OK, I'm taking the other side on this one. Sounds kind of dumb, but hardly the sort of traveshamockery that merits this kind of description:
Weiler called the school's actions "bullying" and "an abuse of power," adding, "This person came into a school and used her power to humiliate and embarrass children and I think we ought to draw a line and say that’s not acceptable behavior."
Call me a mean, heartless individual, but are we really characterizing a normal life lesson (if you don't pay your bills, you don't get the product anyway) with "bullying and abuse of power"?
And we wonder why the country's in the state it's in.
Yes, this could have been handled more tactfully. At the same time, the outrage seems a bit overwrought to me. Growing up, I can remember plenty of times kids didn't get to go on field trips b/c their parents didn't send in the money or kids were singled out not to get some-thing-or-other because their parents hadn't paid at school.
I never had any expectation that my kids would get something for nothing, either. Forget your lunch money or lunch, go hungry.
Apparently in Utah as in Georgia the school is in fact obligated to feed them whether they pay or not. Kids aren't to blame for their parents not paying the bill; plus there's a public charge to teach these kids something that might help them rise out of poverty some day, and your brain doesn't work well without some basic food.
Now, the school can (for reasons of conserving taxpayer money) feed them an "alternative lunch" if they don't pay past a certain point. The alternative lunch here is a cheese sandwich and milk, every day, which has the disadvantage for the child of marking them out as poor (as well as being very boring). There it's apparently a piece of fruit and some milk.
Here, though, there's not even the excuse of saving money. These morons were throwing away food they couldn't reuse, just to make the point. The humiliation of having to eat the alternative lunch may be unavoidable, but the sadistic waste -- destroying taxpayer resources by throwing them away, and then spending extra money to give the kid the alternative lunch -- is a kind of pure example of what we despise about government.
An aside: our local school system has embarked on a test program to feed every child who wants it breakfast for free (i.e., at taxpayer expense). They're under the impression that school test scores will improve, and educational outcomes generally, if the poor kids aren't starving. The school sees it as part of the mission of the school to make sure the students are physically in a condition to learn.
I think that's a very defensible policy, even though it means they're getting something for nothing. After all, we're spending a lot of money to educate them; it could be we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot to scrimp on a necessary condition to them being able to learn. It could be that, for that small additional investment, we could avoid wasting the vast fortunes we're spending trying to educate them.
In any case, I will be interested to see how the test program's results look.
Refusing to give them lunch if they didn't have any credit on their accounts wouldn't have bothered me. But to serve them, then confiscate the food after the fact, only to throw it away? That just seems spiteful. If it's so important to impress on the kids that they can't order food without a credit, I should think they'd check the credit balance first--otherwise, they ought to let them run a tab for a day or two. The card's right there to make the debit transaction easy and convenient.
Well, I don't know. I suppose it's very much like a kid that goes all the way through the line, then discovers to his embarrassment at the cash register that he doesn't have any cash in his wallet after all. Would the cashier require him to either borrow a couple of bucks from a buddy, or throw the food in the trash? Maybe so.
Did the kids who couldn't go on the field trip get put on the bus and then had to get off again?
Actually, that happened to me. And I wasn't traumatized by it :p I didn't need counseling.
I agree (and already stipulated) that this wasn't handled correctly. There's no real question about that - taking the food and throwing it away makes absolutely no sense. I don't disagree with Eric, here:
That's just fucking wrong, wasteful, and thoroughly incompetent.
I just don't get the references to "bullying" (seriously?). The Internet is so hyperbolic sometimes. Everything's an outrage, and that sort of exaggeration tends to have the opposite effect on me (the war on women shtick, the war on men shtick, the scarred for life shtick - I just don't have much patience for it).
I think the better takeaway here is- "What the government gives, the government can take away."
Yep. And I don't think it's wise to encourage any parent to rely on the government for things they are duty-bound to do for their own children. All that does is help parents rationalize their own negligence.
