Oh, well, when you make an elegant argument of that kind, how can I disagree?
Wasn’t intended as an elegant argument, just as a joke. But I do find it hard to believe that a seven year old was genuinely being taught logic, philosophy, and algebra. Where did you go to school?
Has anyone considered the flip-side of this?
Imagine you are a school administrator. Imagine you let the student wear the t-shirt and a fight ensues (although to be honest at that age I am hard pressed to think the kids have well informed personal opinions on the subject and more likely parrot whatever mom & dad say over dinner and not likely to get in much of a fuss about it at school).
A kid gets a broken nose, the school gets sued and you lose your job for not doing your job (which is partly to keep the peace in the school and enforce school policy).
What would you have done if you were the administrator faced with this issue?
I was raised in North Carolina.
Children are commonly taught algebra, only we don’t call it that.
In about 7th or 8th grade, if one is publicly educated, one gets algebraic type problems of the form:
x+5=10, solve for x.
In lower grades in grammar school, one gets problems in the form of:
(empty box) + 5 = 10, fill in the box. It isn’t that children aren’t capable of doing algebra, it’s that we don’t call it algebra. I find it difficult to believe that some people find it difficult believe children aren’t taught algebra in lower grades than when we start using words like “prealgebra” and “algebra”. The processes are the same, the reasoning is the same, only what we choose to call it changes.
Philosophy and logic? I had a very nice introduction to both at age 7. Probably a little before, but I’ll go with 7. It doesn’t take a great deal of effort to teach children the bases of informal logic and introduce some formal logic.
Now, it wasn’t like at a college level or anything, but nothing else taught there is either. It’s like saying, “I have a hard time believing you learned English in grammar school because it’s also taught in college!” It isn’t the course that’s in question, it’s the depth.
I think I learned how to deal with powers and roots in late second, early third grade. And variables had long been in my vocabulary at that time.
As I said, though, I grew up in a home where education was important and my father spared no expense ensuring I got a proper one.
What a load of horseshit. In second grade I was being taught multiplication tables, basic language arts skills and penmanship (all per the New York State curiculum in case you were wondering). I’m fairly sure history wasn’t a required part of the curiculum until the 4th grade.
In other words. I’m a dumb ass hole who went to public school. I’ll have to remember to mind my station and quit graduate school today because obviously, I wasn’t taught the proper subjects when I was 7 years old.
“Qualified Immunity” comes to mind.
Then it must be the case that everyone else’s education must be the same as yours?
Good point. You know, there’s still racial strife in this country too. That’s why I say, despite Brown v. Board, a good principal artfully prevents black and white students from mingling at his school. What if he didn’t? What if race riots broke out and then he lost his job! What if there was a ticking time-bomb!!! Happens every day. That’s why they say “the Constitution is not a suicide pact!”
What I’m saying is that, unless you were some kind of prodigy (and by definition, not an “average” student), you weren’t doing algebra, logic and philosophy in second grade.
As you said, algebra involved filling in boxes. That’s not algebra, that’s the teacher showing that addition is the opposite of subtraction.
Logic is something like “Johnny has an apple seed. Trees start out as seeds in the ground. When Johnny plants the apple seed, what happens?” They think it through and logically reason out that a seed grows into a tree.
As for philosophy, I’d love to hear an explanation of how philosophy for 2nd graders works.
Finally, while Freudian Slit was joking, it should be noted that the Ninja Turtles did introduce the concept of Renaissance Art to a lot of young children. I know I went to the library and found out who those guys really were. But knowing that Leonardo’s full name is Leonardo da Vinci wouldn’t have prepared me for an abortion debate. I didn’t even know what abortion was until junior high, and I doubt I’m alone.
Your edit beat my window. Sorry for the double post.
The issue you bring up, minus the rhetoric, is a much larger issue than this thread is well-lent towards. However, the short answer is we need to do a much, much better job educating our young than we currently do.
I’m fairly sure that I was doing algebra. It wasn’t solving functions in the form of f(x)= ab^x, but it was algebra nevertheless.
Call it what you want, but this is one of the rules upon which algebra is based. While I wasn’t doing fill in the box in second grade, it is still an algebraic process, which is a process of logic.
And my 7 year old self would have replied that your statement is conditionally true because it’s not the case that a seed will grow into a tree. A seed might grow into a tree.
I’d love to see an explanation as to how it couldn’t work.
I know FS was joking, as I was in response. I don’t think she’ll read my reply as my having actually asserted her argument was elegant.
I wouldn’t think that knowing his full name would have necessarily prepared you for that. But I don’t see how that’s relevant. I can think of many facts which wouldn’t lend themselves to someone necessarily knowing about abortion. It’s irrelevant to mention that studying the conjugation of the verb to be in Spanish doesn’t prepare one for an abortion discussion because studying the grammar of a language isn’t, well, germane. So, what’s your point with that? And what does any of this have to do with the topic of this thread?
If you want to continue this, I guess start a topic on education in America, or PM me. Otherwise, I’m going to get back to the topic in this thread.
