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Zero Tolerance is Zero Intelligence

Zero Tolerance is Zero Intelligence

A Promise is a Promise

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/02/student.threats.ap/index.html

2 students in Orange Co. California are facing expulsion for taking a teacher at her word.  The teacher assigned a project where the students were to keep a journal with the understanding that no one would read it   (except her for grading).  Instead the teacher read somethings and decided to let others read them as well.  And the students were suspended and are awaiting an expulsion hearing.

Why?  Well, in their journals, they talked about torturing and killing a teacher.  From the little snippets that the article revealed, it appears that they were just being stupid adolescents, and trying to one up each other on what they thought was a funny scenario.  All with the expectation of the journal not being read per the promise of the teacher.  But she broke her promise.

And in the zero tolerance of the post Columbine mentality of schools, these students are being punished not for anything they did (or you could say for doing what hey were told, but I digress), but for believing the word of an adult.

In this stupidity that passes for education today, they ignatzes don't even realize the damage they have done, not only to these 2 students, but to their own reputations.  No longer can any student trust the word of a teacher.  All teachers are suspect, and should be regarded as only telling the truth, when it suits them, and not when it is the right thing to do.  And that is the lesson the teachers are not only teaching these 2 students, but the entire student body.  Wow!  What Nobel prize winning candidates!

When are these mental midgets going to learn that actions speak louder than words?  And when you leave reason at the school door, the only thing you are teaching the students is to never trust people in authority.  For they will always let you down?  It requires no intelligence to enforce a zero tolerance policy where a spork becomes an expulsion offense.  And the trust that the teachers are supposed to be trying to create with their student is gone. 

I am glad most of my children are out of school.  I pray that the remaining 2 will not be saddled with mental midgets in their last few years. But my grandchildren will have to spend a school career with a bunch of mind numbed robots that cant think for themselves and that my grandchildren can never trust for anything.  Not even legitimate school work.

It is a sad day in education, not because of 2 over hormonal jocks who may have to seek a new school, but for the millions of school children that just learned a valuable lesson.  Never trust a teacher.  Hire a lawyer and get them to sign an unbreakable contract.

The Legal professions stock just doubled, thanks to idiots in education.

17,738 views 129 replies
Reply #126 Top
yup. the way things are today has nothing to do with the past. nothing that's happening now will affect what happens tomorrow.

what the hell was i thinking?


No one, including you, said we could not learn from history! But history is the past, and unchanging! It is Static! Period. You want to learn the lessons of history, fine, learn. But dont be so dumb as to think that history is changing. The present is changing, the future ours to mold. The past is set and cannot be changed.
Reply #127 Top
Yet from its inception in federal drug policy of the 1980’s, zero tolerance has been intended primarily as a method of sending a message that certain behaviors will not be tolerated, by punishing all offenses severely, no matter how minor.


And that is the falacy of your arguement. You are arguing that since Eve sinned, we all must sin, it is inevitable. No. You can take a good idea to an extreme. And it has been. just say no to drugs, has turned into ZT, but not due to Bennett. That is where you erred. Now if you want to trace the roots of the idiocy of ZT, try Mickey Moron. Bowling for Columbine anyone?

he is actually more responsible than Bennett.
Reply #128 Top
Gee Dr. Guy, so the law shouldn't be followed? Goodness. A person is writing a threat to a teacher and you are worried about a right to privacy? Be well.
Reply #129 Top
Wow, someone resurrected this thread?! Welcome back, ZT.

Guy:
But history is the past, and unchanging!

Just the interpreters of history keep changing, especially with the whims of the age.

Sodaiho:
A person is writing a threat to a teacher and you are worried about a right to privacy?

Umm... no, Sodaiho... the privacy involved here is the student's assumption that what he wrote was going to be protected, like a lawyer/client or priest/confessioner privilege. The fact is the teacher was not empowered to offer confidentiality to students. The fact is that the student should not expect privacy when he is making unveiled, clear threats to the safety of others.

That is what we're worried about.