New Detention law?

[Sunni Daez]

Ooooo touchy subject it seems...

When a child is late... It disrupts the entire class when he/she enters the room... even moreso when it is k-8.. I don't think it should be manditory for every lateness(?).. as sometomes thing just happen.... it should be more adjusted... 3 strikes... you are in detention... if it causes the parent to be late for work... the parent will see to it that the child is to school on time...besides, as an adult, being made to sit in detention... will be humbled and the child won't be late tomarrow....


I can also see the downside... the child wishes to exploit this rule, can manage to force the parent to be late...

[west]

When I was in 4th grade my family moved. Since our house wasn't ready until December, but my parents didn't want us to have to switch schools midway through the year, my mom drove six small children (including one baby) 30 miles each morning (and 30 miles back) so that the three or four oldest of us could go to our new school for the whole year. My dad, of course, was at work at the time.

I was late every morning for the first half of the year. Are you telling me my mother, who had to deal with getting six children up and ready for school and driven 30 miles to get there every single day (and she had to make the trip both ways twice a day--that's over 100 miles every day) should sit in DETENTION because we were late?

Bollocks to that. As HF said, if a child is late, there's a reason. Maybe the kid has a long way to travel, maybe he shirked on his way to school, maybe his parents have jobs or other requirements that means he can't get to school on time. Regardless of the reason, whether it's his fault or someone else's or nobody's, detention for the parents is ridiculous.

[Phalynx]

1)West... Of course it isn't right to punish anyone in extenuating circumstances. Your situation would be extenuating. That's where the school has to be sensible about the application of a rule.

2)hf let's be clear, locking up the parents serves one purpose and that is to make the child's life more uncomfortable. The media and authorities will tell you this about parents being forced to take responsibility for their children - that's bollox. I have dealt with a family in just such a situation and the threat of Mum going to prison and the 14 year old deliquient going into foster care for 4 weeks made the little git in question buck his ideas up quick smart.

It's very easy to blame the parents : "There are clearly some issues within the family, if the parents aren't able or unwilling to ensure regular attendance. Locking the parents up isn't going to solve those issues. "

You tell me how you make a teenager, who may well be bigger and stronger than you, go to school. By the time it come to this stage the damage with kids (whoever's fault it is) is well and truly done.

It's all well and good to be all lefty liberal... been there done that for quite a while thanks... but you have to come to a point where you have to accept that our society is going down the toilet with each succesive generation. School is just about the last avenue for any kind of positive social engineering and an attempt to stop an underclass from ripping our society apart from the inside.

See here I don't want to sound like a 'Daily Mail' reader but this is what I mean by boundaries. The misguided intelligensia worry, perhaps with some validity, about the negative effects on children of being labelled as a criminal at an early age without recognising that a significant minority of society are forced into delinquency and crime by their soical circumstances and disadvantages.
I'm not sure I expect anyone to understand because in order to be here you are using a PC which means you are either at school/college/uni/work or have a stable and wealthy enough background to be able to afford a computer and a telephone line, as well as having the literacy to do so.
If all your relatives and adult role models survive through benefits and/or criminality, if you don't go to school then your pattern of life is set out for you. I don't buy the American Dream mentality that anyone can work their way out of the slums, not because labelling prevents it, but because without significant external input people do not know different and aspirations become impossible and more cause for frustration and anger. So the reinforcement or motivation to conform to what society deems to be good is not there. Neither can it be passed on to significant numbers of the next generation.
The punishment to prevent behaviour that is bad is increasingly weakened (in my country) This is so for adults in any case but if the age of responsibility is increased further you have teenagers who can literally do as they please without any fear of consequences. This is partially the case already with kids being given cautions for long lists of serious offences. This is where boundaries start to disappear. You have teens rightly informing you that they will do what they, want, take what they want, use whatever substance they want to and 'you', by which they mean society as well, can do nothing about it.

I used to want, even work towards, an equal society where everyone should have access to good accomodation, safety and security, good health, or health care at least, opportunites to learn and develop, enjoy life and I still want that. But it's not happening, even when the people in power are that way inclined. At the same time the powers of oppression which I used to resist and hate become the necessary sticking plaster to make life bearable for the wider population. But I find the police and home office increasingly preoccupied with terrorism and security and letting things drift.
There are places where the police can't go in groups of less than 4 and then only in daylight. Ten years ago when it was places where coppers had to go in pairs I used to think how great it would be to not be bothered with the police with their racism and their arrogance. After years of working with people in these situations their life is not some utopia of free living its plain and simply shit! (makes me think of Common People - Pulp)

I didn't want kids, that's another story, but now I have them I get really depressed for their future. Whether they end up on the safe, protected and restriced side of the fence, or the squalid and depressing underworld, or even like me teetering on the fence, I can't imagine their life is going to be much fun...

