Muslim "Clock Kid" Gets Encouragement From Everybody Except His School

Ahmed Mohamed, 14, being arrested at his school
for bringing a homemade clock into the building.
Because anything a Muslim builds is a bomb,
if you want to believe the morons running the school.  

UPDATE:

Well, the school doesn't like him, and his town's police department isn't thrilled with him, either, but Ahmed Mohamed seems to be rocking the rest of the world.

Police dropped the idea of charging Mohamed with bringing a "hoax bomb" to school, when it was onl a clock he made that he wanted to show off.

I guess Irving, Texas police and the community's school district are not afraid of bullying a 14 year old kid because he's Muslim and likes to tinker, but are deathly afraid of bad pubicity, which they got big time.

President Obama doesn't seem too afraid of Mohamed and his clock, inviting him to the White House to show it off. Hilary Clinton Tweeted her support.

Huffington Post reported that Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn carried a clock around Capitol Hill Wednesday in support of Mohamed. Ellison is the first Muslim member of Congress.

And, while Mohamed was being interviewed by MSNBC's Hayes, another guest appeared on the show. It was MIT astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, who told Mohamed that he was exactly the "kind of student we want at places like MIT and Harvard."

By the way, the more news that comes out about how the school and police treated this kid, the worse it gets. The Daily Beast said Mohamed was denied access to his parents while being questioned, which violates Texas law.

School officials, including the principal, tried to coerce Mohamed into signing a statement that would easily have led to terrorism charges had he complied. He ended up writing. "I built a clock. The police think it's a bomb." Smart kid for writing his statement exactly that way.

So, the Irving School District really isn't into encouraging kids to succeed, especially if they're not white, most of the rest of the world is ahead of the game and does encourage bright young kids like Mohamed, who we are sure to need desperately in the future.

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A 14 year old kid in Irving, Texas likes to tinker and build things, and was proud of one little invention. It was a digital clock he made by himself.

For his ambition and effort, the kid was arrested. The leading theory as to why he was arrested is his name: Ahmed Mohamed.

Because as you know, anytime a kid with an Arabic name brings anything to school, especially if it's unusual, it' a bomb.  Because all Arabs and Muslims want to launch terrorist attacks on this great nation, don't you know.

Mohamed said he showed a couple teachers his clock, and later in the day was brought into the principal's office.

There, he said, police officers interrogated him, and said he could not call his father until they finished questioning him.

Says the Dallas Morning News:

"So the 14-year-old missed the student council meeting and took a trip in handcuffs to juvenile detention. His clock now sits in an evidence room. Police say they may yet charge him with making a hoax bomb - though they acknowledge he told everyone who would listen that it's a clock."

That's the incredible part right there: He told everyone his device is a clock. Anyone who looks at it can see it's a clock. But they still might charge him with making a "hoax bomb"

And he's been suspended from school for three days. All because he was proud of learning something. What a way to encourage a kid, huh?

Sorry, but if this were a white kid, this would have completely gone away by now.

Yes, I get it. Schools, and everyone else need to be careful. It wouldnt' have been a problem at all if somebody at the school asked to see Mohamed's clock to make sure it wasn't anything weird. Even get a cop to look at it.

The clock isn't elaborate to begin with. Mohamed threw it together in 20 minutes. It's a circuit board wired to a digital display, all inside a case with a tiger hologram in the front, Dallas Morning News reports. 

But the fact this is dragging on, and it seems the school and police aren't acknowledging they made a mistake, means something more is going than just caution.

The Dallas Morning News says there's more than a whiff of anti-Islamic sentiment in Irving, Texas anyway. Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne fueled rumors in speeches that Muslims are plotting to usurp American laws,

This whole thing has become a cause celebre now.

Mohamed has got a fast rising number of suppoers. The hashtag #StandWithAhmed was a top trending topic on Twitter this morning.

Rallies are planned at the school.

Still, this is yet another example of an American school system that, instead of encouraging a smart kid to do great things, makes sure instead that he is reluctant to achieve.

And you wonder why America is falling behind in achievement and scientific advancement?

Texas NRA Guy: Spank The Hell Out Of Kids So I Don't Have To Shoot Them Later

A guy in Texas says if you don't do this to kids now,
you might end having to shoot them later.  

I'm sure he didn't mean it this way, but a guy named Charles Cotton in Texas has found another use for guns: Shoot kids.

That's too harsh, but if you go to the logical conclusion of his recent statements, then that's kind of what you get.

Here's the deal: It's still legal for teachers in Texas public schools to spank and paddle kids who they believe are misbehaving.  It's one of 19 states that still allow corporal punishment in schools.

A lot of child behavior experts say corporal punishment doesn't really work to get kids to behave. But tradition being tradition, a lot of people believe differently.

There is a lawmaker in Texas, Democrat Alma Allen, who wants to make corporal punishment in public schools illegal in Texas, and to have teachers and school administrators use less physical, and frankly less weird forms of discipline.

Cotton hates, HATES Allen's idea. As an aside, he's a board member of the National Rifle Association.

Here's what he had to say about Allen and her no spanking bill, says Talking Points Memo. His views appeared on a Texas firearms information and advocacy forum.

"I'm sick of this woman and her 'don't touch my kid regardles of what he/she did or will do again' attitude," he wrote 'Perhaps a good paddling in school may keep me from having to put a bullet in him later."

OK, if I have this correct, if you don't spank a kid, he'll keep misbehaving and then the only way to stop the behavior is to kill the kid, like you would a rabid raccoon raising havoc in your neighborhood?

I guess his point is that kids that don't get spanked grow up to be criminals. But you're supposed to summarily execute, say, a robber on the street? We're no longer supposed to arrest criminals, try them and throw them in jail? Just shoot 'em?

