Pupils walk out of lessons after school BANS them from wearing bracelets to support classmate with l

What I find more disturbing is the school called the cops! What law did the kids break? I guess a show of law enforcement would make them fold up and get back in line with schools commands.

This may seem harsh, but rules are rules and the Daily Mail is inclined to sensationalise.

In my son's school the teachers are exceptionally strict on uniform, a fact that doubtlessly annoys some girls who want shorter skirts and boys who cannot wear a tie properly. It probably annoys some parents who are unable to get their kids to conform and the Daily Mail probably gets weekly letters from parents who think their kid should be allowed to wear a miniskirt at school "to express their individuality".

However, just to pick you up on this point...

cado angelus
Another example of schools gone mad? Fining hard working parents for taking kids on holidays during term time. Are two weeks really going make much of a difference in the big picture?

Yes. If parents break a child's education because they want a holiday then they should be fined. School is school and this laissez faire attitude to education is worrying.

Regards

I'll happily pay the fine, will still be cheaper than travelling during school holidays

You really can't see why pressuring other students to follow a certain cause (any cause at all) is wrong?

mugger
What I find more disturbing is the school called the cops! What law did the kids break? I guess a show of law enforcement would make them fold up and get back in line with schools commands.

I really don't like schools with uniforms and consider it child abuse to begin with. My kids went to one with a dress code, and considered it child abuse and parent abuse.

They were ripe for standing up for their own choices, even if it was a small group that influenced them. In my sons school, they really couldn't be influenced to do something they didn't believe in overall. What was occurring is that they didn't have a voice, were forced into uniforms, in a power trip by the parents and society to begin with being told not to be individuals, not to speak up, not to dress up, etc. And so a small group of disruptive kids finally gave them a voice????

So its not having a voice that is the real problem here, not having some flexibility, forced into uniforms part of this.

Not the disruptive kids.

Also, police were called, why?

Why were the police called?

What part of police and schools not going together does anyone get?

Arbitrageur
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

It goes deeper than that. The school said the kids could display the bracelets on their book bags etc and could show support that way, and apparently some kids were fine with that compromise and wanted to return to class, but.... It was a minority of students who not only wouldn't accept that, which had them concerned, partly because they were pressuring other students who wanted to return to class to not return to class...almost sounds like pressure in a union to not cross a picket line or something. There are usually two sides to every story and sometimes I feel like we get a biased view from one side.

Agree with you there.

Sadly many here would jump up and down to put school down and promote their Home school agenda..

The School let them support the cause, but as long as the support is withing school regulation and its rules.

They could have had it on their bags, but no.. in the world of Media exposure, some bad apples decided to "fight the man" and act like they school is against people with Cancer.

Not surprised, many in this thread already fell for it.



Did someone actually say they don't like rules in this thread? or hate people who follow it?

It seems common sense has become an endangered species.

I'm glad the students stood up against that.

The power is coming with the younger generation.

reply to post by paraphi


I disagree with you 100% My wife and I are seriously considering home schooling our children because we honestly do not believe in the system anymore. If a child goes on holidays during the school year then give them a bit of work to do and let them have their family fun.

The more time a family has to bond and experience wonderful things like travelling is an educational experience in of itself but that's my opinion.

As for the bracelet issue, I totally support students supporting a friend with a terminal illness and it is a situation in which emotions will occur. Teachers who have a higher level of education should be better trained to handle things that occur during life, like people caring for a sick friend and wanting to express that care.

mugger
What I find more disturbing is the school called the cops! What law did the kids break?

The implication was, that the majority of students were fine with the school's compromise of allowing them to put the bracelets on their book bags to show support, and wanted to return to class, and the reason the police were called is that there were a minority of "troublemakers" who didn't want to allow those students to return to class. The role of the police was to implied to be to make sure the students who wanted to return to class were allowed to do so, and not stopped by their classmates who didn't like the compromise.