(rant over)

[formerly known as hf]

2)hf let's be clear, locking up the parents serves one purpose and that is to make the child's life more uncomfortable. The media and authorities will tell you this about parents being forced to take responsibility for their children - that's bollox. I have dealt with a family in just such a situation and the threat of Mum going to prison and the 14 year old deliquient going into foster care for 4 weeks made the little git in question buck his ideas up quick smart.

It's very easy to blame the parents : "There are clearly some issues within the family, if the parents aren't able or unwilling to ensure regular attendance. Locking the parents up isn't going to solve those issues. "

You tell me how you make a teenager, who may well be bigger and stronger than you, go to school. By the time it come to this stage the damage with kids (whoever's fault it is) is well and truly done.

I don't get your reasoning - in one sentence you say that the threat of parental imprisonment changes a young person's behaviour, in the next, you seem to see the understanding that many parents do not have the control over their kids they should / want to have. Aren;t they conflicting statements?

but you have to come to a point where you have to accept that our society is going down the toilet with each succesive generation.

Yes

[qupte]School is just about the last avenue for any kind of positive social engineering[/quote]Social engineering - for whom, by whom?

and an attempt to stop an underclass from ripping our society apart from the inside.

Ah. The good old 'underclass' threat. Now I get what you mean by social engineering - by whom and for whom.

I thought things had progressed since the Victorian era?
Children are not a rabble to be controlled.
The underclass, which doesn't exist anyway, is not 'beneath' the elite echelons of society, and to be malleably formed into something better.

Social engineering is usually by those in power - for the benifit of those in power.
To teach the poor kids how to become good drones in our consumerist society. How to teach them to say please and thankyou to authorities which they despise. To be controlled by organisations they have no consultation with...

The misguided intelligensia worry, perhaps with some validity, about the negative effects on children of being labelled as a criminal at an early age without recognising that a significant minority of society are forced into delinquency and crime by their soical circumstances and disadvantages.

I worry less about labelling criminals as such.

I do deeply worry about how our society persists in alienating all children. Teenagers only need to be in public and be Black for everyone, including the police, to view them as potential threats.

If all your relatives and adult role models survive through benefits and/or criminality, if you don't go to school then your pattern of life is set out for you. I don't buy the American Dream mentality that anyone can work their way out of the slums, not because labelling prevents it, but because without significant external input people do not know different and aspirations become impossible and more cause for frustration and anger. So the reinforcement or motivation to conform to what society deems to be good is not there. Neither can it be passed on to significant numbers of the next generation.

Has it not occured to you that, maybe, a lot of poeple in 'the underclass' are forced there, not by their own undoing, but by the machinations of the society in which they lived? We do not have an ideal society, very far from it.

If the external input has forced people down into those positions in the first place - are you sure external input will 'drag' them back out of it? Or maybe just reinforce the sterotypes and discrimination.

Having worked with 'inner city' young people - I can tell you for sure that it is not a lack of rolemodels, nor a lack of reinforcement of 'good values'.

These ;good values' are not missing - they are there. Kids will tell you how their mothers constantly went on at them about being nice, good, polite etc. etc.
They turn to crime, 'deviancy', and so forth, because they live in a society which disowns them.
They walk the streets and people assume they are going to cause trouble.
They look to get further, but are blocked because they are not trusted.

As a society we are alientating teenagers - we assume, offhand, they are potential threats.

As I was told on many an occasions, why bother to be good, if no one ever gigves you the benifit of the doubt?

At the same time the powers of oppression which I used to resist and hate become the necessary sticking plaster to make life bearable for the wider population.

Bloody hell! The 'powers of oppression' as the 'necessary sticking plasters'? And you're not a daily mail reader?

I;'m not even sure how to confront such a statement.

Who is this 'wider population'?
The ones that would appropriate 'public' space as adult space - where are teenagers supposed to spend their time, if even just standing and chatting on the street is 'wrong'? We provide no spaces for them, they have no provate spaces, so they carve private spaces out of public space, but we use our 'powers of oppression' because, well, they just a nuisance aren't they? To be treated no better (or even worse) than beggars.

The powers of oppression? To put cameras everywhere, to watch everyone at all times, because our 'unravelling' communities can't watch out for each other. We should be looking out for these kids, looking after them, not looking over them and criminalising them.

