Posted on 06/05/2002 8:26:08 AM PDT by GSWarrior
"Zero tolerance" is the expression educrats use to describe a policy wherein mindless obedience to dogmatic rules is substituted for common sense. The latest in a long line of idiotic episodes took place on March 22 at Dry Creek Elementary School, where seven fourth-grade boys were disciplined for using their fingers to represent guns in a fantasy game of "army-and-aliens" in the school playground. During their interrogation by Principal Darci Mickle, the boys were asked whether their parents had real guns at home. What she hoped to do with this information is anyone's guess. Finally, Frau Mickle summoned the boy's parents and ordered that the little perps be promptly removed from the school grounds.
Understandably, some of the parents complained about the ham-handed manner in which the whole affair was handled. If they were expecting a rational, accommodating response, much less an apology, they now know better. In the fiefdom of government schools, parents with grievances aren't customers or taxpayers; they're the enemy. It's at times like these that the educrats circle the wagons and cover their collective behinds. Cherry Creek Schools Superintendent Monte Moses has closed the case. Stopping short of directly criticizing Mickle, Moses threw a bone to outraged parents and others, conceding that "in the future" questions about guns at home, "when based on a legitimate safety concern, should be directed to the parents." Obviously, but by whom? Are school clerks now empowered to do police investigations?
Regarding the boys' punishment, Moses said "Perhaps the consequence could have been a simple correction, but I support Mrs. Mickle in directing the students to stop pretending to shoot one another." How about replacing "perhaps" with "certainly"? But his response is still unsatisfying. This is euphemistic eduspeak for: "Mrs. Mickle overreacted. She doesn't understand, or perhaps disapproves of the way little boys play. She allowed her emotions and bureaucratic inflexibility to overwhelm reason and common sense." Don't hold your breath for that kind of candor.
These 10-year-old boys were not using real guns or even toys guns. They were using their index fingers and thumbs. What's next: digit control? You've heard of a schoolchild being punished for bringing a butter knife to school with her lunch in violation of zero-tolerance rules. Should we now suspend little girls for using their fingers as butter knives while playing "house?" Zero tolerance, after all, means zero tolerance.
The boys were playing army and aliens, not Klebold and Harris. In their fantasy, I would imagine the army won. They were defending their country and humanity against an attack of alien life forms from outer space. They were honoring and emulating our nation's soldiers, the ranks of whom might someday include these very boys. This is a good thing, not grounds for punishment.
School officials and apologists have, lately, embellished their account of events. They now claim that the boys were "excessively aggressive" in their play. That the pretend soldiers prodded and kicked the fallen aliens to make sure they were dead, and emptied their finger guns in them to be sure. Sounds to me suspiciously like a damage-control exercise to shore up the educrats' feeble case. One of the boys' parents told me the school said nothing of this in the original account, and that it sounded to him like "making the crime fit the punishment."
Anyone with a grain of common sense sees the idiocy in all this. So why does it happen? Because zero tolerance is a post-Columbine contrivance to protect bureaucrats -- who abhor risk even in the best of times. They believe that failure to overreact to any provocation, real or imagined, leaves them vulnerable to criticism should someone later do actual harm. To educrats, the downside is the grumbling of a few parents, powerless to do much in the insular world of the public-school monopoly. The upside, self-protection, trumps all else.
Get thee to a library and check out John Gatto's Hidden History of American Education.
Everyone might also want to check out Charlotte Taylor Iserbyt's "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America". She was also an education "insider" (on the federal level) and documents EVERYTHING she says in her book. Her web site is http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com . She even explains why schools are no longer letting little boys actually behave like little boys and how the feminazis and sodomites have taken over the public schools.
This is so true. Twenty years ago a friend sat in a parents' orientation for her oldest son going to kindergarten. She summarized the content of the meeting as the school representatives explaining to the parents how the school would now begin "re-raising" their children for them. Today's government-controlled school system is nothing more than a logical outgrowth of what my friend saw 20 years ago.
When a person does wrong to another person and then goes on to understand why what they did was wrong and thus openly acknowledge they were wrong, it is expected in the future that they will be as honest about future errors they make. For they have demonstrated the desire and ability to acknowledge and right their wrongs.