Well, it's clear Cotton likes his guns. Which is cool, as long as he doesn't execute random people on the streets who might have commited crimes. There are plenty of fine shooting ranges in Texas he could enjoy, I'm sure.

Boy, is Cotton a Texan! Just check out this gem from his bio on NRAPublications.org.

"At the age of 4, Cotton took aim with his uncle's Remington .22 LR rifle for the very first time. His target was an old motor oil can on a fence post. When he squeezed the trigger and saw the can split open, his love of shooting was affirmed."

Well, I can understand that. When I was a teenager, I went with a friend to the town dump, when it was closed with no people around, and had some fun shooting discarded televisions.

Yeah, shooting oil cans and TVs is weird, but whatever.

So, we'll let Cotton enjoy his guns. Let's not put him in charge of child discipline, though.

Do Schools Really Need Army Tanks?

The San Diego School District is ready for
trouble.  They have a tank much like this
ready to, I don't know, invade their own schools.  

Kids these days.

You need an elite military operation to keep them under control.

That's what you'd think, anyway, by recent revelations that schools are buying enough military hardware to make Vladimir Putin blush.

A prime example is the 18-ton mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, or MRAP,  that the San Diego Unified School District recently bought.

You know, because of all those improvised explosive devices those snotty nosed kids are always leaving strewn around.

And Bonus! The MRAP was government surplus, so the San Diego Unified School district got this behemoth for the low, low price of $5,000, says KPBS, the San Diego area public radio station.

What a deal!

According to KPBS, San Diego Unified School District Police Chief Ruben Littlejohn said the MRAP is not at ALL militaristic. Oh no, not at all.

He said weapons were removed from the MRAP and replaced with medical supplies, teddy bears and other comforts in case there is an emergency at one of the district's schools.

Because the best way to help an injured or scared little kid is to blast through with an army tank. Sorry. I mean a pretty MRAP.

I'm glad this is coming to light, because it's all so silly and maybe we can get somebody to put a stop to this.

There's at least one sane San Diego School Trustee, Scott Barnett who says the tank, sorry, warm fuzzy MRAP is a huge waste and mistake. 

Meanwhile, we learn that the Los Angeles school district has invested in grenade launchers says the Los Angeles Times.

 Oh joy!

The school district also has automatic weapons and a tank just like San Diego, says the L.A. Times.  The school district says they have no intention of using the grenade launchers on students, say, when they start a food fight in the cafeteria.

I'm don't think I'm that reassured.

They just have the grenade launchers on hand in case the police department wants to borrow them. Um, then why don't you just give them to the police?  It would just eliminate the middle man during an emergency.

Talking Points Memo says a lot of school districts are getting military hardware from the Pentagon. School districts in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada and Utah have received military equipment.

One school district in Edinburg, Texas has a full SWAT team ready to go.

Maybe all this military stuff is at the ready in case the Student Council declares independence and the school districts want to put down the rebellion?

Look, I get it. School administrators across the nation are understandably freaked out by school shootings like that awful one in Newtown, Connecticut back in 2012.  They want to be ready in case something really bad happens.

Will kids feel more secure, though, if they feel like they're in an armed camp, primed for war, instead of a school?  Will some troubled kid see all this military hardware and declare his own war, with his own gun?

I know it's harder, and much more uncertain, to discourage violence, or at least flag the right person to prevent anyone from picking up a gun at a school and opening fire.  In the worst case scenario, if a school shooting starts, will the military gear actually help?

I wonder if we should be teaching kids that we're perpetually on a war footing, and they ought to be afraid, too.

Teaching kids to be afraid all through life cows them, and discourages them from exploring, thinking, trying things, taking risks.

Or maybe these war-ready school districts WANT people to grow up to be easily controlled, obedient and never think for themselves?

N.Y. Kindergarten Play Cancelled Because We Have To Train Kids To Be Brain Dead Cubicle Dwellers Early

The big news this week out of Elwood, New York is that the Harley Avenue Primary School kindegarten class will not be putting on its annual show like it's done in past years.  

The letter announcing no kindergarten
show in a New York school district
because students were too busy being
fed rote lessons to pass standardized tests 

According to the Washington Post, the kindergarteners have no time for such frivolity as learning to work together, collaborate, or heaven forbid, do anything that smacks of art.

The letter sent home to parents is pretty breathtaking. It reads in part:

"The reason for eliminating the Kindergarten show is simple. We are responsible for preparing children for college and career with valuable lifelong skills and know we can best do that by having them become strong readers, writers, coworkers and problem solvers. 

Please do not fault us for making professional decisions that we know will never please everyone. But know that we are making these decisions with the interests of all children in mind."

Um, excuse me, but I AM going to fault you. Putting on a show mimics real life work experience. You have to read, write, work with others and solve problems that are not predictable like in a classroom setting.

One person who commented on the Washington Post article said it best: "Since when is reading a script, interpreting a part, following directions, coordinating activities with others and presenting in front of an audience NOT age-appropriate career readiness training for Kindergarteners?

I guess the problem is you also have to be creative to put on a show. Yes, creativity is important in the world of work, but that doesn't seem to be the goal of the U.S. educational system anymore.  Plus, the students might find it interesting, and want to learn more about this. Or it might inspire them to ask questions about any other topic.

We can't have that.

It seems whenever a school becomes embroiled in some controversy, administrators at this school did not respond to the Washington Post for comment. There seems to be a culture in public education of being wimpy and just hiding when someone has the audacity to ask about the reasoning behind the way our children are taught.

There's good reason to question the way they're taught.