[Phalynx]

I don't get your reasoning - in one sentence you say that the threat of parental imprisonment changes a young person's behaviour, in the next, you seem to see the understanding that many parents do not have the control over their kids they should / want to have. Aren;t they conflicting statements?

Not in the least. The child, in my situation at least, was concenred with staying with mum cos she was easy to manipulate - mum had no control whatsoever and no means of controling him. Heck this 15 year old bought a prostitute home and all mum could do was report the woman to the police.

Has it not occured to you that, maybe, a lot of poeple in 'the underclass' are forced there, not by their own undoing, but by the machinations of the society in which they lived? We do not have an ideal society, very far from it.

I agree entirely but, in a 1984 styleee, while they are busy getting pissed, stoned and dealing with little priorities like food and getting the right trainers, they won't have the energy, motivation or means to do anything constructive about it.
Funnily enough Statements like yours are the problem. It hints at the concept that to deal with things needs some sort of dramatic global societal change - smell the coffee - it's not happening and it never will. Instead there needs to be some action to do something in a community or individual level. But we are all to lazy, content and self satisfied.

The powers of oppression? To put cameras everywhere, to watch everyone at all times, because our 'unravelling' communities can't watch out for each other. We should be looking out for these kids, looking after them, not looking over them and criminalising them.

Yeah that's all very cool and right on but maybe we should try and keep people safe and crack down now before things actually go so far we all sink into chaos. Who is this mythical 'we'. The only difference is in method, we just have different versions of what 'looking after' means.


Makes me think of Clockwork Orange (the movie, never had time to read the book) which is always held up as a critique of simple behaviourism as a way of dealing with anti social behaviour. The truth is nonone likes the idea of someone going through treatment like that and then ending up as some form of automaton but people always seem to overlook the fact that Alex was a murdering, raping violent thug. You can be as liberal as you like but the problem of what do you do with the Alex's of this world still remains...

[formerly known as hf]

Has it not occured to you that, maybe, a lot of poeple in 'the underclass' are forced there, not by their own undoing, but by the machinations of the society in which they lived? We do not have an ideal society, very far from it.

I agree entirely but, in a 1984 styleee, while they are busy getting pissed, stoned and dealing with little priorities like food and getting the right trainers, they won't have the energy, motivation or means to do anything constructive about it.
Funnily enough Statements like yours are the problem. It hints at the concept that to deal with things needs some sort of dramatic global societal change - smell the coffee - it's not happening and it never will. Instead there needs to be some action to do something in a community or individual level. But we are all to lazy, content and self satisfied.

I don't expect some kind of societal epiphay - and I do agree that the level of change needs to be on a community, family or individual level.
But you suggest 'external' input in such a way that makes me shudder.
Yes, outside help should be given. But change will only work if it is self-driven. Not enforced.

You are frankly disturbing when you picture people as seemingly idiots who are more interested in trainers and drugs than changing their lives.
That's a grossly damaging stereotype. I have not yet met someone who does not want to do what they can to improve their lot. Just, more often than not, they are unable to see any opportunities to change their community, probably because there aren'any there.

External help should be about encouraging communities and individuals to change what they want to change, the way they want to do it.

Imgining others as being too fickle, too lazy, too stupid, to sort their own lives out, needing to have 'good society' forced upon them is damaging, disturbing, and just will not work.

The powers of oppression? To put cameras everywhere, to watch everyone at all times, because our 'unravelling' communities can't watch out for each other. We should be looking out for these kids, looking after them, not looking over them and criminalising them.

Yeah that's all very cool and right on but maybe we should try and keep people safe and crack down now before things actually go so far we all sink into chaos. Who is this mythical 'we'. The only difference is in method, we just have different versions of what 'looking after' means.

People are safe.
There isn't all that much to 'crack down' on - this notion of rampant 'anti sociality' is a myth. This 'edge of chaos' crap is nonsense.

'Cracking down' will only lead to exacerbate the alineation and sense of persecution - a viscious circle until we actually do make things as bad as the hype...

Makes me think of Clockwork Orange (the movie, never had time to read the book) which is always held up as a critique of simple behaviourism as a way of dealing with anti social behaviour. The truth is nonone likes the idea of someone going through treatment like that and then ending up as some form of automaton but people always seem to overlook the fact that Alex was a murdering, raping violent thug. You can be as liberal as you like but the problem of what do you do with the Alex's of this world still remains...

I dislike Clockwork orange, because of Alex's nature. Alex's actions are too perverse for the book to make a point really.

The 'Alex's of the world' are minimal.

Your average 'anti social' kid is not a rapist, a murderer, an addict.

The chances are, the worst the kid has done is hung around in a group of frineds, worn a hoodie, drunk some cider and made a bit of noise. Not anything more than I used to do as a kid myself.