By the way, the "no jewelry" rule is pretty common in the food industry, which if you buy food products you may appreciate not finding someone's lost jewelry with all their germs in your food products. There are people who work in the food industry who don't like that rule, and assure their employer they've worn their jewelry for x number of years and never lost it. If the employers just gave up on their rules when people who didn't like the rules started whining, you would probably be finding jewelry in your food, and you probably wouldn't like it.

Real life has rules sometimes. I think we should pick and choose our battles, but personally I would have been ok with the school letting me show support by displaying my bracelet on my book bag. People who feel differently are entitled to their opinion but I don't quite get the obsession with why the bracelet absolutely positively must be on the wrist instead of the book bag, but that's me, and, apparently also the majority of students at that school. People can still see it on your book bag.

reply to post by luciddream

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees two sides to this story. Thanks for posting.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Hi,

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back on here - the joys of work.

I respect you opinion and the considered way that you put it across, even though we are coming at this from different angles. That's one of the things that I love about ATS - people can disagree and most of the time it is done respectfully.

I think the thing that's most got my back up about this is the sentiment behind it. Yes, perhaps many kids did want to go back to class and were taken along for the ride with other but, to me, the point is schools getting hung up on applying rules for the sake of applying rules. You mention the food industry. That's a completely different ball game. There are health and safety implications there.

I've worked in schools for many years and honestly have become so disillusioned with the way that they are ran in the UK that it seriously upsets me. The people running the schools are shallow, insensitive, cruel and often bullies. I admit there may be a few good ones left but the last four headteachers that I have had dealings with - on a professional and personal basis have been unbelievable - egotistic beyond belief, manipulative and downright liars.

Perhaps I have a biased point of view - I'm willing to accept that as a possibility - but imposition of rules for the sheer hell of it in a school setting is just conditioning. Do not question. Do not think for yourself. Do as you are told.

Again, thanks for you contribution to this thread, I appreciate it.

Unity_99

Why were the police called?

What part of police and schools not going together does anyone get?

Many high schools in the UK actually now have on site police officers. It's so so sad.

reply to post by cado angelus


I agree with you on the wristband.

I disagree with you on the fining of parents whom take their kids out of the classroom for vacation. When I was in elementary school, we had problems with parents taking vacations outside of school schedules holidays (2 1/2 months of summer, 1-2 weeks in Spring and another 2 weeks in December for Christmas) and removing their kids from the classroom for 1-2 months. There was already limited space in our school and the waitlist to register a new child was very long with many parents having to travel or arrange for travel arrangements outside of catchment areas. Finally, the school had to put forth a policy that if your child was gone for longer than 2 weeks out of the school year, they were officially declared withdrawn and their spot given to another child in the neighbourhood.

That was just the administrative side of pulling kids out of the classroom. The actual dynamic of the classroom was affected too. Often the kids pulled out were behind and time that teachers could be spending helping students with current lessons were taken by the vacationed students who often didn't do the school work assigned to them on vacation and were therefore behind enough to divert classroom resources.

reply to post by MonkeyFishFrog


Thanks for the input. I know it's a different issue to the wristbands, and I know I brought it up, but I'm afraid that I'll never be swayed on the fining of parents who take their kids on holiday in termtime.

There are so many reasons why this is wrong, but that's a whole new thread. Admittedly, it does tie in with my intense dislike of the school system in the UK, but I think I will save that for another thread.

All I'll say is, ask why parents sometimes do this?

Thanks again for the input, my friend.

Cado

Ok I'll bite.

I recently left public school because of the atrocity that it was. My old school could be compared to a concentration camp. With no exaggeration. And this was high school. Middle school was the worst. In 8th grade we actively had police walking the halls and there were cameras everywhere. Between classes we were escorted by teachers and we weren't allowed to talk. We had to walk along lines painted on the floor, not looking around. If we talked at all on the way to lunch, we were taken back to class and not allowed to eat. This combined with the bathroom rules was just horrific. We lost 5 points to our total grade every time we used the bathroom.

My ninth grade year was similar to 8th grade. They treated us like criminals. The teachers cared more about the dress code than teaching us good wholesome things in class, like the things we were supposed to be learning. They tried to expel me for using Wikileaks as a source for a report I did. They said I could be a potential terrorist. So yeah. My mother stepped in several times but they refused to yield so she pulled my out and I started online school where they actually teach the truth about things. It's nice.

School is a scary place now.

~Sephy

Just goes to show how intelligent some "teachers" are these days.

Instead of just letting them have their moment, and going back to normality, the hard line approach was chosen to the point that POLICE were called for students walking out of a class. Now, unless I am missing something, isn't that an issue that could of been EASILY dealt with within the school, and all that was needed was a teacher with some form of common sense.

What could of passed a non-event, while allowing the students to show support for a worthy cause, has now become a mountain from a mole-hill.

Those same IDIOTS that called the police are probably the same IDIOTS that whinge about police having their time and resources wasted on trivial issues ?

A logical solution would of been to allow the students a certain day, with promotion, to show support to a worthy cause. They get to have their day, and say, and after that day everything returns to normal. But when does logic gets used in todays world anymore ? And instead of a logical solution, we ended up with kids walking out of class, teachers over reacting and even having police called when no actual crime had been committed, and to the point that its being discussed on ATS !

Just another nail in the coffin of common sense !

reply to post by sephyrhoads


I have no experience of the US education system. I'm in the UK. Yes, thing are bad here too, but a concentration camp? Without exaggeration? I would say that is hyperbole of the highest order. Were your school friends operated on without anaesthetic? Were they shot in the head? Were they raped repeatedly? Were they tortured? Were they starved to death? Were they exterminated in vast numbers?

I think a little perspective may be required. Bad places to be - yes. Concentration camps? Far from it.

Thanks for the input

Cado

The students should up the ante since the police were involved. Not only will they wear the bracelets but the staff responsible for the fiasco are to be fired.

reply to post by Ahabstar


We live in hope. But, I would argue, only the senior management. The lower ranks are too spineless to stand up to the will of their Hauptbefehlsleiter. It's a shame. They are so easily led - and probably scared for their jobs/careers.

cado angelus
Perhaps I have a biased point of view - I'm willing to accept that as a possibility - but imposition of rules for the sheer hell of it in a school setting is just conditioning. Do not question. Do not think for yourself. Do as you are told.

I don't pretend to fully understand the rules for no jewelry in school like they exist in the food industry, but I can say that teaching kids they can get the rules changed by whining about them may not be such a great idea for their future in the work force, when we do have food industry workers with this idea that they should be able to wear jewelry just because they've never lost theirs. So conditioning for no reason isn't good, but in this case since there are real life no jewelry situations it may not be totally useless conditioning that sometimes you can't wear jewelry wherever you want to.

But bottom line is if I was making up rules for a school I would tend to want to allow jewelry including bracelets, however if it got too gaudy like wearing 25 piercings in each ear or something I might be tempted to try to draw a line somewhere which is hard to do, so it's easier to just have a rule where you don't have to draw a line. I can kind of see both sides on this one.

DarksideOz
A logical solution would of been to allow the students a certain day, with promotion, to show support to a worthy cause. They get to have their day, and say, and after that day everything returns to normal.

But when does logic gets used in todays world anymore ?

The school did EXACTLY what you suggest. They created a special day where the students could wear the bracelets. From the OP story:

The school said it had responded several weeks ago to a request from the children to have a non-uniform day for Joel, and he had requested that pupils wear blue and white coloured clothing.

This was planned for April 11, but the school also told pupils that the bracelets could only be sold and worn on that day - a policy which has caused much anger among the children.

And instead of a logical solution, we ended up with kids walking out of class, teachers over reacting and even having police called when no actual crime had been committed, and to the point that its being discussed on ATS ! Just another nail in the coffin of common sense !

The school followed your common sense logical suggestion, and it didn't resolve the issue. So where does that leave us?