With politicians they almost never openly admit they were wrong, for they don't want to be held by the same future standard that all other people, for the most part, abide. For politicians it has little to do with being perceived as always being right. Instead, it is about avoiding having to show, via their actions, that they have demonstrated the desire and ability to acknowledge and right their wrongs. As often as they do make errors and wrong actions -- either out of ignorance or incompetence -- they desperately want to avoid being held to a standard of honesty and integrity in the future.
Simply put, once a person sincerely demonstrates the ability to be straight-forth, honest and respectful of integrity they have set a standard that others can expect from them in the future. Having done that, consider what transpires when the person later on creates a wrong but chooses not to hold true to his or her previously set standard of honesty and integrity. Onlookers see the person is being outright deceptive or dishonest.
In other words, once a person sets an honest standard for themselves they have to live up to it or the contradiction sticks out like a sore thumb. If and when that happens the person corrects that error. The fact is, most politicians, bureaucrats, media elite and academia elite shut down that very important aspect of character development. They avoid it all together. Else wise they wouldn't be able to look themselves in the mirror. Instead, to cover for their neglect they rely on ethical standards set by a governing body. But the standards set by a governing body, especially when it's bureaucrats setting ethical standards, they too have shut down that important aspect of their character development. Thus the ethical standards the governing body sets is all but void of what you and I and virtually every other person lives by -- the nature of conscious man.
That said, the government officials that are now in office, as well as their predecessors, are among the worst people to have high-ranking-government jobs. Not to mention that most of those jobs wouldn't have existed in the first place if people with a commitment to honesty and integrity ran the government -- people who do not neglect their character development.
Is it any wonder that so much weight is put on the character of a candidates seeking to win elections. The mainstream media is not unlike the politicians in that media elites have also chosen to neglect the same important aspect of character development as they become complicit in covering for their soul-mates in government. Ditto for the academia elite.
Even when politicians and bureaucrats admit they were wrong, in all but the rarest of instances it isn't until so much exposure of their wrong has been leaked out that they eventually admit they were wrong. That admittance of doing wrong has nothing to do with character development. Character development is voluntary and needs no prodding. Least wise not for adults. Prodding adolescents is a different issue and necessary at times. Come to think of it, most politicians and bureaucrats would fail an adolescent character test.
Around the world, governments are run by humanoids. Humanoids that have chosen to neglect their character development. They wield tremendous government power that has been usurped via failed characters -- deceiving the people/tax-payers they are supposed to be protecting. Each humanoid-politician and bureaucrat is several magnitudes more harmful than nearly any violent criminal of the day. They are not like you and I and every other person who lives naturally according to the nature of conscience man.
For more information on the above click 4, 20 and 26 from the thread titled: Threats to rule of law in America Walter Williams warns government meddling in private dealings
Pardon my fat-fingers - make that "also want to check out Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America".
A moment's silence. Then, "I see it! Give me the umbrella!!"
Me: "Ok, why?"
"I need to shoot it."
Careful aim; "kershoo."
I don't even know where that game came from, but when in need, an umbrella makes a perfectly serviceable gun. We proceeded to annihilate most of the big game at the zoo. I suppose I am lucky not to be in jail today.
My son has just gone into the public skool system in 9th grade; he had to take "proficency" tests a couple of weeks ago. On parent/teacher night, I inquired with his English teacher about the "grading" of the writing portion of his test.
She told me that it is a mystery (to her and others on the staff) exactly how they are graded; it is after all somewhat subjective. She clued me in that compositions should not involve "guns, bombs, war, killing or hunting, and any reference to God."
What strikes me the most about that comment (meant with all good intention) is the fact that other than sports, these are the mainstay topics of the news, drama shows and video games. Saturate their brains with this information, but don't let them write about it...
Do correct me if I am in error, but I believe the Department of Education was the first thing W increased spending on.
Wonderful. The courts are still hashing that one out.
Remember Article One, Section One of the Constitution?
Education is not a function of the Executive branch; on that we may agree.
Dubya is supposed to uphold that document my f.FRiend.
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