We are at the point now when it is 'anti social' to be a teenager in public - despite what they may or may not be doing. So it's not a question of what we do with the 'Alex's of the world' - it's a question about what we do with millions of 'ordinary' teenagers who are feeling alienated and criminalised for no real reason.

[SekoETC]

Parents need to take responsibility of their kids, but in some cases it's pretty much impossible. It has always been hard for me to wake up in the mornings, and I'm sure my parents did their best, but I was still late on most of the mornings at kindergarten, at least after I had to walk alone. It's a very short trip, something that would take about 5 minutes from an adult. But for a child it's easy to get distracted and go gather dandelions or whatever.

Of course in the States it's different, everyone going by cars. And this is about children. But what about older students? Once you move away from home, you should have learned by then to wake up in the mornings on your own and not be driven out of bed by your parents because they're afraid of a punishment.

[Phalynx]

Let's be clear I'm saying things aren't as bad as they could be but they are on a heading to get a lot worse.... If something serious doesn't change we are going to be in trouble...

Alex is a prediction of what will become of youth if morals disappear. If the individualism that is so prominent now takes over completely. If I want sex and someone won't give it me why not rape? If you combine a lack of restrictive morals plus no sanctions or consequences for actions I think that's the natural result. It's hyperbole but with a point.

Time to 'fess up her, I am coming from a basically christian perspective here. I don't believe people left to their own devices are basically good, I think they are selfish. I think left to make their own decisions in true freedom we will all be ripping each other part.
I'm sure you might take a different perspective.

People aren't idiots but they are left with few choices to meet their needs and they do what seems best for them to keep them happy. Usually they will try and do that in the easiest way possible - call it a survival instinct... As you suggest without opportunities to really acheive why would they bother to make decisions now for long term gain. To make choices people need education.

Attending school, following the rules, working hard at school, getting qualifications, getting a job... it's a shitty boring treadmill but we do it for long term gain with a side effect of a society that lets us all survive to some degree.

Your talk of enforced vs self-driven is a matter of time amd maturity. You don't let a 1 yr old determine its destiny and go play with the traffic, and we shouldn't let 15 yr olds do exactly what they want. Again you see 'cracking down' as a punishment.. if you use that word it doesn't help. I see rules as boundaries that allow people to grow and actually in the end make choices.

A 12 year old decides school sucks and he doesn't want to go.
Let him stay at home, get his education from daytime telly and on the streets, his enjoyment from alcopops, weed and the joys of shoplifting.When I was that age I would have loved that.. honestly... then see what that takes him in the long term (and society as well)
Or make him go to school, follow the rules get an education, think outside the boundaries of his own life and expereince, if at 16, 18 or 21 he decides to screw it all and sit in a housing association flat makin' babies and enjoying a good toke.. well that his choice.

It's not antisocial to stand around talking and wearing a hoody, it is to smash windows, nick cars and smoke crack. The wider community needs to give kids the opportunity to avoid the one turning into the other.

We are talking about minorities here (at the moment)
The generation of delinquents before mine used to play in play parks and play football at 15, our generation hung around bus shelters and got pissed outside the local youth club, the current crop of 15 yr old ASBO hunters get pissed, take various substances and smash anything that isn't bolted down and like to nick cars. These are all media stereotypes but they have some basis in reality, even if its only a tiny minority. You don't counter prejudice by trying to promote some bizarre lie and to normalise kids of 12 doing what kids of 15 did ten years ago is a disaster waiting to happen.

So I'm becoming right-wing with age... so sue me

[Nixit]

HF, do know of Summerhill?
And Paulo Freire perhaps?

Because we read a bit about those in our English class, and I was digging that stuff, and I'm digging your stuff... so yeah.

EDIT: And this isn't meant to be entirely insulting, Phalynx, but your attitude is reminding me of Shih Huangdi in Classical China... very Legalist.

[Phalynx]

'S OK I'm not entirely insulted!

[formerly known as hf]

I too believe that we are primarily selfish beings - but for me it's a genetic thing - same position I suppose though...

But it is this predisposition to look out for No.1 which makes me always very suspicious, if not just downright cynical, of all attempts of an outside group, especially one with more power, to control/regulate/observe etc. another group.

Our western society is very hung-up about children and childhood. And it is full of double standards.
On the one hand, they are seen as vulnerable, to be protected, to be looked after, on the other, they are thugs, yobs, antisocial and to be controlled and tamed.
We almost always deem them too young to make 'proper' descisions, but blame them for weakening society.
And more.

