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School 1960 vs. School 2007

I’ve read that before and I think it is really sad. We are all missing out on a lot because we are now so protected from injustice.

Years (many years) ago, I was a high school teacher. I had an early morning class that started an hour before the rest of the school. During the class we often talked of hunting and as it turned out all of the students in that class were hunters. When the opening of the Pheasant Season came around, I told all of the students to bring their shotguns to school the next day. We all went out and hunted pheasant in the cornfield behind the school. We had a great time.

If I did that today, I’d be shot.
 
It's sad...when I went to elementary school in the early 80s, I got recess twice a day & I got to play on seriously rusty metal playground equipment...I never got tetanus, I was never preyed upon by a child molester and I never feared being shot at by gangs. Today, my 2nd graders can't have recess at all, and even the little ones who do get recess have to be caged into the small safe-equipment playground enclosure that is surrounded by 2 fences and locked at all times.

It's really pathetic.
 
some of those are pretty farefetched, but the last one is pretty much exactly what would happen when that stuff first started one of my teacher stold me a story. The students dad died and she found out in class then she came back to class and broke down then the teacher hugged her then the principal reemed her out and almost lost her job
 
I agree that some of it is farfetched.. But I basically agree with it too. In fact you don't even have to back THAT far to see a huge difference.

When I was in high school, my chemistry teacher brought out a bunch of chemicals he wanted us to familiarize ourselves with. The point of the exercise, if I understood it correctly, was to sprinkle them over the bunsen burner and see what color they burned so that we would recognize them later if we came across them. At the end of the semester we were going to be separating them out of solutions and he wanted us to be able to tell him what they were after doing so- hence the burning..
As I was burning them and making flames of blue, red, green etc- It occurred to me that this must be how they make the fireworks commonly called "flowers" that spin and burn different colors. Well not the spinning portion anyway, but the colored flame portion. So, I decided to mix a bunch of them together, wrap them in a paper towel, and burn them at once so that I could see a firey rainbow, lol. I had just finished making my bundle of chemicals, when the bell rang and there wasn't time to burn it. In my jacket pocket it went, to be burned after school by the train tracks..
By lunch time, it was sort of unravelling in my pocket and becoming a dusty mess, so I figured I'd just throw it away. That was when a friend of mine asked "what is that?"
"Just a bunch of chemicals," I said, "If I burn it, maybe it'll burn a bunch of different colors, maybe not."
"Well don't throw it away, let me have it." And so I gave it to him.
He went right to his next period teacher, showed it to her and called it a 'home-made bomb'.

The big to-do that followed seemed crazy to me at the time, but in comparison to what would have happened today, it was pretty tame. The fire department checked it out and couldn't make much sense of it (lol, there wasn't much 'sense' involved in it's making in any way shape or form) they questioned me about it (I'll always remember the fireman asking me what my purpose was for making it.. I was like, "Uh, I was going to burn it by the train tracks.." So he asks, "and what would you expect would happen?" I said, "I think it would burn a bunch of colors like a 'flower'.." I felt so stupid!) and then they suspended me for two weeks.

I remember my chemistry teacher laughing at me later. He was like "Yeah, they're being stupid, but you brought it on yourself taking those chemicals out of class, dummy. Enjoy your two weeks off!"

Of course when I got back I was a strange sort of legend, but every time I think about that, I sort of shudder to think how differently my life would have been if I was a teenager today and did that in school.

:-offtopic slightly.. I think we empower kids too much when we get scared of them instead of saying, "What the heck are you thinking dummy?" That's a pretty humbling question for a kid who has no good answer..
 
As part of nursing training we had to do several placements in 'healthy' institutions. I had a week in a nursery school and it was so hard not to give the little ones a hug when they fell over. I can understand that it stems from abuse by people who shouldn't ever be around children, but pushing away a crying toddler felt totally wrong, even though that was the politically correct instruction we had to follow
 
When I baby-sat through middle school, high school and college, I treated the kids like my own & we'd romp and play, and I did worry that I'd want to be that way with my students. When I first started teaching, though, I did feel awkward about any affection because I work with the third largest city schools system in the country -- thus, lawsuits abound. I didn't want to be part of one, naturally.