As the Washington Post article notes: "This didn't come out of the blue. Kindergarten (and even preschool) has increasingly become academic - at the expense of things such as recess and the arts - in this ear of standardized test based school reform. 

In most states, educators are evaluated in large part on test scores of students (sometimes students they don't have) and on showing that their students are 'college and career ready,' the mantra of the Obama administration's education initiatives." 

In an earlier Washington Post article on Feb. 6 reporter Valerie Strauss wrote:

"This doesn't leave much time for play. But even to the extent we want to promote meaningful learning in young children, the methods are likely to be counterproductive, featuring an emphasis on direct instruction of skill and rote rehearsal of facts. 

This is the legacy of behavioralism: Children are treated as passive receptacles of knowledge, with few opportunities to investigate topics and pose questions that they find intriguing. In place of discovery and exploration, tots are trained to sit still and listen, to memorize lists of letters, numbers and colors. 

Their success or failure is relentlessly monitored and quantified, and they're 'reinforced' with stickers or praise for producing right answers and being compliant."

By conspiratorial mind believes this is the point of teaching children this way--so they're not the type of person who grow up to be the type that ask questions and agitage for answers.

No, educators and industry and politicians don't meet behind closed doors and dungeons to make kids docile. But our current society, with its so called one percent, with the concentration of power and wealth among a few oligarchs, really, don't want people asking questions about this state of affairs.

So they encourage the kind of climate that ended the Harley Avenue Public School Kindergarten show.

As a side note, notice how the letter kind of asked the parents not to question the judgement of the administrators who canceled the show. ("Please don't fault us making professional decisions.") They're trying to teach the parents, as well as the kids not to rock the boat, not to question, not to probe.

If we don't teach children to think on their own, to ask questions, to pursue their passions, if we don't teach them to be creative, to gather strings of information into a cohesive theory or conclusion, they won't rock the boat as adults.

Our society needs boat rockers, really. But those in power, some of whom have way too much power, don't want that.  They don't want us to ask questions, criticize, analyze.

If they create a world of humorless, robots and minions disguised as people, they can continue to take advantage of all of us.  

Minnesota School Gives Teen Frostbite Because Rules Must Be Followed.

Kayona Hagan-Tietz, 14,  was the last one in her class still in the swimming pool Monday when the fire alarm went off at Como Park High School in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Kayona Hagan-Tietz said her Minnesota
High School made her stand outside in subzero
cold in a wet bathing suit because rules
state she couldn't go to a warm place
during a fire alarm.  

Her clothes were way off the locker room, so she was forced to run out of the school barefoot and in a wet swimsuit while the temperatures was 5 below and the wind chill was 25 below.

No problem. Just stash the girl in a warm car or nearby building until everybody determined things were safe and life would go on, right?

Oh no. School rules MUST be followed.

According to television station WCCO in Minneapolis, Kayona was forced to stand outside barefoot in her wet bathing suit because of the rules. 

The rule is students can't get into cars belonging to teachers. Under normal circumstances, the rule is extremely sensible. You don't want to create a situation where a rare predatory teacher gets a student into his or her car and does something untoward.

But there were no nearby buildings and no students had their car keys. Couldn't they just make an exception and allow the kid into a teacher's warm car, and send in another teacher or administrator to monitor the situation?

Uh-uh. Rules are rules. Kayona's friends tried to help by forming a tight circle around her and wrapping her feet in a towel, but really, there's only so much you can do when it's 5 below with a 25 below wind chill factor.

Eventually, somebody with a lick of sense came along and allowed Kayona to get into a teacher's car. Another teacher also loaned her a jacket.

But that was after a good long ten minutes out in that weather. Subzero cold can give you frostbite or hypothermia almost instantly.

After school, Kayona's mother took her to the doctor, where she was treated for frostbitten feet.

Here's what Kayona's mother, Eva Tietz said about the situation, according to WCCO:

"If I had a fire and brought my children out in that condition, you know, I'm sure I would be charged in some way or another if I didn't instantly bring them into a neighbor's house or someplace else......The ultimate goal is to keep them safe and protect your children, and, in this instance, they did a really poor job."

She's right on that score. In a statement, the school said it is reviewing its policies on cold weather evacuations. Geez, what's to review? Get the kid out of danger and into a warm place. How difficult is that?

The St. Paul City Fire Marshall, Steve Zaccard,  agreed, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

"With the benefit of hindsight, it doesn't make any sense to evacuate kids who are soaking wet from a swimming pool into these temperatures when there's no evidence of smoke or fire in that part of the building....That could be dangerous."

The fire turned out to be a false alarm. A bit of smoke from an errant science experiment touched off the alarms, investigators said.

Now THIS Is How You Announce A School Closing

Another huge winter storm is spreading snow, inc, power failures, road closures and various other kinds of cold season hell across much of the country.

These guys don't look like members of the band Queen
but they channeled the band when they annouced
weather related school closings in Kentucky.  

Thousands of schools are closed because it's just too dangerous on the roads to get the kiddies to the classroom.

Boone County Schools in Kentucky decided to have a little fun with a school closing announcement the other day by channeling the band Queen to inform parents the kids would stay home because of a storm.

The school superintendent figured if they got some exposure from their antics, people might donate money to the cash strapped school district. Hey, you gotta try, right?

Here's the video of the principal and an assistant recording the announcement for school district parents.  Weird but fun.

On MLK Day Wisconsin Basketball Brothers Almost In Trouble For Having Fun While Black

A happy little newspaper photo got three Wisconsin brothers in trouble because, well, they're basketball players, they're black, so the automatic assumption is they're up to no good.

