It’s a good thing I had the foresight to burn all of the poetry I wrote during my adolescent-angst phase, otherwise I might be in the same sort of situation. What the hell are they thinking? It's poetry (however bad), and it's one of the privileges of being a teenager. Writing lousy “I Hate The World And The World Hates Me” type stuff is par for the course isn't it? I can see how such a poem would arouse concern, but not to the point that criminal charges are necessary. The problem, though, is that, post-Columbine, a precedent has been set in schools that says that anything which seems like it may result in violence should be treated as concrete evidence that violence is forth-coming. Point a finger at a teacher and it could be construed as representing a gun and, much more sinisterly, your intention to kill that teacher. Figurative language and behavior has been lost in the place where we learn what "figurative" means, all due to a climate of fear. The knee-jerk "pitch him in jail" attitude, I believe, benefits no one. How about a little counseling, or an interview by a psychiatrist to determine whether his poem really constituted a threat. A lot of teens harbor violent fantasies but are nevertheless non-violent. I think what was done will only heighten the boy's alienation without doing anything to ameliorate it. Nobody wants to be the guy who saw the "warning signs" and didn't do anything. That said, most people are morons. :m: Peace.
But especially peoples of other nations who think, for some reason, that they are beyond reproach. Anyway, I have to agree with goofyfish on this one, it's completely outrageous. I have to admit that after columbine, while I was still in high-school I had written some angsty prose which amounted to justification of what happened at columbine, it's just what disgruntled teens do. I even handed it in as an assignment for my English class, but oddly enough never got reprimanded for it, my theory on that is that the teacher didn't actually read it and, like in most of my other English classes, she just gave me an A for the assignment. I remember distinctly, though that after the columbine incident I was hauled down to the principals office and essentially interrogated by two of the vice principals for about an hour because I associated with a girl who normally wore a black trench coat. She herself had been suspended, regardless of the fact that ever since columbine she had switched to wearing this ugly pink trench coat to avoid such hassles. Anyway I guess this isn't really surprising, and I don't really consider any of this to be a result of columbine, I think it just displays a long standing theory of mine which, if believed and lived by, I'm sure will never steer you wrong in life: School administrators are by far the dumbest people on the planet.
Haven't you noticed that most of our teachers were the ones that partied college away, then didn't know what else to do with thier lives so became teachers. It seems like all the smart people don't want to teach but the ignorant ones for some reason want to. It pisses me off, cause it seems everywhere you turn the wrong people are in charge. THE WRONG PEOPLE CONTROL THE WORLD. Ignorant people are corrupting the minds of our children. Few escape with their identities intact.
Well really, the big problem is that the wrong people are in charge of educating our children. It's gotten such that the public schooling system is something that an individual can't take advantage of, but instead it is a situation which one must learn to rise above if they wish to end up becoming a healthy and successful person later in life. It’s sad that this is our children and young adults first views of the “real” world. High-school administrators with idiotic codes of rules, and ridged policies which amount to “do what I say because I’m authority and that means I’m the boss of you without question!” It certainly doesn’t make for very inspired individuals, part of high-school seems like breaking a students spirit before sending him off to college or the working world. One particular instance that I’m thinking of as I write this is my Sr. year of high-school in which in my schedule I had a class at on end of campus, and then my next class all the way at the other end of campus (I was at a fairly new school with a campus that is actually larger than that of the university I am attending. They like to build ‘em very big and open in Arizona). As a result of this scheduling setup, and due to the fact that the class I had first required a lot of clean up which often took place after the bell rung, I was consistently around thirty seconds late to my next class, despite my best efforts to be on time. As a result of this I eventually got hauled down to the office of the vice principal in charge of discipline and was assigned a detention for having been late so often. I tried to explain my situation, and how I was doing my best to get to class, but of course the principal was deaf to my side of the issue, and just kept talking over me. Of course the situation ended up getting pretty out of hand, when I simply threw out the slip that said I had to stay for detention sometime in the next week, and despite having both teachers from both classes try to talk to the principal (the first instructor confirming that at the end of each class we had to take apart and sort tiny little electronic components and then put them all in the right place, which often took up time after the bell had rung, and the second saying that she didn’t felt my lateness was a problem, as she rarely gets to starting the class around 30 seconds after the bell, anyway) I was still held for detention, anyway, and was assigned two extra detentions for attempting to argue my case. What a healthy environment in which to raise a child! What exactly was the moral that I was supposed to take away from that whole experience? Arbitrary rules of the established authority are unquestionable, and reason and logic will never do you any good, and in fact are useless. All that can be expected from me is complete blind and unquestioning obedience, and if my situation happens to exist in a world outside of that which was in mind when the rules were made, then I will suffer the consequences of those rules regardless, as the importance of a rule is not the spirit in which it was made, but instead to insure that it is followed to the letter regardless of extenuating circumstances. Not even the American court system is that bad! Ug, I have too much pent up angst regarding high-school, heh.
im glad no american teacher got a hold of my diary i used to write in it all the time that i wanted to kill all of humanity for its crimes and how i wish i had been a scientist working on genology
A thought police circus . . . how awful! I recall back at school one of my friends was a particularly talented artist (he'd do comics and carictaturs). Anyway he made an execise pad book comic porno about some of the less popular teachers at the school. It was totally disguisting but hilarious. (And quite well drawn) Eventually a teacher confiscated it and called him into see the principle who called his parents. He was expelled! Two years later the teacher who pulled him up was convicted of having kiddie porn and was put on 'probation' for the rest of the semester (it would seem they were short staffed) . . . how fucked up is that! :bugeye:
