Book ban in a Canadian bus company | Hacker News Reader

Book ban in a Canadian bus company

cbc.ca

11 pointsjchampem20 comments

Open articleView on HN

"Our only goal is to make sure students are safe."

This is the problem.

Parents who won't let their children play unsupervised.

Police who won't let children walk home from the park.

Schools who won't let children experience rough and tumble play.

Park designers who won't let children take physical risks.

Here's the thing: human flourishing requires danger. At almost all stages of development.

I agree. The situation with "safety" is getting out of hand.

What could possibly be the danger from reading in a bus? Even if some car crashes with the bus, due to the mass of the bus, there's little chance of getting hurt, let alone the chance of getting killed from the book or something.

> Police who won't let children walk home from the park.

I suppose this is happening at the States? Can you provide some info on this? The only word to describe the above that comes to mind (at least for me) is alien. :)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/decision-in-fr...

You can indulge yourself on more cases here: http://www.freerangekids.com/

Agree, but it's just the human nature -- we want to know about all dangers and take preventive actions. One example is news -- almost all news are about some dangers, because media companies know well what their audience pays for.

In nowadays world there a too few dangers, so we exaggerate what we have, and imagine dangers we don't have.

The question is what should we do about this, and should we?

You'd probably need to address the legal system to fix this - police don't want to be sued if they let kids walk home and something happens; same for schools and park designers.

Or, if it's feasible for you, move somewhere non-crazy:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-my-child-will-be-your-childs...

I live in the UK - we tend not to have this problem anyway.

I'm in Australia - also relatively free, but there are worrying signs of it developing here. There's already a backlash against it though, so there is hope.

Yeah, that's Canada alright.

Kids on a bike with training wheels wearing a helmet, knee and elbow pads, a mouth guard with a copy of the liability insurance sticking out of the back pocket. Can't be too safe, you know.

Five flag persons "managing" traffic, causing it to back up three blocks each way, while one dude is trimming a bush on a sidewalk. That's just how we roll.

As ridiculous as this book ban is, I am not a bit surprised that it's a Canadian development (though it is a bit odd that it comes from Quebec of all places).

20 Minutes is a pretty long bus ride, twice a day, to not be able to read, use your smartphone, play a video game, whatever...

I recognize the driving force here, is the attempt to eliminate risk - but, at some point, we've got to realize that there is a concept of "acceptable risk" - and deal with the consequences.

Are kids allowed to climb trees anymore? Seriously, if riding the bus is considered a risky endeavor because kids might look at something someone else has, how do parents feel about their 8 year olds 45' up a pine tree?

This is replaying a common scheme to define some rules which cover the most stupid people around and then defend these rules because they are "for the children". Labeling everything as verboten is one of the society diseases of our times.

Even in an accident I hardly think holding a book is going to be a major safety issue. Don't play with scissors or bricks on the bus, sure, but a book?

Nobody has an issue with a book - the policy came about because of the risk involved in other things - probably video games, etc... in which kids were jumping up to see what others were doing, resulting in injuries or hazards that occur when you have young kids jumping about a bus. There is no way for the bus driver to monitor exactly what each student actually has taken out, so they came out with a blanket rule saying, "Nothing whatsoever is allowed to be taken out of the bag."

And what choice do you have if you are a kid taking a school bus.

Nobody has an issue with a book

I beg your pardon, but that is patently false. From the article: The bus driver suggested fellow students might stand up to see what she was reading or she might poke herself in the eye with the corners of the book.

Let's repeat that, shall we?

Poke herself in the eye with the corners of the book.

dafuq?

And I thought I was being a overprotective yesterday when my 5 year-old was digging worms out of the dirt and dropping them into the chicken run and I kept warning him to keep his fingers out of the mesh because the rooster was really mean and would bite him.

Seriously? An effing book?

I, I, I have no response. I totally missed that when reading the article.

I'm flabbergasted.

What is completely wrong about this situation is that of course you are correct, there is no way for the bus driver to monitor anything about the students in the back of the bus. The bus driver is busy, driving the bus and their attention should be wholly on the road ahead. If the bus driver is noticing an 8yr old sitting quietly reading, then he is not paying enough attention to that road..

What is needed here, is not any kind of stupid rule saying that they can't take 'things' out of their bag, but a student supervisor on the bus. If students are actually jumping around then the supervisor needs to stop that.

Alternatively, do it exactly like every school bus since the beginning of time - if students are being jackasses, they are forced to sit up front, or, alternatively, lose their bus privileges and now have to find some other way to get to school.

Banning book reading on buses is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've heard in 2015.

If I were the child's father, I'd tell her that it's safe to ignore that "rule" and keep reading.

Idiocracy

Reply on news.ycombinator.com