I had seen them for a while, but it was flying under my radar. Little colorful shaped bands that kids are wearing around their wrists. Well, they got on my radar in a big way when one of my students wouldn't take his off during class. Oh, he did indeed take off, especially after I told him that if he didn't I'd yank it off him and eat it. They are Silly Bandz and I'm not the only one with a bit of aggravation over them. Seems kids are more worried about them than their school work and have gotten into fights over them.
So the horrible old schools and their shortsighted, soul-breaking methods have banned the bandz. (Cue "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd.)
This is a travesty! How dare teachers try to remove something the children love! Its school! Those children need to be able to express themselves! You know what bans like this lead to? SCHOOL UNIFORMS! How dare the schools take away distracting things from children for the sake of trying to educate the little cherubs! I'm outraged!
Oh wait... I'm not.
Its school, people. And while school is important for kids to interact with their peers and form social skills, the kids have got to make the grade. I don't like the No Child Left Behind crap that has gotten schools to stat worrying more about test scores than actually educating kids. I don't want my kids to be turned into test taking little monkeys. Unfortunately that's how it is now and teachers are pressured to make sure their kids perform well. Its easy to say that the teachers are looking out for their own jobs getting rid of distractions like these in the classroom so the kids will test better and the teacher will keep their job. But what about the teachers that are there to actually teach the kids? The ones trying excite the students about learning. They've got to compete with stupid pieces of plastic that seem to be causing a real problem.
Newsflash: kids aren't in school to express themselves through fashion. They are there to, supposedly, learn something.
Showing posts with label school safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school safety. Show all posts
Stupid bit of the week
My sister-in-law is a teacher. She puts up with a lot, especially since she deals with troubled kids. She's also had a very, very rough and tragic few years. Here's the latest in the river of crap.
Her school had a drill for what to do in case there is a person with a gun in the school. They said lock the door, barricade it, and have the students get up against the wall. She does so. Then she hears a girl screaming in the hallways. My sister knows it's a drill, but there could have been a student out there who didn't and was freaking out. And what if it wasn't a drill? Was she to leave the girl out there in harm's way? She opens her door briefly to check and there's a female police officer who spots her, points at her and says, "You're dead." She then comes into the room and precedes to tell my sister in front of her class that her whole class is now dead because of her. This is a cue for one of the students to start screaming at my sister.
Here's why this whole situation is really stupid and people should lose their jobs.
This is a school drill, not a military war game. Telling people they're "dead" in that situation is just tacky.
The school provided no protocol for what to do in that situation. If you are going to present a problem of this nature, you better also have a solution as well. None of the teachers were prepared for that situation, and I'd have opened the door too if I thought it was safe.
The officer absolutely should not have told my sister in front of her class that she got them all killed. That completely undermines any authority my sister had over those kids. The officer should have taken my sister aside and told her what the mistake was out of earshot of those kids.
I don't think that officer should be working in the schools anymore. I'm not saying she's a bad cop or that their shouldn't be an officer present at the school, but some people just aren't right for certain envirornments. Frankly, she should be reprimanded for the treatment of my sister.
Lastly, the school needs to get it's act together. If they want to run drills like this because they think it's necessary for the protection of the students and faculty then they need to get the proper protocols figured out and make sure they are available to all the teachers.
In short: they all suck. End rant.
Her school had a drill for what to do in case there is a person with a gun in the school. They said lock the door, barricade it, and have the students get up against the wall. She does so. Then she hears a girl screaming in the hallways. My sister knows it's a drill, but there could have been a student out there who didn't and was freaking out. And what if it wasn't a drill? Was she to leave the girl out there in harm's way? She opens her door briefly to check and there's a female police officer who spots her, points at her and says, "You're dead." She then comes into the room and precedes to tell my sister in front of her class that her whole class is now dead because of her. This is a cue for one of the students to start screaming at my sister.
Here's why this whole situation is really stupid and people should lose their jobs.
This is a school drill, not a military war game. Telling people they're "dead" in that situation is just tacky.
The school provided no protocol for what to do in that situation. If you are going to present a problem of this nature, you better also have a solution as well. None of the teachers were prepared for that situation, and I'd have opened the door too if I thought it was safe.
The officer absolutely should not have told my sister in front of her class that she got them all killed. That completely undermines any authority my sister had over those kids. The officer should have taken my sister aside and told her what the mistake was out of earshot of those kids.
I don't think that officer should be working in the schools anymore. I'm not saying she's a bad cop or that their shouldn't be an officer present at the school, but some people just aren't right for certain envirornments. Frankly, she should be reprimanded for the treatment of my sister.
Lastly, the school needs to get it's act together. If they want to run drills like this because they think it's necessary for the protection of the students and faculty then they need to get the proper protocols figured out and make sure they are available to all the teachers.
In short: they all suck. End rant.
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