Generally, my kids were in school, or with me or my husband at that age. With my husband or me, I can explain my values to my children. It isn’t like we don’t cover this material when it arises. The problem isn’t that I want to shield my kids from this material - its that I want to present it in a manner consistent with our values. I’m not sure that abortion can be discussed without value judgements being applied - even the langage being chosen (fetus, baby, life, choice) is value loaded. That makes me think that its probably not a topic that should be covered by your average second grade public school teacher in a classroom of average seven year olds. But perhaps I’m wrong and there is a “And Tango Makes Three” for abortion that can cover complex topics at an age appropriate level without setting off parents. Not that “And Tango Makes Three” was successful with it.
ETA: I also don’t think its fair for a second grade teacher to even be put in the position where abortion might become a topic of conversation - its a no win for him or her.
Value conversations are appropriate in high school, when ethics and morals become interesting topics and when a kid starts to understand who they are. They aren’t appropriate conversations in elementary school - beyond the basic good citizenship values.
I would love nothing more than for kids to get taught critical thinking and moderated debate as early as possible – but you’ve got to start them off with ‘easy’ topics. Seems to me this 11- or 12-year-old’s teachers have a great opportunity to get their students discussing uniforms and dress codes.
My public-ish high school had uniforms and was pretty liberal. Abortion was such a regular debate class topic from grade eight on it practically had our teachers rolling their eyes. (I see now that they pretty much got the same fer and agin’ arguments every year from students who had no clue how the world – and sex – really went down). Don’t remember ever hearing them voice their personal opinions, and nary a parent complained (that I know of).
It is possible to include this subject in the classroom – but if t-shirts were good starting off points for intelligent discussion, something tells me we’d all be talking about Che Guevera a lot more.
Just curious if a kid wore a t-shirt with this image (warning: it’s the picture found on wikipedia for vulva) on it, would all you folks who think it’s appropriate for school? The image is one you might find in a “science book,” and the message is not conflicting with any mission the school might be supportive of. Actually, there are plenty of people who think that this is exactly the message schools ought to be solely promoting.
How does this example meet with the law and first amendment rights of students?
This is a rather large misrepresentation of what I am saying.
A more apt analogy would some white kids coming to a mixed-race school wearing KKK t-shirts.
The picture all by itself? No. Nor would a sketch of a black man hanging.
The picture isn’t the only consideration though. You’ve cherry picked a picture from an article and then excluded the article which was the context within which the picture appeared.
I don’t see how it matters that that picture might appear in a text book, or is in an article. You’ve eliminated the context.
So, to ask in response: would it be okay for a teacher to hand out that picture contained between the end-covers of something on which the front cover had the words “Science Text Book”?
I still don’t see why you believe your desire (or even the desire of most parents) to defer having a conversation about abortion with your children authorizes limiting the speech rights of others, others who plainly disagree with your age-appropriateness assessment. Especially when the worry that motivates the desire is not that the child might be psychologically damaged by the discussion, but rather that he may come to conclusions on the matter different from the ones you hold. Parents have a right to direct the upbringing of their children, but they do not have the right to conscript the rest of the world to help inculcate their preferred belief system.
After all, consider the alternative. Should we prevent a child’s peers from telling the children of inveterate racists or fundamentalist Christians that “perhaps your parents’ beliefs are little whack; it doesn’t look like most people agree with them.” The parental right, while powerful, does not operate to the exclusion of the rest of society’s privilege to interact with fellow citizens.
OMIGOD!!! TICKING TIME BOMB!!! KAPOW!!!
You want to say it’s a more apt analogy because you realize that if we extend your argument outside the tee-shirt realm, your claim (which is, to recap, what if we follow the Constitution and something bad happens! Therefore, we do not have to follow the Constitution) starts to look pretty ridiculous.
Wearing a KKK tee-shirt, so long as it does not advocate illegal activity nor use fighting words (viz., what is called the “N” word), the shirt would be permissible.
Obscenity has always been subject to censorship under certain circumstances. While a picture of a vulva is likely not obscene for adults in most communities (especially not a scientific image), and thus cannot be censored, the court has crafted a standard of obscenity for children that is fairly broad and includes even speech that has artistic or scientific merit (e.g. NC-17 movies). The context of the school makes this question easy: there’s no risk of censoring adult speech by having a school rule of no pictures of genital nudity, therefore it can be censored if it is obscene for children.
The more difficult question would be a t-shirt that says: “Vulva.” In that case, the kid has a decent argument for a constitutional right to wear the shirt.
As has been noted a school is not your local park. The SCOTUS agrees with this.
I feel pretty safe in saying some student wearing a KKK t-shirt would substantially interfere with appropriate discipline in the operation of a school.
Does an anti-choice t-shirt rise to that level? I do not know. Not sure how we can know without testing to see what the reactions of other students are.
Certainly the abortion debate is among the most emotionally charged debates that exist in our society. On the other hand not sure how worked-up a bunch of Elementary school kids would get about it.
It is not unreasonable for an adult to see the anti-abortion t-shirt and think it is a politically charged topic with a possibility to cause real disruption (the converse would be true too with a pro-choice t-shirt).
Hence my original question: As an administrator are you supposed to just kick back and see what happens because you do not know if it will cause some trouble or as the person charged with keeping discipline is it not incumbent upon you to err on the safe side and stop it before it (might) start? Remember you have a duty here to the students’ safety and school discipline, not a duty to protect free speech since as the courts agree free speech is not absolute in a school environment.