"It's OK that I didn't feed my kid. *Someone will do it."
No matter what policies are in place, some parents will always be neglectful or abusive. There are remedies for that, though people tend not to want to avail themselves of them. Sometimes the remedy isn't much better than the problem it is intended to solve.
I don't know what we do about this. Maybe all public schools should assume responsibility for making sure kids are fed, but I'm having trouble seeing that as a legitimate core function. I don't really know the right answer.
What's more, it's been a long time since anyone presented convincing evidence of starvation in American schoolchildren. I know the arguments about how obese children are "really" starving because they're eating bad calories, but I don't find any of that convincing. The kids have enough calories. It's the other deficiencies that are bringing them down: bad parents, bad schools, and cultures that are deeply hostile to scholarship.
That might be an argument against feeding them at all, Cass; in fact, it's an argument against mandatory education.
As long as we require them by law to turn up at school for long hours every day (regardless of their or their parents' wishes), I think we have an obligation to feed them if their parents won't or can't. Otherwise, we have to cut them loose to feed themselves -- like Huck Finn, I suppose, spending the day fishing or working. It might be a better use of their time.
Not that I object to turning them loose instead of using the schools as unionized government-sponsored daycare, but I seriously doubt the kids are undernourished as a result of being stuck at school. They're not undernourished at all, except intellectually.
I seriously doubt the kids are undernourished as a result of being stuck at school. They're not undernourished at all, except intellectually.
Pretty much sums it up. Another government program aimed at a problem that doesn't appear to exist.
And I don't feel sorry for kids being educated. Try getting a driver's license if you can't even read. Or a job. Of course I suppose it's just barely possible that parents who (supposedly) can't be bothered to feed their own children will make sure they read every day.
I can be induced to feel sorry for their being incarcerated in a useless school instead of being allowed to put their time to better use (including the task of actually becoming educated)--but I'd never feel sorry for someone just because he was put to the necessity of acquiring an education.
Even very bad schools have books that are worth reading. I was bored for years in school, but I read everything I could get my hands on. That's what I've never understood about folks complaining about public schools - if you *want* to learn, no one can really stop you.
But if you expect your kid to be spoon fed an education (as so many parents appear to do these days)... well, that never works anyway. I suspect that's the single biggest problem with schools - the kids don't really want to learn and too many of their parents don't value education either.
*sigh*
/climbing off flying broom and brushing a few flying monkeys off my back
It used to drive my teachers crazy when I read books in class. I would have been awfully happy if they'd let me wear earplugs through most of the classes and get some work done.
Oh, I laughed when I read that, Tex, because I would have been perfectly happy that way! Thing is, I would have gathered much knowledge, but I don't think I would have had the discipline to exercise it in practice enough. Maybe I'm wrong though.
Being allowed to read was what I wanted only in the boring classes. Once I got to accelerated classes in high school, I was very happy to have the instruction. I had some good teachers then, and a pace that kept me on my toes. That goes triple for university.
But golly, I wouldn't mind having back all the time they wasted for me from second through eighth grade. Noisy babysitting was all it usually was--and yet these were quite good schools as public schools go. I once had a chance to spend a day in classes with a friend in a school just one district over: a real nightmare of idiotic classes and barbed wire. The idea of being stuck in one of the failing schools we read about now is like the ninth circle of hell. As Dr. Johnson (I think) said of sea cruises: prison with a chance of drowning.
Monopolies=no competition=crummy product, with exceptions here and there created by teachers whose professionalism overcomes all these trends.
19 comments:
Got to wonder about the so-called thought process.
OK, I'm taking the other side on this one. Sounds kind of dumb, but hardly the sort of traveshamockery that merits this kind of description:
Weiler called the school's actions "bullying" and "an abuse of power," adding, "This person came into a school and used her power to humiliate and embarrass children and I think we ought to draw a line and say that’s not acceptable behavior."
