Written by elearners
Why do students have to use a hall pass? Because all schools enforce policies that don’t make much sense. What’s all this hubbub about hand raising, for instance? And, for the love of Mike, why can’t you enjoy a smoke in the privacy of the bathroom?
These problems have plagued kids for years. But today it’s worse than ever. Certain schools are enacting policies that are downright creepy …
1. Microchip Tracking
Leave it to the wild and crazy Brits to combine Harry Potter uniforms with James Bond technology. In England, a private school in South Yorkshire is tracking their students with microchips.
The skirts are for uniformity, the socks are for circulation
There are a few reasons for making these students wear RFID chips:
- To correctly identify them
- To determine if they’re on school grounds
- To determine if they’re in their proper class
- To easily reprogram them in the event of a robot war
Although it seems to make sense as a measure to combat ditching class, it also serves as a horrible invasion of privacy. The idea of bugging children makes students look and feel like inmates, when realistically only, say, 20% of them are headed in that direction.
2. Video Surveillance
For those schools who enjoy playing a much more balanced game of cat-and-mouse, video surveillance kits appear to be all the rage.
A peek at the exits, all too far away from this computer to take any action
What better environment to foster learning than that of a supermarket, or perhaps a suburban casino boat? Really, what easier way is there to learn how to read than with the soothing mechanical buzzing of a zoom lens behind a dome of glass? Could there be a more efficient way to be outed as the kid who farted than through reviewing the infrared thermal footage? If you ask us, video cameras belong on movie sets, not in schools.
3. Confiscation of Cell Phones
In an effort to crack down on “sexting” amongst teenagers, several pervy principals have decided they have the right to confiscate and peruse the cell phones of their students.
Peek-a-boo!
By viewing the evidence first hand, these principals are allowed to punish students like the bad boys and girls they are. To us, this is the equivalent of principals of the 1960’s hiding behind the trees at make-out point, or the principals of the 90’s hiding out in the alley behind a teenager’s house. Teenagers are going to get it however they can, and confiscating cell phones should be a job for mortified parents, not overly concerned principals.
4. Allowing Free-Range Four-Year-Olds
One Catholic school in Richmond, VA has declared a strict “hands-off” policy. This sounds like a welcome change from the negative stigma of corporal punishment surrounding Catholic schools. However, this policy has allowed one four-year-old boy to wander off on four separate occasions.
The boy, seen here, awaiting the 77 bus during snack time
While the school claims that it is a “safe handling” issue, parents claim that it’s a “are you f#%*ing stupid” issue. Instead of physically stopping the boy, teachers followed him from a safe distance before alerting the authorities who then came to retrieve the child. Apparently this school believes that instead of endangering a teacher’s career by asking them to touch a child, it’s a much better idea to endanger it by having them follow the child, leave 27 other children alone unattended, and then call the police, wasting their time and taxpayer money. Though, being a Catholic school, they aren’t legally allowed to see any of the taxpayer money, so maybe this is their way of feeling included.
5. Sex Education (in Kindergarten)
It was bound to happen. You need to educate the masses before the babies start having babies, right?
Finally got him down for his 3:00 nap. Time for my 3:05 nap!
One school in Montana isn’t taking any chances, by beginning sex education classes as early as kindergarten. Maybe this is a good thing. Countries like Italy and Spain, where children drink wine from a young age, don’t have nearly the problems with teen drinking that America does.
Perhaps if we begin sex education at 5, children will be over it by the time they’re 10 and be grizzled and put off by sex like an old married couple by the time they go to prom. It’s worth a shot.
6. Banning of Ethnic Studies
Recently, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer passed a bill banning ethnic studies in schools. This eliminates classes such as Latino Literature, or African American History, which had been taught in Arizona schools for years.
Arizona deporting a boatload of Irishmen to free-loving California, copyright June 2010
Many opponents of this bill of fail to see that eliminating these classes now makes room in the curriculum for more important and practical classes, such as White History, Caucasian Science and Master Race Phys. Ed.
Kudos to Arizona for expanding the horizon for all students… unless they are students of color, in which case they must drink from a separate fountain (located in New Mexico).
Bonus: This is one innovative cat
