I wasn’t quiet sure whether or no to put this in the Pit or here, but I chose here because I don’t think it’s much of a rant really, but if it gets moved, I understand.
I heard about this on the radio today Magazine’s swimsuit issue gets boy suspended
about a boy who got 3 days suspension from school for bringing in a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
He was originally offered 2 days at an alternative school (for trouble makers) but when he refused (and his mother backed him up) he got the 3 days instead.
While I can understand the school having and enforcing standards, I have to completely agree with his mother
This, along with stories of “Zero Tolerance” policies, like suspending kids with water pistols, for example, make me real glad that I’m not in school (except for a few college courses I take every now and then.)
So, do any of you agree with this punishment? I ask about the Zero Tolerance punishments, but it’s been made pretty clear by most of you that you don’t. Neither do I, and I don’t agree with this punishment either.
This is the swimsuit issue that brags about 10 pages of body painting on the cover. AKA all nude! Not all that innocent, and we all know it’s used for exactly the same thing as Playboy by a 12 year old boy.
Hmmm, the article mentions that the school has a policy against lewd or offensive material, but it doesn’t mention what steps were taken to inform students of the policy. If the kid was not aware of it, then I would say that he should be let off with a lesser punishment and a warning to never do it again.
The mothers comment, though, doesn’t move me very much. I never understood the argument that a magazine with pictures of naked women in seductive poses will cause the downfall of western civilization, but a magazine with pictures of almost naked women in seductive poses is entirely harmless. As far as I’m concerned parents should have the right to determine what their children see and when, but an adult should know better than to let their child take an SI swimsuit issue to school.
That’s ridiculous. What happened to the parents being the primary educators? “Last time he checked” indeed. If I were the mother, I would begin looking for another school.
Without actually seeing the material in the Sports Illustrated issue, I can’t tell you whether or not I think the punishment was undue. When I was a kid, they’d confiscate the magazine, and then beat the crap out of you. If I’d had the choice of three days in boring but non-painful alternative school, I’d have pounced on it.
The school didn’t say it was morally wrong for the kid to have the magazine. I don’t think I’d be terribly upset if my 13 year-old son bought the issue, but I’d damn sure be upset if he brought it to school and had it out for someone to catch him. In my experience, schools don’t generally about enough about students having prohibited items such as cell phones, magazines, Pokemon cards, etc enough to search for them. Kids get in trouble when they are out on display. School isn’t the place to look at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue any more than the wall behind my office mate’s desk is the place for the photos from it to be posted. And my son at 13 is old enough to know that.
Well, the mother did say that it was inappropriate, so I don’t think that she knew he brought it.
And while I don’t have any problem with schools setting and enforcing their own decency codes, 2 days in a school for problem kids, or 3 days suspension??? I mean, come on, the punishment does not “fit the crime”, it far exceeds it.
And your point being? I truly don’t think that this kid was bringing the Magazine in to demonstrate his, uh technique.
***enter, American Morality Union … * **
Whaddaya mean NUDE!? And that on sale on an open news-rack! Nakedness! In MY Country! I’ll have no truck with it!! Where’s my GUN!
***exit, American Morality Union … * **
I have always failed to see how being given a day off from school is considered ‘punishment’.
I think it’s basically the ‘battered housewife’ syndrome. The husband (in this case, the school system) puts up with crap from his boss all day (IOW, real school problems like drugs or violence). He can’t seem to do anything about his boss so he takes it out on his wife when he gets home (ie - they punish some kid for some random and seamingly insignificant infraction).
Also I find this quote interesting:
"Swarr said he had never seen SI’s swimsuit edition before. "
How, over the course of 40 years of SI swimsuit issues, does a normal person never see one? And this is the type of person we have running our schools?
In my experience, school punishments never fit the crime.
You either have wild overreactions like this, or you have cases of students who are demonstratively violent being returned to class with their victims after a too-short course of punishment.
Just last year, my brother, who is a teacher, was told he couldn’t do anything about a knife one of his students was carrying. This despite a supposed zero-tolerance policy, and violent behavior demonstrated by this student in the past.
He was told that since it was a folding knife with less than a three-inch blade, it wasn’t considered a weapon. Confronting the student about it would be in conflict with his individualized education plan (Said student is considered special ed.)
This knife would be confiscated in any airport in the country, but it’s being toted around the halls of a southwestern Pennsylvania high school by a violent juvenile delinquent. And there’s nothing anybody, apparantly, has the guts to do about it.
My twins are only fifteen months old, but I can already hear the Catholic schools beckoning.
I don’t understand how school officials one the one hand act as if they are all powerful one minute and then as if they have no control over anything the next. Like I said - battered housewives. They are unwilling to go after the real problem kids so they jump on the relatively benign at the slightest infraction.
Of course, a lot of it depends on the teacher. I remember some teachers who were “cool”. You could go visit them if you had study hall or hang out in their classroom. Then you had others who would chase you for miles if they thought you didn’t have a hall pass after the bell.
You are indeed wise. I got in trouble when I was in high school because I skipped class a lot. My punishment? Getting suspended. I found it very amusing that the punishment for me not going to school was to not allow me to go to school.
We have become a society where punishments often do more harm than the actual offense. The thing I always harp on is drugs, but this situation with schools is another good example. Which is more damaging? Bringing a SI swimsuit issue to school or not allowing the child to go to school for three days? It’s pretty clear to me.
In my mind, an appropriate punishment would be to confiscate the magazine, make sure the child understands not to do it again, and inform his parents. If it was repeat offense, maybe detention would be warranted.
I don’t know what officials this would refer to. But my brother, as a teacher, had no choice at all.
If he took the knife away from this kid, unless the kid was actually in the act of carving somebody up, it was made very clear to my brother that he could be fired.
The reason the punishments don’t fit the crime is because the schools are run by beaurocrats who have to answer to insane parents. That’s why.
In high school my good friend got suspended for three days because he distributed an “underground newspaper” that showed how to tie a noose, and pictures of some people who hung themselves. By accident they may have gotten that punishment right. As a retaliation, I pulled some pictures out of the school yearbook that included a teacher who had a noose hanging from his projector screen, where he was pretending that he was hanging from it. They suspended me for distributing obscene materials!!! When the vice-principal found out that ALL the pictures that I had used came from our own high school yearbook, he changed my absence to a “medical leave” and my mom took me out to lunch and shopping for the day!
Ah, the bold illogic of high school. How I hated it.
As someone who’s seen it, I’m not surprised the kid was suspended. The body paint does look incredibly real, but if you look close enough you can see nipple.
And we all know what accidentally seeing a nipple can do to you. coughJanet Jacksoncough
I should hasten to add that three days suspension is way too much. Why not just take it away and refuse to give it back? Put it in the teacher’s lounge. Sure, the kid will probably just buy another, but he’ll either not bring it to school or he’ll hide it better if he does.
There are about 100 things the story doesn’t mention that would go into the decision for punishment.
What was the boy doing with the magazine. Looking at it quietly? Showing it around making rude remarks?
What was his response when it was taken away? Chastised and respectful or disrespectful and combative?
So he and his mother didn’t think two days in alternative school was appropriate. Did they offer some sort of suggestion about what they thought might be appropriate?
Did the boy have a history of causing problems or was it a first offense?
In my school district, the school sends home a copy of its code of conduct, and both students and parents are supposed to sign it. Even the mother said the boy shouldn’t have taken the magazine to school. So her suggestion would be…?