Stonebow: How do you feel about ‘Don’t be a jerk’? It’s not uniformly applied to anyone: a comment from one person may be entirely benign, while the same comment from another or even in the same thread but at a different time may be all that is necessary to ban them. I point you at Giraffe’s welcome thread, as an example.
Tell me, would you prefer that the mods enumerate every single forbidden or questionable action that you could hypothetically take, with accordant punishment? It may be fair, but it would also more or less kill the SDMB as we know it. We trust the mods to judge us fairly, and the mods trust that we’re not jerks until we’ve shown a clear pattern of behavior. It works, and without the ‘do X, Y results’ that you claim is superior.
Moreover, such systems can still be rampantly gaimed. As you say, such a system is wide open to corruption, but so is the current system.
Basically, as I’ve said before, a system in which rules are established with a specific purpose in mind should not punish violations of the rules that have nothing to do with the reason that the rules were created. The enforcement of this rule has had an actual, measureable decrease in the school’s ability to educate students (or at least one student).
I’ve never known two people that agreed on what exactly constitutes ‘common sense’ in every situation. This thread is a good example of that. My point was simply that you assume that ‘common sense’ would always render an outcome that you agree with. That’s simply not the case.
And the school refusing to punish the student for the phone call itself was a very good political decision on their part. It reflects that the school was actually more concerned about keeping order, and was not out to screw over anyone. Good on them. I wouldn’t blame them if they punished him for it, though. I would, but then again, I’m a crazy authoritarian.
And robertliguori, the ‘don’t be a jerk’ rule is a good one. However, there are market forces at work in the SDMB that don’t apply to public school. 1) we’re dealing for the most part with adults, 2) the mods have the luxuary of time to make decisions, consult, and see every angle before any official action, 3) if you don’t like the policies of this board, you can vote with your dollar and go elsewhere. i noticed the same thing about people likening this to a job environment- the comparison just doesn’t hold.
The analogy you used (jerk policy) would make more sense in this situation if you likened it to the ‘no sock’ policy here. That’s a hard and fast rule from what I have seen, instituted for specific reasons, and having a clear line of violation. So, given this policy has been set, what do you think should happen to people that violate it? Or do you think the mods should be free to disregard policy for any of their favorites? Like I said, we can debate the merits of the phone policy, but once it is in place, it should be enforced, and *seen * to be enforced.
Yes but there’s been talk about modifying the no socks rule, to allow the threads created by the socks to remain open; if the thread has created some interesting discussions. That will change the rule from disappearing socks and all they created, to just disappearing and discouraging the socks; which is the real goal.
What was the real goal of the phone policy? Surely not to prevent students from receiving important information. So once the Teacher was aware; whenever that awareness was known, the student should have been allowed to receive the information.
That’s a separate issue from the student’s behaviour or enforcing the no phones rule, unless the purpose of the rule is to prevent the student’s from using their phones to receive any calls at all, regardless of their importance.
Realizing that it’s kinda important that a student contacts a parent, doesn’t make that student a favourite or a willy nilly disregard of the rules.
If I need to contact my wife at school, I have to call the office and either leave a message, or, if it is an emergency, ask them to page her. That’s because of a no cell phone policy. If the teachers can abide by it, why can’t students?
Everyone thinks they are special, or that they fall under ‘special circumstances.’ If the teacher is willing to let this kid slide, then his peers, when trying to slide past the rules, will use this as an excuse also. That’s teaching time an effort wasted as the teacher explains why this call really isn’t worth violating rules for. Don’t count on the kids to have perspective about this one’s actual special circumstances. Better to ban them all from receiving/calling than get have the teachers responsible for judging what is and what isn’t an important call- you’re practically begging for more conflict, and lawsuits, that way.
For your points:
1: ) I would argue that high schools are filled with people that will, for the most part, act like adults if treated like adults. If you have citations that suggest that teenagers don’t respond well to being treated as adults, I’d love to see it, as it contradicts what I have seen in my teenage years.
2: ) This is certainly true; the abstract nature of the message board makes several issues that teachers must deal with (fistfights, for example) moot. However, in cases where the is no physical danger to any student, and the only thing being threatened is ‘good order’, why not take time to consult, make a decision, and so forth? Why is it assumed that decisions (such as ‘Can this student use his cell phone now?’) must be made immediately? Of course, this approach would render the question moot in many cases, but it would also create a greater focus on actualy respect for the rules, instead of respect for a teacher’s snap judgement call.
3: ) This is also not technically true; the school can choose to expel the student, and the student can choose to drop out of school. However, both of these options are complex, difficult, and carry with them certain stigmas. I do not see why this is a factor, however. Why does mandatory attendence require a strict and arbitrary code of rules?