To the school and police, their hand gestures were gang signs
To everybody involved in basketball, the hand gestures
celebrate a three-pointer.  Photo by Steve
Ottmann, Sheboygan Falls News  

The problem was the way they gesturing in the photo.

Incidents like this, when they hit around the time of MLK Day as this one has, kind of makes me depressed about race relations in the United States.

The Sheboygan Falls News recently ran a feature about the three brothers, Jordan, Juwaun and Jamal Jackson, who are on the local high school basketball team.

It was a light, seemingly noncontroversial story, with a photo of the three teens showing them making the kind of hand gestures professional players, and their fans often make during successful moments on the court.

But these kids are black, you understand. They were making hand gestures, so they had to be making gang signals, said many readers, the school and local police, who began an hardboiled investigation into the matter. Two of the boys were suspended from their next game after the photo appeared in the paper, according to Jim Romenesko's journalism web site 

Never mind that the hand gestures in questions are now a staple, a cliche, really, at many basketball games.

"Gangsters" like U.S. House Speaker John Boehner has made similar gestures while he enjoys ball games. After all, as Think Progress notes, there's been plenty of media attention and several trend stories about the gesture, which celebrates successful three point shots in basketball. 

If anyone at the school or the police department was confused about the gestures in the newspaper photo, it would have been so easy to quietly ask the kidswhat the hand gesture meant, look it up, confirm what they said and go on.

But no, everybody, including the police, which should have known better, went into full bore panic about gangs in Sheboygan Falls. After all, if an uppity black kid makes a gesture for a newspaper story,  no matter how innocent, said black kid will go on to just gang bang and shoot up the whole town, right?

There was a quick reversal after people started pointing out how ridiculous the school and police were being. According to WHBL, the local radio station:

"The suspension was handed down after a school liaison officer noticed the two brothers had made hand gestures that looked like gang symbols in the picture. After Sheboygan Falls Police confirmed the gestures were gang symboos, the school followed their athletic code and suspended the two for the team's game against Plymouth.

Police chief Steve Riffel said their investigation also determined the boys' actions were not intended to be a gesture supporting crime or a certain gang, but rather a gesture made when a shot was made."

The two brothers who had been suspended from the game were allowed to play. But the damage had been done, really.

House Speaker John Boehner does a variation
of the "gang sign" that got the kids in Sheboygan Falls
in trouble. m

Why couldn't the liasson officer and the police done a quiet, easy search at the beginning on this to prove that indeed this was just harmless game signals?

Common sense would dictate the kids probably wouldn't be in a gang if they were that accomplished in school, and wouldn't be dumb enough to do it in a publication that would be seen all over the community.

Yeah, some teens are dumb, but most aren't that dumb.

And how are these three boys supposed to trust the school liaison officer and town police after this?  Apparently, the school and the police always view them with suspicion, so no matter what they do, they can assume the authorities are assuming they are up to no good.

What kind of way is that to enjoy your high school years?

The quotes in the Sheboygan Press newspaper from Sheboygan Falls School Administrator Jean Born sure are rich:

 "This decision that was made here or these students has absolutely nothing, nothing to do with race, she said. "We balance a bunch of factors" when looking at student discipline, Born said. She noted the district's top priority is student safety, and that officials sought "a balanced approach" to the situation.

"You knowk we're challenged all the time with keeping our schools safe," Born said. "Part of our ob is to make sure that everybody that comes here feels safe."

Yep, that's her job. Making sure everyone who goes to the school feel safe. Why not apply that to the Jackson brothers, too. Make them feel safe instead of suggesting they are members of a gang, to make everyone afraid or angry at them. That's not a safe situation for a high school kid, is it?

Meanwhile, Jeff Pederson, the editor of the paper which had the original photos, told Romenesko that he is shaken by the whole incident.

"What has happened with what I still believe is a perfectly fine photo that fit well with the story is disgusting and will stay with me for the rest of my life. I am struggling to understand this entire situation, but I do know that I can't allow the people we photograph to be put up to this very serious level of scrutiny ever again."

"I firmly believe that a fun photo with personality catched the eye and  an even bring a smile to someone's face even if they don't know the people in the photo. That is the kind of photo I have always tried to search for, but obviously things will change with this very ugly event, which should have never been an issue, let alone a national controversy and even a joke to some.

Honestly, that is unacceptable and it will force me to change my approach to make sure that never happens again."

So in other words, Pederson, because he has found that ugly streak in society, will now have to think twice about putting in a fun photo in his paper. Especially if it involves minorities.

It's true, some black kids are scumbags. Just like some white kids are. Asians and everybody else too, have their bad apples.

However, in the minds of some people in our society, if a young black kid is doing something admirable or just fun, he's up to no good unless proven otherwise.

I'm a white guy, so I don't claim to have all the deep insights into race relations.  I do believe, like most Americans do, that we've come a long way from the days of Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we're celebrating today.

But as the Jackson brothers in Sheboygan Falls know, we've still got a ways to go.

Mother Punished For Sending Kids To School With Nutritious Lunch

Kristen Bartkiw, a mom in Manitoba, Canada, thought she was sending her youngsters off to school with a pretty nutritious lunch. It consisted of leftover roast beef, some potatoes, carrots, an orange and milk.

A Manitoba parent
got this nastygram from her
kids' school.  

Sounds yummy. And I'm sure it would have sustained the kids for the rest of the day.

School officials were PISSED, though. School officials didn't think the lunch was nutritious enough. The poor kids. See, the lunch didn't include grains.

According to the web site Weighty Matters, the Manitoba Government Early Learning and Child Care lunch regulations insist that every meal include some sort of grain.
 
So the school gave the kids Ritz crackers, technically a grain but geez,  and they fined Bartkiw $10.   

A 16 gram serving of Ritz crackers has 79 calories,  four grams of fat and 1 gram of saturated fat. Not the worst in the world, but not exactly whole grain bread either.

According to Weighty Matters:

"As Kristen writes, had she sent along lunches consisting of, 'microwave Kraft Dinner and a hot dog, a package of fruit twists, a Cheestring, and a juice box' those lunches would have sailed right through this idiocy. But her whole food, homemade lunches? They lacked Ritz crackers."

I suppose if parents send their kids to school with junk food, something has to be done. You want kids to eat well so they do well in school. That's obvious, and that's clearly the motivation of Manitoba officials.

But like so many things, people got way too enthusiastic about the rules.  Talk about a nanny state! I wouldn't exactly call the lunch Bartkiw gave her kids child abuse.

Are schools up there in Manitoba required to paw through all the kids' lunches before they eat them? Drag the parents to a supermarket and order them to buy stuff the school wants them to buy? Will the schools have bonfire parties using Twinkies, potato chips and gooey fattening cookies as fuel for the fires?

The school had no way of knowing if the Bartkiw kids had whole grain cereal for breakfast, and were anticipating more grains for dinner that night. Are schools going to go to parents homes at breakfast and dinner and monitor what mommy and daddy are cooking for the little ones?

And since when are Ritz crackers the height of good nutrition?

On the bright side, Bartkiw said the school her kids go to now has a hot lunch program, which she describes as really good, so she doesn't have to make lunches for her kids and worry about the Food Police charging her with High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Still, if you're a parent in Manitoba, you'd better watch what you pack in your kids lunches. If you slip in a cookie, you might become Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of provincial school officials.

Worst Kids Of The Week: 13-Year Olds Try to Poison Teacher

News is spreading out of Newport News, Va. of two creepy 13 year old kids who tried to poison their teacher by putting hand sanitizer into her tea. Needless to say, the pair are in big, big trouble.

The teacher, Jane Miller, .didn't notice the taste of the hand sanitizer in the tea, but she did get sick. "My stomach would bother me.... I ws running a low grade temperature. I was just exhausted by the time I got home, Miller, 66, told ABC News.

This teacher was allegedly poisoned by two
13 year olds who put hand sanitizer in her tea

Miller's been treated by a doctor and she is or soon will be fine, according to ABC.

She didn't know why she'd get ill at work until another student caught the other 13 year olds putting the hand sanitizer in the tea and clued the school resource officer and others in.

So, kudos to the kid who didn't keep his or her mouth shut when the fellow students were poisoning the teacher's tea.

The kids were in a math review class Miller taught. They clearly don't like math. Frankly, I hate math, too, but why punish the math teachers? It's not like they invented math and are using it to torture innocent kids.

The 13 year olds have not been publicly named, but do face felony charges that could land them in jail for five years.

Maybe if they go to jail they can practice math so much that they'll learn to like it.  Like adding how many more months they'll have to linger in jail or juvenile detention hall.

Seven Year Old Can't Pretend to Have a Grenade, or ELSE!

In what seems to be a contiuing war on children, a seven year old boy in Colorado is in big, big trouble because he pretended to throw a pretend grenade into a pretend box of evil, according to television station KDVR.

Alex, the thrower of the imaginary grenade that caused
imaginary destruction inside an imaginary evil lair.

The most casual observers of kids that age know they have a very active imagination and always play act scenarios like fighting evil, like this boy was doing. It's just the developmental process. They're unwittingly practicing for the challenges they will face as adults, even if those adult challenges involve unpleasant bosses and not evil and boxes and grenades.

To be clear, the boy had nothing in his hand. He just pretended to throw something and made a noise to depict an explosion when the evil in the box got killed by his "grenade."

KDVR quoted second grader Alex Evans, 7, this way:

“I was trying to save people and I just can’t believe I got dispended,” says Alex Evans, who doesn’t understand his suspension any better than he can pronounce it.
“It’s called ‘rescue the world,’” he says.

The school, as part of the national craze of zero tolerance that I repeatedly rant about and deplore, has these absolute rules against weapons, real or imaginary.

According to the Loveland Reporter Herald, the school district says the issue is more complicated than is being let on, but can't comment on individual kids.

Still, I have to wonder. As I've said before. Yes, we want safe schools. Yes, we want to teach all kids to behave and be respectful and nonviolent. But in a few schools, certainly not most schools, common sense is not in the curriculum.

Alex's suspension seems to have grown out of what seem to be perfectly reasonable rules the school has. No fighting or weapons, real or imagined are allowed. People, and the school as a whole must be treated with respect.

My guess is that the ban on imagined fighting and weapons stems from a reasonable opposition to say, some kids pointing an imaginary gun at a classmate and saying "I wish you were dead."

But there appears to be no distinction between that kind of negative behavior and simple, normal behavior or misunderstandings.

I came across an excellent op-ed piece written a couple years ago by attorney and author John Whitehead, who argues zero tolerance rules tie school administrators hands and dictate equal punishment for completely difference offenses. 

It pretty much comes down to meaning a seven year old who is playing cops and robbers by "shooting:" someone with his pointed finger is punished as harshly as another kid  dangerously and maliciously  points a loaded 9 mm Glock at classmates.

Or, maybe most zero tolerance policies are fine and do give administrators flexibility, and that in a few cases, school officials lack common sense.

It is true that these weird stories, like the seven year old with the "grenade" don't happen at most schools.

My question is, if this has been a problem for years now, why isn't anyone doing anything about it?  Shouldn't there be any consequences for the few school administrators out there can't manage any hint of common sense?

