up from the office when they are done with them.
Or even just keep them in their locker, and use them during passing periods or lunch time. Having them held at the office seems to me like it'd get a bit onerous, for both students and staffers, not to mention becoming a potential liability for the school as far as secure storage goes.
(Where lockers count as far as security goes I dunno, however.)
Of course, there's still the safe alternate: Go to the office and ask to use the phone to call their parent(s).
I know I did that a few times here and there (~1500 student HS).
Honestly I think it's okay to just let kids have phones but not allow them to use it in class. But at the same time not go to far with it and start giving kids in school suspension for having them (There were kids literally doing drugs in school but apparently texting your mom was worth going to ISS for). Also yeah, having them at the office would be too much trouble (some schools have upwards of 3000 students, does anyone really want to find storage for 3000 phones). Also I hate this idea that ALL millenials are more glued to their phones than adults and have no social skills, that is simply not true. I know a kid who actually is glued to his phone 24/7 and everyone thinks he's a bit weird.
edited 6th Dec '13 7:45:41 AM by wuggles
This is a new one: 6 year-old boy suspended for "sexual harassment" due to kissing another student on her hand.
Um, I think context-blind rules just might be a problem when combined with zero tolerance. Just a little.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Judgment, discernment, weighing the facts... those leadership skills are just so haaard.... "If A, then do B" is an easy formula to follow, and you're not required to actually give a shit about the people involved.
Interesting how this parallels the "mandatory minimum sentencing" laws found in many states—or states where one is permanently labeled a "sex offender" whether they were an 18-year-old having sexual relations with their 17-year-old high-school sweetheart (as in a case in Georgia a few years ago), or some guy abducting and brutally raping 5-year-olds in his van.
In the 70s and 80s in the US, crime was actually at a peak, and there were many people frustrated about criminals "getting off easy" and such (think movies like Dirty Harry that reflected that frustration and fantasized ways to "solve" it). Some of that was a problem, but the measures that came with the backlash have now made the US prison population the highest per-capita in the entire world. It was like a switch went on and we all collectively said, "don't think, just do" and hardened ourselves with the notion that any reasoning at all was "soft".
I'd say ZT is partly in that spirit, and partly a defense against an increasingly litigious culture (as has been mentioned). Overall, as someone else said, the desire for an easy answer to hard problems—but most people of sense know that for most things, doing something right doesn't mean looking for the easy way.
P.S. I don't have kids. If I did and one of them had to go through that B.S. the hard way, I'd be afraid of what I might do to the pinhead administrator who applied "ZT" to something totally bogus. I'd probably want to homeschool for just that reason too. When I was in school they were probably too much the other way, too easy on bullying, etc.—but boy has the pendulum swung, from stories I've heard recently (including here).
edited 21st Oct '13 3:50:08 AM by WeAreAllKosh