Call me a mean, heartless individual, but are we really characterizing a normal life lesson (if you don't pay your bills, you don't get the product anyway) with "bullying and abuse of power"?
And we wonder why the country's in the state it's in.
Yes, this could have been handled more tactfully. At the same time, the outrage seems a bit overwrought to me. Growing up, I can remember plenty of times kids didn't get to go on field trips b/c their parents didn't send in the money or kids were singled out not to get some-thing-or-other because their parents hadn't paid at school.
I never had any expectation that my kids would get something for nothing, either. Forget your lunch money or lunch, go hungry.
Apparently in Utah as in Georgia the school is in fact obligated to feed them whether they pay or not. Kids aren't to blame for their parents not paying the bill; plus there's a public charge to teach these kids something that might help them rise out of poverty some day, and your brain doesn't work well without some basic food.
Now, the school can (for reasons of conserving taxpayer money) feed them an "alternative lunch" if they don't pay past a certain point. The alternative lunch here is a cheese sandwich and milk, every day, which has the disadvantage for the child of marking them out as poor (as well as being very boring). There it's apparently a piece of fruit and some milk.
Here, though, there's not even the excuse of saving money. These morons were throwing away food they couldn't reuse, just to make the point. The humiliation of having to eat the alternative lunch may be unavoidable, but the sadistic waste -- destroying taxpayer resources by throwing them away, and then spending extra money to give the kid the alternative lunch -- is a kind of pure example of what we despise about government.
An aside: our local school system has embarked on a test program to feed every child who wants it breakfast for free (i.e., at taxpayer expense). They're under the impression that school test scores will improve, and educational outcomes generally, if the poor kids aren't starving. The school sees it as part of the mission of the school to make sure the students are physically in a condition to learn.
I think that's a very defensible policy, even though it means they're getting something for nothing. After all, we're spending a lot of money to educate them; it could be we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot to scrimp on a necessary condition to them being able to learn. It could be that, for that small additional investment, we could avoid wasting the vast fortunes we're spending trying to educate them.
In any case, I will be interested to see how the test program's results look.
Sorry Cass, you're just wrong here.
Did the kids who couldn't go on the field trip get put on the bus and then had to get off again?
If you don't want to feed the kids whose parents didn't pay, well, ok, but issuing the food and then taking it away and throwing it out?
That's just fucking wrong, wasteful, and thoroughly incompetent.
Refusing to give them lunch if they didn't have any credit on their accounts wouldn't have bothered me. But to serve them, then confiscate the food after the fact, only to throw it away? That just seems spiteful. If it's so important to impress on the kids that they can't order food without a credit, I should think they'd check the credit balance first--otherwise, they ought to let them run a tab for a day or two. The card's right there to make the debit transaction easy and convenient.
Well, I don't know. I suppose it's very much like a kid that goes all the way through the line, then discovers to his embarrassment at the cash register that he doesn't have any cash in his wallet after all. Would the cashier require him to either borrow a couple of bucks from a buddy, or throw the food in the trash? Maybe so.
Did the kids who couldn't go on the field trip get put on the bus and then had to get off again?
Actually, that happened to me. And I wasn't traumatized by it :p I didn't need counseling.
I agree (and already stipulated) that this wasn't handled correctly. There's no real question about that - taking the food and throwing it away makes absolutely no sense. I don't disagree with Eric, here:
That's just fucking wrong, wasteful, and thoroughly incompetent.
I just don't get the references to "bullying" (seriously?). The Internet is so hyperbolic sometimes. Everything's an outrage, and that sort of exaggeration tends to have the opposite effect on me (the war on women shtick, the war on men shtick, the scarred for life shtick - I just don't have much patience for it).
I think the better takeaway here is- "What the government gives, the government can take away."
That what they did was stupid is pretty obvious.
I think the better takeaway here is- "What the government gives, the government can take away."