The reason I'm so worried about this is, as funny as these stupid incidents are, they teach kids exactly the wrong lessons. Do we really want to teach our future leaders to be completely inflexible, don't ask questions, don't determine what is actually going on, don't solve problems, don't think.

I'm not quite sure that's the recipe to create the world's best leaders. 
 .

School District Tries to Grab Copyright on Students' Work

Can a school grab copyright ownership of anything teachers and students do in a public school? Can the school seize a first grader's drawing of a house? How about if a teenager creates an app in a class? Or a teacher comes up with an innovative lesson plan?

Can a school demand copyright control over
a kid's drawing like this?

It seems selfish to a lot of people, but the Washington Post reports that a Maryland school district does have a proposed rule that would give it copyright over everything that comes out of the school.

“The way this policy is written, it essentially says if a student writes a paper, goes home and polishes it up and expands it, the school district can knock on the door and say, ‘We want a piece of that,’ ”  the Post quoted David Rein an adjunct law professor who focuses on intellectual property.

He said universities often have sharing agreements for copyrights on creations by students and professors. Employers often control the copyrights of employees' creation. But Rein said he's never heard of a school district going after kids' work.

The real target is probably curriculum plans and study guides created by teachers, according to the Post article, written by Oetta Wiggins. 

In any event, the school district might backpeddle on this whole thing, given the public outcry. And perhaps they didn't mean the policy to be so far reaching

The Post article quotes district board chairwoman Verjeana Jacobs:

Questioned about the policy after it was introduced, Jacobs said it was never the board’s “intention to declare ownership” of students’ work.
“Counsel needs to restructure the language,” Jacobs said. “We want the district to get the recognition . . . not take their work.”

Even if the district doesn't back down, there might be an out: Legal experts question whether a school can unilaterally impose copyright restrictions or grabs without the consent of the students.

In any event, let's hope the intellectual property stays with the people and the brains that came up with the concepts in the first place. Nobody, no corporation or school should  entirely own us, after all

Little Terrorist in Pennsylvania Threatens Classmate with Bubbles

A terrible terrorist threat was exposed in Pennsylvania recently.

According to a report from ABC News, a girl threatened to shoot her friend. With a Hello Kitty bubble blower. The terrorist is a five year old kindergartener

Is this a dangerous, deadly weapon?

Because the girl and her friend discussed pointing the pink, somewhat gun shaped bubble blowers at each other after school, the the Mount Carmel Area Elementary School  declared the girl was a terrorist threat, suspended her and ordered her into counseling.

The Hello Kitty "weapon" wasn't even on school grounds at the time of the scary incident, according to the ABC report.

The Mount Carmel Area School District told ABC News, “We are confident that much of the information supplied to the media may not be consistent with the facts… The Mount Carmel Area School District takes the well-being and safety of students and staff very seriously.”

In my view, it would have helped the school's credibility if they gave us some hint as to how the information supplied to the media was wrong. Geez, they could have done it without disclosing the name of the kid, if they're worried about student privacy.

If more facts come out, I'll be happy to set the record straight.

But if girl's family's account is true, the school might have  made the girl hate school, distrust adults, confuse her and possibly damage future educational prospects.

I guess it would have been too much work to turn the Great Hello Kitty Bubble Blower Crisis of 2013 into a teachable moment. Something like this, maybe: "You know, toys are fun, bubbles are fun, but just so you know, guns are bad if you don't know how to use them, or use them in a mean way."

Imagine that scenario. A school actually teaching a kid something!

I've railed recently how a few schools let their zero tolerance policy get out of control.

Don't get me wrong: I recognize that most school administrators are pretty sane, level headed and want to educate kids, not be boneheaded scaremongers. And I understand the basic concept of zero tolerance policies often make complete sense.

Zero tolerance, done right, can make schools safer. And my guess is safe schools make a better learning environment. So my wrath is directed only at people who take what is often a good idea - zero tolerance - and act upon it without thinking, without a sense of proportion.  .

Because given the public discourse we witness day in and day out, a little thinking and a sense of proportion would go a long, long way toward making things better.

Girl Still Suspended For Writing Newtown Poem

As far as I could determine via Google News, a San Francisco high school student who was suspended at least a week ago is still out of the classroom, and it looks like she might be about to be expelled from school.

The problem: She wrote a poem saying she "understands" the Newtown school massacre. She doesn't support the shooting, wouldn't shoot anybody, wouldn't hurt anybody. But she did write a dark poem about the sad event. 

Courtni Webb faces expulsion from school for
writing a poem about the Newtown massacre.

The school decided that this poem is a threat to the students and everybody else at the school and kicked her out.

One of the more supposedly scary lines in student Courtni Webb's poem was this:

"I understand the killings in Connecticut. I know why he pulled the trigger. Why are we oppressed by a dysfunctional community of haters and blamers?"

As Webb notes, she didn't say she was going to do anything violent. She points out that famed horror writer Steven King writes about some pretty disturbing and violent stuff, and nobody thinks he'll go off the deep end and turn into a mass murderer.

Seems to me like Webb is doing what a lot of young people do: Explore other people's dark emotions to understand their own mentality. It's the same reason why teens drive their parents crazy listening to noisy, loud, and lyrically incorrect music.

But as SF Weekly reports:

"But after the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., schools like Life Learning Academy aren't taking its chances. The academy has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to the threat of violence. A "violation of any one of these rules can result in dismissal from school."

I can see a school not taking chances on somebody making threats, but really. Sometimes these zero tolerance rules are an excuse for school administrators to exercise absolutely no critical thinking.

Maybe the administrators at the school could take the time to do some basic fact finding. Did they talk to Webb after finding the poem? If so, what did she say? Had she ever displayed disturbing behavior?  Her mother and several other people have publicly said Webb seems to be a pretty well adjusted kid.