I'm not a naturally huggy-type person, but my students hug me daily...and I'm 5'4", so it's easy enough for them to grab me around the waist and press their head to my belly or chest (thankfully not many are tall enough for that!). I just pat them on the back, but sometimes a kid will do something truly awesome and I have to give the kid a hug -- because they don't get it at home & they need to know that it's ok and that they're a good kid who should be recognized & valued. Usually it's a "side hug", but it's never really the kind of hug that I would give to my mom or my sigot...I guess, the closer you are to me, the closer the hug I give. :p
 
I'm not a 'natural hugger' either and I generally don't take any interest in random children, but I just did find it hard when there was a little one hurt and crying. You know how they'll come up during their playtime and want to walk with you holding your hand? Usually while they're trying to engage your interest, tell you something that may be burningly important to them? We were specifically told to gently discourage them and send them off to play.
I think it felt odd because you were put in a position of caring about/for them, but turning them away:shrugs:
 
I remember when I was in sixth grade, there was a teacher named Mr. Seigal who would, seriously, bash boys' heads against a brick wall if they were acting up. And there was no way anyone would go home and tell, or they'd be in even more trouble from their parents! When I was in kindergarten, my teacher taped my mouth shut with masking tape. When I was a kid, you had to fear and respect all adults- parents, teachers, neighbors, friends' moms and dads- everyone.
 
Yep, at the age of 6 I had a very disturbing teacher who would pull your hair if you gave her an excuse, and I never even thought about telling anyone about it.
In my senior school it was more psychological bullying and public humiliation that was used. People who in a sane world would never be allowed near kids. I had a music teacher I was so scared of I'd throw up before lessons
 
I don't really have any school discipline memories from 7-12th grade. I guess we were all whipped into shape before then.
 
I was home-schooled K-12 so I can't really relate to any of these. A few of them made me smile, though. :)
 
That's king of a vast oversimplification of today's school system. Certainly I'd say that more caution might be warranted in today's school because kids have access to all sorts of information on the web and for some reason the media sees fit to blow up any sort of incident at a school into a huge attention-fest (something I could believe many students might crave with more and more parents have to work longer and longer hours to make ends meet). But then again, by in large, the educational system has made huge strides in becoming a much more serious profession. Today's teachers act as proxy psychologists, speech therapists and guidance counselors and many are encouraged to specialize in a subject or field which definitely boosts the overall quality of education. So yes, it sucks that we've lost some of our innocence and we have to make a big stink over what is likely not a big deal at all, but that's the price we pay for increasing globalization and population boom. If we want to go back to the good old days, we need to stop having so many kids and decrease the complexity of the global system, but frankly, I don't see that happening.

Wow, that ended up being quite the rant. I'm going to blame it on finals week destroying my brain. :crazy01:
 
I thought I read somewhere that the average number of children per adult US citizen was on the decline. Could be wrong on that though.
 
Here's a quick link for you http://www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/natproj.html I didn't read that all way through but I think the deal with population the US is that growth rate depends on what segment of the population you look at, and I think that's a largely economic and ethnic divide. In reality, I'm not super concerned about us industrialized nations, we'll level out shortly just as much of Europe has, but the greater concern is the developing areas where the next few years will have a major impact on the next hundred or so. I don't know, all this is very interesting to me, it plays into what I study, but it's kind of scary too...
 
When I was in the fourth grade, I was hurt on the playground. It was a serious head injury (cracked my skull on the ice at the bottom of the slide) and had triple vision. The recess guard wouldn't let me go in to the nurse's office because my class was going inside just then. I had to hold onto the shoulders of the girl in front of me so I could walk straight. The teacher was bright enough to see something was wrong and sent me to the nurse immediately. The nurse called my mother because I was by then throwing up from the concussion. My mother arrives, sees me still in my snowsuit with vomit everywhere and the nurse freaking out about the carpet and took charge. She got me to the doctor and found out I was ok, except for the minor skull fracture. My parents could have, and probably should have, sued the school and I'm sure the recess guard could have been charged with negligence or something. The school bent over backwards to make sure my parent didn't sue. There were improvements in how things were handled on the playground and there were apologies from those involved. Thing is, we aren't sue happy people. It wasn't something people thought about so much in the late 70's and I still don't now. Accidents happen, people make mistakes. As long as people stand up and take care of the issue, I'm ok. If someone tries to lie or point fingers, I'll take action.
 
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