Yep. And I don't think it's wise to encourage any parent to rely on the government for things they are duty-bound to do for their own children. All that does is help parents rationalize their own negligence.
"It's OK that I didn't feed my kid. *Someone will do it."
No matter what policies are in place, some parents will always be neglectful or abusive. There are remedies for that, though people tend not to want to avail themselves of them. Sometimes the remedy isn't much better than the problem it is intended to solve.
I don't know what we do about this. Maybe all public schools should assume responsibility for making sure kids are fed, but I'm having trouble seeing that as a legitimate core function. I don't really know the right answer.
They're under the impression that school test scores will improve, and educational outcomes generally, if the poor kids aren't starving.
And yet the kids will still be in families who don't care about academic achievement. I doubt this will work.
There may be arguments for it, but that one isn't compelling.
What's more, it's been a long time since anyone presented convincing evidence of starvation in American schoolchildren. I know the arguments about how obese children are "really" starving because they're eating bad calories, but I don't find any of that convincing. The kids have enough calories. It's the other deficiencies that are bringing them down: bad parents, bad schools, and cultures that are deeply hostile to scholarship.
That might be an argument against feeding them at all, Cass; in fact, it's an argument against mandatory education.
As long as we require them by law to turn up at school for long hours every day (regardless of their or their parents' wishes), I think we have an obligation to feed them if their parents won't or can't. Otherwise, we have to cut them loose to feed themselves -- like Huck Finn, I suppose, spending the day fishing or working. It might be a better use of their time.
Not that I object to turning them loose instead of using the schools as unionized government-sponsored daycare, but I seriously doubt the kids are undernourished as a result of being stuck at school. They're not undernourished at all, except intellectually.
I seriously doubt the kids are undernourished as a result of being stuck at school. They're not undernourished at all, except intellectually.
Pretty much sums it up. Another government program aimed at a problem that doesn't appear to exist.
And I don't feel sorry for kids being educated. Try getting a driver's license if you can't even read. Or a job. Of course I suppose it's just barely possible that parents who (supposedly) can't be bothered to feed their own children will make sure they read every day.
Not.
"Feel sorry for kids being educated" . . . ??
I can be induced to feel sorry for their being incarcerated in a useless school instead of being allowed to put their time to better use (including the task of actually becoming educated)--but I'd never feel sorry for someone just because he was put to the necessity of acquiring an education.
Even very bad schools have books that are worth reading. I was bored for years in school, but I read everything I could get my hands on. That's what I've never understood about folks complaining about public schools - if you *want* to learn, no one can really stop you.
But if you expect your kid to be spoon fed an education (as so many parents appear to do these days)... well, that never works anyway. I suspect that's the single biggest problem with schools - the kids don't really want to learn and too many of their parents don't value education either.
*sigh*
/climbing off flying broom and brushing a few flying monkeys off my back
It used to drive my teachers crazy when I read books in class. I would have been awfully happy if they'd let me wear earplugs through most of the classes and get some work done.
Oh, I laughed when I read that, Tex, because I would have been perfectly happy that way! Thing is, I would have gathered much knowledge, but I don't think I would have had the discipline to exercise it in practice enough. Maybe I'm wrong though.
Being allowed to read was what I wanted only in the boring classes. Once I got to accelerated classes in high school, I was very happy to have the instruction. I had some good teachers then, and a pace that kept me on my toes. That goes triple for university.
But golly, I wouldn't mind having back all the time they wasted for me from second through eighth grade. Noisy babysitting was all it usually was--and yet these were quite good schools as public schools go. I once had a chance to spend a day in classes with a friend in a school just one district over: a real nightmare of idiotic classes and barbed wire. The idea of being stuck in one of the failing schools we read about now is like the ninth circle of hell. As Dr. Johnson (I think) said of sea cruises: prison with a chance of drowning.
Monopolies=no competition=crummy product, with exceptions here and there created by teachers whose professionalism overcomes all these trends.
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