If it turned out Webb was a little off her rocker, would just expelling her solve the problem? Probably not. Expelling her would be an easy way to just say she's not the school's problem. But that would make her somebody else's problem.

Quite a good way to teach responsibility, huh?

Speaking of responsibility, what message does this tell the other students at the school? I might be naive, but I thought students are supposed to ask questions, try opinions and philosophies and lessons on for size, to see if they make sense. It's called learning. Something that's supposed to go on in schools, remember?

The message the school seems to be sending is, shut up. Just do what we tell you do to, "learn" by rote, and for God sakes, DO NOT engage in critical thinking.

Gives you real hope for the future, doesn't it?

I

Low Test Scores in Your School? El Paso Just Got Rid of Bad Students

There's a lot of pressure on schools these days to improve test scores and ensure students are learning well.

We'll leave for another day the question of whether or not all these tests are accomplishing the goal of ensuring kids are smarter.

I know that most school administrators everywhere genuinely want students to do well. But an El Paso school administrator found an, um, novel idea to boost test scores, thereby winning more federal education money and nice pats on his back.

Lorenzo Garcia was jailed for essentially
getting rid of poor performing students
to boost school test scores

Apparently, former superintendent Lorenzo Garcia just got rid of kids who might drag down average test scores by encouraging them, strongly, to drop out of school.

Well, that's one way to improve average scores. The kids that need the most help learning, the ones who are learning English, who have a learning disability, who have an abysmal home life. Just chuck them to the curb and deny them any kind of education.

Hey, money talks right?  Maybe he justified it all by thinking the kids wouldn't amount to much no matter what he did. Although I fear he might have thrown out some kids who would have made a big difference in the world had they gotten some help from educators.

Luckily, a lot of people aren't thrilled by Garcia's solution to school funding shortages.  Garcia has been convicted of fraud and was sentenced Friday, according to the El Paso Times.  He has to serve 3.5 years in prison, pay $180,000 in restitution and $56,000 in fines.    Some people around El Paso wished he wa sentenced to much more than that.  some people are calling for a harsher sentence than that.

By the way, major kudos to the El Paso Times because had their reporters not started nosing around and filing Freedom of Information demands, this might have continued to go on, unnoticed. As it was, Garcia was reportedly screwing over students from February, 2006 until about August, 2011.

This guy Garcia must now be the most unpopular guy in El Paso. But I wonder how many other school administrators are doing similar nasty stuff to gain federal education money, and are not being caught.

Yes, most school administrators have the kids' best interest at heart, but every group has a few bad apples. And even one bad apple can really shortchange a kid, and society as a whole, the benefits of that education.

 

Despicable Kids Abuse Old Woman, Retribution Coming

UPDATE: READ THE LINK To a column about this incident at the bottom of this post:

Just when I start thinking the kids are alright, that they're intelligent, smart, compassionate and will change the world, something like this terrible news from western New York pops my Pollyanna bubble.

Some really, really, creepy teenagers verbally abused an elderly bus monitor on a school bus in the Greece,  N.Y. school district until she cried.  Then they posted their handiwork on YouTube. They  must be so proud.

Here's the video, which I'm sure you won't be able to get through (I couldn't, too painful) but looking at it gives you a sample:




The animals on the bus gleefully, repeatedly informed the woman of their perception she is fat, and old, and worst of all, not rich! Hey, if you don't have much money, you're fair game for abuse or worse, right? Just check out all those videos of kids beating up homeless people for fun and profit. ( or at least notoriety)

Why is it that the creepiest kids seem to focus on income when mistreating people.  I hope those types of kids ends up in utter poverty, to teach them a lesson.

Meanwhile, the nice thing about social media is it works both ways. The morons on the bus put this up on YouTube, because they're way too stupid to realize that most people aren't as fond of their activities.

So now, Internet sleuths are seeking out the kids, with some success, so that people can heap abuse on them. I don't know if it's a good idea doing the eye for the eye thing, you stoop to their level.  Although I've provided the link that gives (I think) the kids' names and other information, please don't do anything bad to them, as much as they deserve negativity. Go ahead and criticize them and call them out, but no crimes, please.

But maybe identifying the creeps will get them punished. If they're old enough, maybe they can be criminally charged with harassment?

The Internet researchers also figured out who the victim is, and her Facebook page, so that people can send their support. She needs it. I just hope trolls don't go after her, too.

Rochester television station WHAM reports that the Greece Athena Middle School, where the moronic kid are from, are facing disciplinary actions and might face criminal charges from the Greece, N.Y. Police Department. 

Since the creeps are probably juveniles, they'll probably be shielded from public scrutiny, especially since schools don't really publicize how they punish kids. That's too bad, because I'd love to hear what kind of explanation these little monsters come up with for their behavior.

The most upsetting part of WHAM's report is that the victim, Karen Klein, said she got most upset when the kids said "You're so ugly your kid should kill themselves." (sic)

Klein said her son took his own life about a decade ago.

I also wonder about a weird dichotomy I noticed: Seems kids these days are either horrible, like the morons from Greece, N.Y., or their brilliant, poised, incredible. It seems like there's no mediocre kids these days. Either total winners or total zeros.

Now that I've totally depressed you about the state of humanity, I offer this series of pictures from Buzzfeed to help restore your faith in mankind. 

Also, Nestor Ramos wrote this beautiful column in the Rochester  Democrat and  Chronicle 

School Punishment Follies

Geez, I'm glad school administrators aren't supervising me.

Now that school's pretty much done for the summer, I've collected some of the worst examples of school discipine out there. Just for fun.