There were a number of cases in which a poster is logged out and could not log back in. Since they cannot contact the moderators without logging in, they created an account, contacted the moderators, and requested a password reset.
Now, I cannot think of a case in which someone would create a second account and post with it continually, and not be up to no good. However, it’s a wide world; I’m quite sure that if you let me torture a few hypotheticals long enough, I could probably come up with one. If there was such a case, why shouldn’t the second account be permitted?
Sock puppets are not banned because they are in and of themselves evil. In fact, I’ll bet that the mods would be thrilled at an influx of paying trolls, each with multiple paid accounts. Sock puppetry is bad because it is almost always used as a form of deception, and with our paying board, fraud as well.
One final question: if a rule set is enforced stringently and violations punished consistently, do you think that the operative goal in most people’s minds will become “Obey the large set of complex and arbitrary rules”, or “Don’t get caught”?
A: From a nakedly classical-conditioning standpoint, this is not a bad thing. If a person can’t be sure with what or if he will be punished for an action, then he can’t perform a risk-benefit analysis.
B: What’s wrong with just letting the student step outside, complete their phone call, and determining after class has concluded whether or not it was a valid reason?
C: Why shouldn’t we count on kids to have perspective? Some will try to abuse privelages, yes, but some kids will simply ignore the rules if they feel they have no other option.
D: Also, why shouldn’t we trust the teachers?
Is this simply a pragmatic issue from the perspective of a school which wants to prevent lawsuits, or do you honestly believe that this kind of system produces the best results?
So then you be ok if the for some wild and crazy reason, your wife despite the rules, answered her cell and the principle grabbed the phone from her? You would be ok with after the principle grabbed the phone and your wife explained, even cussed that it was important that she speaks with you, that they not allow her to do so?
Or is your wife to blame because she realized that you wouldn’t have called her on the cell, unless you had a damn good reason and should’ve ignored your call? Or does the reason not matter, only the rule?
Assuming that all of these things are true, why would I call her on a cell? There’s perhaps a 2% chance that she has both left it on and it’s in a place where she can hear it (not in the car or locked in a closet). Then, assuming she hears it, she makes the call whether or not to answer it- and guess what? She has, in the past, shut off her phone when it rang because she was not in a situation where she could talk to me. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. If I want to talk to her, I will, being a reasonable human, call her in the manner where I am sure to talk to her.
I’ve been in a ditch on the side of the road after a car crash, and I’ve called her at school and had them page her. I just don’t see the big deal about the rule. Presumably everyone involved was aware of it beforehand.
I just don’t see where your hypothetical comes into play. Just like wondering if, for some crazy reason, I haul off and punch someone because I get mad at them, I got mad because criminal law should not apply to me.
From the rest of the crap in your post, I would have to assume you’re not a very good teacher. My son goes to school in Plano. I can only hope that he never has you as one of his teachers.
A few days a week , I work in a jail where I am not even permitted to bring a cellphone. The rules say that if I do bring the phone in, it will be confiscated and not returned. I suppose it’s possible that if I were caught with the phone, or even talking on it, I might be permitted to just take the phone out to my car. But I guarantee that if I refuse to hang up, or start yelling and cursing, no matter who is on the phone, I will be lucky if all that happens is that my phone is confiscated.
And if for some reason, I am expecting an important call at a particular time there is no reason that I cannot make arrangements in advance. The fact that the call came during the student’s lunch period suggests to me that the call didn’t completely come out of the blue.
My opinions (and I suspect most of those who seem to have similar attitudes as mine) about the student have mostly been formed about what happened in the office…among several administrators…not so much about the initial encounter (except to respond to other folk’s earlier absolute “CERTAINTY” about how poor Kevin was unfairly treated by the big bad teacher)
Even the simple “using a cell phone during school hours” is not a big deal in my book. (Nor is it a big deal in the minds of the school…as the NYT piece points out…the big nasty punishment for using a cell phone would have been have it taken for the day and returned to him at the end of the day…HOW CRUEL!! It appears from the rest of the story (although I can’t guarantee this) that the administrators probably would have been willing to work something out for future scenarios like the one that happened in the hallway.
I find it interesting that you’re deliberately choosing to misrepresent my position with statements like “know all the facts” or “EVERY TINY NIT IS KNOWN”…it’s almost as if you’d rather misrepresent what I’m actually saying than consider the possibility that you could have done something else…something BESIDES knowing ALL of the facts and EVERY TINY NIT.
I’ll take this opportunity to thank Little Nemo for bringing up the election of 2004…because that provides a PERFECT example for what I’m talking about. The media made a conscious decision to change the way that they reported the outcome of the election on 2004. Why? Because they were so eager to rush to judgement in declaring a winner in 2000…that they became a laughingstock.
