Seen Not Heard: How Obscure Security Makes Schools Suck
boingboing.net
boingboing.net
> She accomplished [having well-behaved students] not though harsh discipline, but by treating us with respect and being genuinely hurt if we did not return it.
People rise, and lower, to your expectations. The more you treat your students like potential criminals, the more they'll act like ones because of (largely unconcious) expectations that that's how they're supposed to behave.
My college had a very liberal behavior policy. During student orientation, we were all told, explicitly, that the only real rule was "don't be a jackass." We were allowed as much alcohol as we wanted, as long as we drank responsibly. We were allowed take-home tests, as long as we didn't cheat (most such tests had hard time constraints, too). We were allowed free run of the academic facilities at all hours, as long as we didn't abuse the privelage. We were allowed to make all sorts of bonfires as long as no one got hurt[1]. You were allowed to pull all sorts of stupid pranks on people, including faculty and administrators, as long as you left contact information and could clean it up in 24 hours.
Guess what? There were very few problems. No incidents of alcohol poisoning, vanishingly small amounts of alcohol-related theft or assault or property damage, and maybe one or two instances of people breaking in and stealing/breaking things during my time there. All of the stupid pranks were done in good faith, taken in good humor, and tended not to involve the police (unless that was part of the prank). No fire damage, and no drunk people falling into fires. People self-reported if they accidentally went over the time limit on a test. Perhaps most importantly, the students had very good relationships with the faculty and administrators. Being able to walk into a professor's office and ask them for help (whether academic or otherwise) is invaluable, both as a resource and as a habit to develop.
The escalation of security in schools is a Chinese Finger Trap. Kids are acting juvenile, sound the alarm, we must stop them! Now they're acting even more juvenile, sound the alarm louder and try even harder to stop them! Et cetera. Treat kids like criminals-in-waiting and you'll get criminals. Treat them like responsible adults and you'll get adults.
[1] Actually, there were some additional restrictions on fires, but that wasn't our fault. One time the women's college across the street thought a dorm was burning down and called the fire department, so now bonfires are not allowed to exceed the height of a dorm building.
All those books banned? Sick. :(
Actually, none of those books are banned. Americans are perfectly free to buy them.
There is a difference between "a govt won't buy for you" and "banned".
You wouldn't write "vanilla ice cream is banned" if a govt didn't buy it for you so why do you think that a book is banned just because a govt didn't buy it for someone?
Of course, I realise that - if you read the article it is about them being banned at a school (I never clarified that because I assumed it was obvious ;))
I consider that awful: books like catcher in the rye (and similar) are great reads when your growing up/developing. And some of the other books (His Dark Materials for example) are just great yarns! Banning them from kids is bad.
Thanks for confirming that your title was purposefully deceptive.
And, yes, I read the article and noticed what you did.
> it is about them being banned at a school
No. What was banned was a private lending library. Sort of like they "ban" candy sales. However, you wouldn't put it that way for candy.
There are lots of great reads, and none of them are banned. They're just not provided by public schools.
My point is simply that someone at the school decided, apparently, that these books were in some way bad for he kids. They weren't being exposed to great and sometimes important literature.
I find it disgusting that anyone could try to "ban" those books and still call themselves educators.... (and yes if a school canteen banned candy I'd consider that pretty silly - but at least they could have a sound scientific or health basis for such a decision)
if it were a public school I would be even more sad. Such a school should not actively ban books for shaky moral reasons...
(I'm not sure what you felt was intentionally deceptive. Sorry I guess.. I think you potentially scanned thr article and missed some of the data. No worries)
You're assuming facts not in evidence. A more likely conclusion is that they simply decided to teach something else. And, even if your "facts" were true, they don't support your conclusion.
There is lots of great stuff that doesn't get taught. It's absurd to call that "banned".
> Such a school should not actively ban books for shaky moral reasons...
Once again - refusing to provide is not banning. No one is stopping those kids from getting those books.
This matters because when the banners actually come, and they do occasionaly, folks who cry wolf will have helped them.
There is implication in the story (and I realise there is no further evidence than what is presented there) that it's not a case of it simply not being taught - but that they are actively put on a list of "material not allowed". that is the distinction.
You need to read what was written:
Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long) list of books we're not allowed to read
I would be in so much trouble if I got caught
But is what I'm doing wrong because parents and teachers don't know about it and might not like it, or is it a good thing because I am starting appreciation of the classics and truly good novels
I find it sad that, if true, a kid is having to provide this material - and is worried that lending books to people is somehow wrong!
> No one is stopping those kids from getting those books.
That's a little naive. If a kid requested or suggested the book for the school library and it was refused on the grounds it had been banned; how is that a good thing? If the story is true (and again I realise it can't be fully verified) then it appears the service was popular.. indicating that the non-provision of that material was actually stopping kids from getting the books as part of their normal routine.
The implicit suggestion by a school that actively bans a book is that there is something wrong with it. I can't see how you can legitimately say that about, say, His Dark Materials....
Frankly, that sounds like an excitable kid making up stuff. (I've known kids who made up the same thing.)
However, it doesn't matter if it's true because schools can't stop kids from reading what they want. And, as you've pointed out, that school is a voluntary choice.
> > No one is stopping those kids from getting those books.
> That's a little naive. If a kid requested or suggested the book for the school library and it was refused on the grounds it had been banned; how is that a good thing?
It's no worse or different than any other reason for not carrying something. Why are you so hung up on why the school doesn't carry something?
The amount that schools can carry is in the noise compard to what's available. Compare Amazon's book list to any school's library, and Amazon misses a lot of things.
> it appears the service was popular.. indicating that the non-provision of that material was actually stopping kids from getting the books as part of their normal routine.
I knew a kid who ran a Playboy/Hustler lending library. Please distinguish. (School refused to carry/discouraged and kids wanted.)
> The implicit suggestion by a school that actively bans a book is that there is something wrong with it.
Except that they don't ban, they merely say "we won't get these things for you, just like we won't get the vast majority of things".
And, if you think that kids pay attention to that stuff, you clearly don't have much experience with kids.
It's a scary world :/ (I mean scary in the ridiculous measures supposed to 'protect us', not scary because of real threats).
They are a point of contact for advice about which classes to take at what time, how to find internships & scholarships, what to put on a resume, etc. It seems like a straight forward and useful job.
The UK has more security cameras per capita than anywhere else in the world. We have more security cameras than the whole of China. This is in stark contrast to our low-surveillance neighbours on the continent who are used to seeing only a few cameras used to oversee a specific high-risk area.
Many inner-city British schools now have security guards and a permanent police presence. In London (where the panic over knife crime is at it's worst) it's not uncommon to find secondary schools with airport-style screening at the front doors.
Something like searching anyone's backpack would never be allowed at my school though, unless police got involved - but then again it would have to be official.
Welcome to brave new USA.
If you can get people to actually love you rather than fear you, you don't need a surveillance system in every house (or every neighbourhood as the Stasi system was set up).
The problem with Hitler was that the propaganda was rock solid (so, yeh, ignorance in the sense of misdirection I guess) and initially he fixed some stuff, or appeared too, that was important to the populace.
Of course he then turned out to be insane but by that point (and more precisely the point when the populace started to realize) it was kinda too late.