The adult / teenager/child boundary is one of power - we make all descision for them, rarely with consultation.


Furthermore, we refuse to accept that they can really be full members of our society. We don't like them in public spaces, we assume they aren't interested in local affairs, and so forth.
Often it is the case that kids are exceptionally interested in local politics - they are the group of people that actually use the 'local' the most - the shops, the businesses, the public spaces, the public service...


For me, education is not about keeping kids in line, about teaching them how to conform, how to be good citizens and all that.
It is about encouraging kids to feel good about themselves and more importantly, to make them realise they do have control over their lives.


It is a myth that 15 year olds aren't capable of making descisions about their lives. It is a myth for 14 year olds, 13, 12 etc.


So, on the one hand, kids are powerless to do anything, and on the other they are criminalised when most likely innocent. Yes there are a small minority of 'anti-social' kids out there - but not to the level the hype takes it.

We have politicians and sociologists yabbering on about 'social exclusion'.
There is no group more socially excluded than teenagers. Is it any wonder that their feelings of alienation and rejection from our society lead them to be anti-our society?

[formerly known as hf]

Nixit: I have heard of Summerhill and Frieire- there's not way I couldn't have done after spending most of my final year studying 'childhood'

Needless to say that I approve of Summerhil

Frieire's work seemed to get a bit 'spiritual', which always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and, at the core, it was still about the best way to impress adult values onto children.


Check out Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society and work by John Holt on 'unschooling'.

[Phalynx]

For me, education is not about keeping kids in line, about teaching them how to conform, how to be good citizens and all that.
It is about encouraging kids to feel good about themselves and more importantly, to make them realise they do have control over their lives.

Look up education in a dictionary it's about skills and knowledge - for me knowledge is power. This hippy shit about taking over control of their own lives is just as biased and oppressive as anything in government policy or in our schools. Give someone the idea of complete freedom and the ability to self actualise without playing by the rules and all you do is give them a lot more reasons to be depressed. Ignorance is bliss, Knowledge without the power to effect change is hell, and the power to effect change in our own lives is hard won not dished out in ridiculous workshops by opinionated middle class twats.

None of us have control of our own lives... Why do you think cantr is such escapist fun. Imagine a life where I could just up and make a boat and spend the rest of my life sailing - wicked but that's not real life. We all have to work within systems, I would rather see kids working in a system that gives them the chance at positive outcomes than dropping out and going nowhere.

The preoccupation with children is simply because of the recognition that its too late to help/reform/deal with vast chunks of society, but kids still have unwritten pages..

[Phalynx]

Oh and Neill and Frieire, yeah great stuff. But we don't have the kind of teachers available to teach even 5% of children in that way, nor the resources. It's good but is Pie in the sky for the reality of life. I genuinely wish we could put all our kids in places like Summerhill but we can't and for the time being we have to do the best with what we have....

[formerly known as hf]

This hippy shit about taking over control of their own lives is just as biased and oppressive as anything in government policy or in our schools. Give someone the idea of complete freedom and the ability to self actualise without playing by the rules and all you do is give them a lot more reasons to be depressed. Ignorance is bliss, Knowledge without the power to effect change is hell, and the power to effect change in our own lives is hard won not dished out in ridiculous workshops by opinionated middle class twats.

Even the simplest of choices are removed form children. Ones we take for granted, which aren't 'hard won', but are just everyday descisions.

I am not saying I'm in some precious postion to 'dish out' power. Yes, it is 'hard won' - but any power re-balance requires one side to win, the other to relinquish. We, as a society, seem to balk at anything which relinqusihes power to children.

'Playing by the rules' is a phrase I hate. If playing by the rules does not get you what you want, then break them. If the 'rules of society', or of politics, are designed to exclude certain people, then they should be broken.

The preoccupation with children is simply because of the recognition that its too late to help/reform/deal with vast chunks of society, but kids still have unwritten pages..

And as a society we seem to insist upon writing those pages for them, with the same ink and chapters which we used to screw our own lives up...

Oh and Neill and Frieire, yeah great stuff. But we don't have the kind of teachers available to teach even 5% of children in that way, nor the resources. It's good but is Pie in the sky for the reality of life. I genuinely wish we could put all our kids in places like Summerhill but we can't and for the time being we have to do the best with what we have....

No, we don't have the resources for the full vision. But consultation of children is well within what teachers, politicians and businesses can do. It can be, and has been, done.

McDonald's would be stupid not to consult children - they rely on them - so they do.

The same should be the case for schools, politicians and other businesses. But, because children do not have money (power) or the vote (power), what's the point? Why care about the opinions and choices of children, when they don;t have any power they can pass onto us?