Of course in your world…the ONLY other alternative for 2004 would be for the media to wait for EVERY SINGLE VOTE in EVERY SINGLE DISTRICT (knowing ALL of the facts, knowing EVERY TINY NIT doncha know )to be counted before judging who the winner was in 2004. Amazingly enough, they found a reasonable alternative to either extreme.
Funny that.
(yeah I know that the SDMB isn’t the media…that this is a message board, but sloppy & hasty judgements happen everywhere, so I think it’s legitimate to use other examples to make a point).
Administrators create these policies so that they won’t be required to use judgment or defend their decisions. IMO, if they don’t want those responsibilities, they should be treated as the sort of employees who aren’t expected to do anything beyond the routine (e.g. they should be paid minimum wage and wear uniform shirts with HI MY NAME IS… tags).
Which makes it even more strange that the teacher felt it was necessary to make a grab for the phone.
I think you are just supporting the teacher’s actions out of habit. I doubt you, or most of the others supporting the teacher, would actually make a grab for the phone in a similar situation.
Would you?
I can understand punishing the student for talking on the phone. What I can’t understand is how it possibly became necessary to forcibly disconnect the student from his mother and then refuse to let him answer when she called back and chastised him for “hanging up.”
Whoa, no one’s talking about criminal law or Jail or the Ebola virus, let’s try to keep some perspective here. There’s a difference between not allowing phones in a prison and not allowing phones in a school because you’re afraid students will text message each other the answers. C’mon, bring it down a notch.
The student and his parent screwed up, I’m not saying they didn’t. In a perfect world, they would have informed the school; in a perfect world the school would’ve known the student’s mother was away and made plans for him. It’s not a perfect world and because the student and parent didn’t make plans, doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be allowed human decency of contact which may be the last time they speak and it’ll be another month before it comes again. It’s not a Jail, it’s not CIA; it’s a high school.
I’m sorry, but I don’t see it as a sign of weakness to pull the kid over to side of the wall, let him finish the call or after the disconnect, make sure he speaks to his mother and then suspend him for breaking the rules and the cussing. This isn’t a binary, you can do both.
IMO the problem wasn’t the grabbing of the phone, but the second missed call. That shouldn’t have happened.
And you didn’t answer my question, are you ok with the principle grabbing the phone from your wife in the 0.0001% chance she answered the phone? There’s a difference between her chosing not to and being forbidden from. Are you ok with the school physically preventing your wife from answering her phone?
Here to start out, is some trivia. When it is 12 noon in Georgia, it is 8PM in Iraq. So that would be a realistic time for the mother to be able to place a call after her duty hours. Any earlier, and class gets disrupted. Any later and class gets disrupted. Fast forward to after school, 4PM in Georgia. That would be what – midnight in Baghdad, probably too late to call, after a busy day of getting shot at and blown up. Given the time difference, the call was placed at what I would call a reasonable time (if I had all the facts). Confiscating the cell phone may make it impossible for any future contact to take place, given the time difference (that may or may not be a fact).
**I have said repeatedly that I had no problem with the suspension given for the outbursts in the office after the initial encounter. ** Keep ignoring that point.
On to other things. We had one self described “prison hack” say he knows when to bend the rules for a special case. We just had another who says she can not take any calls at all unless they are prearranged. I wonder if that includes a call from some hospital to tell you your entire family was just in a train wreck. Sorry, the call wasn’t predeclared. So we have two people who work in prisons that have two different outlooks. But, to cut to the chase, schools are not supposed to be prisons (yet).
Now let’s look at the subject of rules vs. judgment or rules vs. common sense. I know two people may apply common sense, and somehow come up with a different answer. However, it may still be far more fitting than sticking to the “letter of the law”. Anyone who is not capable or willing to use discretion when it should be used, has no business dealing with other people, in any capacity.
Finally, if a rule or law is in place, then the people who make that rule and the people who are expected to enforce it should understand it well enough to explain it – it’s not a waste of time and if the explanation is right, it may prevent future problems. It’s teaching at it’s most basic. If the teacher is not capable of using judgment, then I for one would not want them having any responsibility for the education, safety or welfare of anyone else. We may as well replace the teachers with computers, tape recorders and video machines, or drop their pay down to minimum wage, since they are giving up the responsibility. “Better to ban them all” is (I’m sorry for this) just lazy. It ignores the very real things that happen in real life. It sounds too much like wanting to wield power over someone without having to think or take responsibility. Saying we must crush everyone equally (my choice of words to make a point) to prevent others from gaming the system is laziness too. Better to puke on everyone, than to ever have to make a decision.