I've done so because I have problems with a lot of zero tolerance policies that schools maintain. I get it that they're important to keep kids safe and to provide clear, understandable rules for the kiddies.

Where we run into trouble is at the minority of schools where administrators have no common sense, and no sense of perspective.  It's amazing that some adults who should be in charge can't make the distinction between, say, a butter knife accidentally left in a backpack and brought to school vs. a cache of grenades and automatic weapons that would make a Third World army proud. These bad administrators don't see the difference.

In one  example, a girl was deemed to slutty, I guess, because her outfit was supposedly provocative, according to the girl's dad, who luckily for us is a blogger (Adult Onset Atheist) and went on about this extensively.

You can see her photo in this post so judge for yourself.

 I dunno. She seems fine to me. A simple outfit. Worn on a warm day, so it is a skirt/short sleeve shirt combination. Fashionable enough. But slutty and too revealing? Um, she's wearing standard business casual clothes, the kind you see in any office, any day.  But what do I know about fashion and sluts?

The principal who called the girl on being dressed "inappropriately" seems creepy to me, if you think about it. Says the father/blogger:

"It turns out that the principal himself had personally identified her as inappropriately dressed. He had walked up to her during lunchtime and identified her crime where nobody else could. I can’t help but think that the principal’s action creates an unhealthy atmosphere in his school. What does it say to the teachers who had her in class earlier in the day, and not noticed her inappropriate dress? Will there be punitive actions taken against the teachers who could not look at my daughter with perversion in their eyes?"

The dad suspects that because this high school is rural and in a conservative district, women need to be kept in their place. Says the blogger, again: (AOD is the girl's initials)

Tooele offered her the choice of social dance or seminary. Social dance requires that girls wear high heals, and AOD is 6 feet tall in her stocking feet. My girls have a history of trying to excel beyond the bounds of what girls should be capable of. They succeed in excelling beyond the bounds of what normal humans are capable of. They certainly exceed both my capability and expectation.


One commentor on the blog post was obviously a school administrator, and offered up this reasoning, from the perspective of the school.

Parents, PLEASE, support your school administration! For ONCE!!! Yes, the outfit looks quite appropriate compared to what we are generally subjected to on a daily basis in public schools. And why are we subjected to this much worse form of dress? Because parents like THIS BLOGGER question administrators and teachers constantly. You took a picture and posted it? And wrote an entire article? And then bashed how junior high students are treated? Seriously? This is what you do with your time? You have NO IDEA why our rules are in place, the corrosive nature of your actions, or how hard we work every day to make junior high students feel good about themselves and valued. You have no idea how we are constantly attacked by students and teachers who don't agree with what a teacher or administrator has done. YOU are the reason our schools have no recourse when students break rules. Yes, it seems silly, but evidently your child was not complying with a rule. Have you ever tried to enforce a dress code in a school? Back off on one inch, and then skirts inch up another and another. Back off 1/4 inch on a shirt strap, and then they get thinner and thinner and turn into camis and bra tops. BACK UP THE SCHOOL FOR ONCE, PARENTS! STOP THINKING YOU KNOW BETTER and that your chidl's civil rights and dignity are being violated just because a decision inconveniences you and you don't agree with it.


So, no matter how stupid the ruling, we have to support it or all the other reasonable rules will go out the window somehow?  Exactly how does all this make kids "feel good about themselves and valued.?"Do we teach kids that we should blindly follow any rule, no matter how boneheaded, without having the right to legally and ethically challenge the rule? Do we really want to raise kids who don't question unfair and unjust laws?   Well, some people do, if those unjust and unfair laws favor them, I guess.

  Meanwhile, in North Carolina, a social studies teacher, who should know better, said a kid who was criticizing President Obama must Shut Up Now, or would end up in jail for the comments, according to an article in the Salisbury, N.C. Post and later picked up by other media.

You are free to criticize this guy if you want, despite
what a North Carolina social studies teacher says.

Said the teacher: “Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?” she says of former President Bush. “Do you realize you are not supposed to slander the president?” 


Um, no. You can criticize a president's policies and actions as long as you offer no threats to him or her.  At least the student had it right. We pick up the story again from the Salisbury Post:

The student responds by saying being arrested for talking badly about the president would violate the right to free speech.

“You would have to say some pretty f’d up crap about him to be arrested,” he says. “They cannot take away your right to have your opinion. ... They can’t take that away unless you threaten the president.”

So maybe the kid should get the job of social studies teacher and the teacher should go back to school, no?


Now we go to Houston, where one Diane Tran, 17, got into Big Trouble for skipping school.  As well she should. She got 24 hours in the slammer because she played hooky.


Oh, wait. There's mitigating circumstances! Turns out her parents bailed, she has to work all night, take care of her siblings, then go to school without ANY sleep.  Nobody bothered to tell the judge who sent her to jail these little issues.

Diane Tran did miss school, but nobody paid
attention to her (very good) excuse.

Shouldn't the school have tried to figure out why such a bright girl who was taking AP classes was suddenly blowing off school? No, it doesn't matter! She was blowing off school. The reasons are none of the school's business!


Luckily, when the full story came out, the judge dismissed the charges and an advocacy group raised $100,000 to help the poor girl out. 


Finally, we learn that students can get in trouble even if they behave perfectly, but their relatives don't. In Ohio, a school withheld diplomas from some graduating seniors because their families cheered too boisterously during the graduation ceremony.


Now, I can see why there's a rule for the audience to keep it in their sneaker a little bit. We all want to hear the names of our beloved graduates being called, and we don't want Mr. and Mrs. Loud drowning out our little darlings' moment of glory.


But punish the kids whose deafening family disrupts things.  By that logic, if my sibling was a mass murderer, I should go to jail too because I know her?