Ever see the movie Judge Dredd? In it’s own comicbook way, it addresses the same issues. Dredd believes in absloute devotion to the letter of the law, with no provisons for extenuating circumstances of any sort. No exceptions. His opinion changes drastically, as he begins to realize it isn’t always so, and he is himself directly affected.
But, I see many of you aren’t getting what I’ve been saying. Who is more stubborn, you guys or me? You don’t have to say Steve is right, you don’t have to agree. Just admit that there is some sense in what I say and let it go at that. After all, I’ve at various times been a rule breaker and an enforcer of rules, so I can see both sides of the coin. I’ve let people slide, because their situation or need outweighed the need to uphold all rules at all times. Sometimes even if all the facts were not known, gut feeling, common sense, or past history were enough to go on, and the world didn’t end.
Holmes got my point. It is all about Human Decency.
A principall physically prevented me from leaving a classroom once and lived to regret his decision.
Teachers are legally responsible for their students whether they are inside the classroom or outside in the hallway. The teacher has no way of knowing if the student is being truthful (as most students are) or dishonest. Trusting one student and not another is unfair. Must I allow the young man who was on the news last night for selling crack step outside to make a phone call? Yes, he’s back in class. What if twelve students want to step outside to make phone calls? Probably one of the reasons for not allowing calls is to prevent disruption.
School administrators are not legally responsible for teachers. But they can do more than just suspend you for disobeying their rules. They can write you up for insubordination. That is one of the things you can be fired for even if you are tenured. (It isn’t likely to happen for just one incident, but it would really look bad on your record forever.) That is a fair response from the administration and much more serious than having a phone taken out of your hand.
Rules for teachers are enforced more strictly than rules for students.
I agree that most high school students do act like adults. But all it takes is one or two students in any classroom to create a chaotic situation.
I believe that a strong administrator should have clear rules which are enforced under most circumstances. But there are extenuating circumstances sometimes that need to be considered. The administrator should document exceptions carefully and be prepared to back up these exceptions to any superiors. Others who think it is somehow their business should be told only that “there were extenuating circumstances and that if they have further questions they can take it up at a higher level.”
That gives the parents an option, but it establishes the authority of the school administrator. As long as the exceptions are at a minimum, the students generally will not cry foul very often.
a strong administrator should have clear rules which are enforced under most circumstances. But there are extenuating circumstances sometimes that need to be considered. The administrator should document exceptions carefully and be prepared to back up these exceptions to any superiors.
Bolding mine. This allows for control to be maintained, and yet allows for flexibility to do what is reasonable. It allows them to make decisions, because after all, if they are unable or unwilling to take charge and make those decisions, and instead fall back on “rules are rules”, then they didn’t belong in that position to begin with.
There is a difference between “allowing” something and not using every measure at your disposal to stop it.
In the case of your drug dealing pupil, if you tell him he is not allowed to make a call, and that he will be punished if he does, what more does the school expect you to do?
Are you honestly telling me you will be punished by the school if you fail to initiate a physical confrontation with a drug dealer?
What if the drug dealer is way bigger than you? If this policy is true, you would think schools would be recruiting bouncers from the local bar to work as teachers.
If school rules require teachers to initiate physical confrontations with students over phone calls (and I’m not convinced they do), then the rules need to be changed.
Try reading the whole post instead of cherry picking something out of context.
The simple act of talking on the cell phone during school hours…gets the cell phone taken away until the end of the day. NOT A HUGE DEAL
Acting defiantly/swearing toward the teacher (and apparently not bothering to tell teacher about the extenuating circumstances that other posters have said should earn him a pass): becoming more of a big deal.
The teacher did NOT grab the phone just because it was in use…he/she grabbed the phone AFTER Kevin made the choice to become defiant…not explain the situation and swear at the teacher. At this point the teacher apparently grabbed the phone and referred the matter to the office…to someone who is paid to (and has the time to) deal with the matter in detail.
Perhaps it’d be nice if the teacher had the time to try and calm Kevin down and have a nice conversation about his emotions and feelings and who was on the phone…and “gee Kevin, next time could you pretty pretty please not call me a motherfucker?”. However, I’m guessing that the teacher…I dunno…maybe, this might come as a shock…had a class of 30 to teach down the hallway?
At this point we’re up to a 3 day suspension…follow me so far? Now continuing the defiant behavior…refusing to STOP swearing in the future and refusing to NOT use the cell phone in public in the future: Now we’re up to 10 days…obviously a bigger deal. (This 10 day suspension later got reduced to the original 3days).
It appears from the rest of the story (although I can’t guarantee this) that the administrators probably would have been willing to work something out for future scenarios like the one that happened in the hallway.