Student Arrested For Classroom Texting 1246
A 14-year-old Wisconsin girl was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after she refused to stop texting during a high school math class. The girl denied having a phone when confronted by a school safety officer, but a female cop found it after frisking her. The Samsung Cricket was recovered "from the buttocks area" of the teenager, according to the police report. The girl was banned from school property for a week, and is scheduled for an April 20 court appearance for a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. I applaud the adults involved for their discretion and temperance in this heinous case of texting without permission.
Photos (Score:1, Interesting)
Photos or GTFO
Don't they send kids to the Vice Principal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm.. (Score:2, Interesting)
There are days when I think that we need to get rid of our entire educational complex.
Why is it that every educator wants to stop student to student communications of any form using any media? Teachers don't teach you how to live in a free society. They teach you to live in prison.
My solution is simple. Have the students see the bill for "education" right up front and if they don't want it then they aren't required by law to be there any more.
That's what makes this bad. That student was required by law to be there. I'm sure other laws have been made to "force students to behave in class." When will students band together and force teachers to behave or have pay cuts?
You truly think calling the POLICE is the only opt (Score:2, Interesting)
My god, what else do you think is acceptable then?
SWAT team brought in for a schoolyard fight?
Anti Terrorist squad for a stink bomb in the corridors?
Solitary detainment and waterboarding for not spilling the beans on who wrote in chalk on a school wall?
I'm disgusted that you think this is ok.
She sounds like a little shit, but that's what detention and suspension is for NOT the bloody police.
Please.
Re:Laaaawwwsuuuuit (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong.
No basis to search the girl? You should really read the article. She was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Hate to break it to you sport, but you get frisked anytime you get arrested.
Re:What else can you do? (Score:2, Interesting)
If you were being insubordinate... you would be fired and they'd have security escort you from the building. If you refused, you would be arrested.
but you always had the choice to not show up that day at work if you felt a texting session was more important, or you could leave the work day early, take some leave, etc. The options are many within the law. School is not work, and shouldn't be compared to it. You must legally attend. That's a whole different ball game.
Times have certainly changed... (Score:1, Interesting)
Taking a trip in the way back machine on a setting of 17 years ago...
I had the brilliant idea of bringing my left-over 4th of July celebration fireworks to middle school and setting them off outside in the long jump pit of the track area. I cut last class of the day and ducked out to the track and field to wait for the last bell to ring before setting them off and running to my bus. My collection amounted to a handful of black-cats and some whistler bottle rockets (yawn, i know). I twisted all the fuses together and lit them with my Marlboro Red and before the first one went of, I was ambushed by the 4 principals.
Suffice to say they called the fire department and the police department and my and my buddy's parents. I remember laughing in their faces as my friend was crying like a baby, because I felt what I did was so petty. Yet all the adults were trying to make it seem like I had committed a murder!
The end result was a 4hr "behavioral corrections" class, 2 week grounding, and 1 week in-school suspension... AND a life-long obsession with combustible and flammable materials!@#
I would probably be serving multiple consecutive life sentences had this occurred yesterday and not when I was 15 TEE HEE. GOD FUCK AMERICA, I MEAN BLESS!
Re:schools have rules for a reason (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a difference between playful misconduct and willful disobedience. Historically the former was handled with detention and the latter with corporal punishment. Since corporal punishment has all but been made illegal what tool do you use? Of course I did not RTFA but from the summary it appears she was being snarky and rebellious. If she had just handed over the phone she would have landed in detention and that would be the end of it. So we either arrest them for a misdemeanor or return the power to the teacher. Unless someone has a better idea. Anyone?
Re:What else can you do? (Score:1, Interesting)
"banned from school property for a week" and "suspension" are pretty much the same thing, and both are ridiculous punishments. "You were text-ing instead of paying attention in my class, so miss all your classes for a week and hang out at home while your parents go to work." This never made sense to me! Am I missing something? How about instead, "you were text-ing instead of paying attention in my class, now I will repeat the whole class just for on Saturday while your friends are out playing and having fun, and then you'll write a 3 page report on subject of this class -- to make sure you really were paying attention." Or better yet, positive peer presure approach: "Everyone in class has to write a 2 page paper, and you can all thank Ms. Doe for extra work."
Re:How do you know? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What else can you do? (Score:3, Interesting)
True.
Most public schools rules, as acts of a government regulatory body within its legal area of competence, have the force of law. Failing to comply with them is breaking the law. It may or may not always be criminal, but that's another issue.
Please provide a reference to the disorderly conduct law applicable to the jurisdiction in question and provide an explanation of how the conduct at issue is not within the scope of its prohibitions. Or are you just making stuff up?
Re:Don't they send kids to the Vice Principal? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't schools have any discretion or judgment left to them anymore?
No, they have zero tolerance rules. Or as I like to call them zero judgment rules.
Re:Hmm.. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's by design that teachers teach you to live in a prison. Public schools were designed around ideas born from the old craftsmen shops of the Industrial Revolution period.
I'm not sure I follow your solution. I don't think children are capable of making decisions regarding their education. Many parents are just as incapable. There should never be an opt-out option for school. I've known individuals who dropped out of school prior to high school with the support of their parents just cause they didn't like school, and these individuals have always regretted the decision since. Some even harbored resentment to their parents for being so ignorant to let them drop out.
My solution would be to make look at the sociology of education that has accumulated over the years since the '50s and use some modern wisdom to create school environments that encourage students. My best friend is a physics teacher at a high school. He routinely uses fun oddball scenarios to teach his kids, and they learn and have fun. I only wished my high school physics teacher had the balls to think outside the textbook.
Re:WTF?! (Score:1, Interesting)
Wtf is wrong with our schools.
I'd beg the same question about our students. Has it always been like this?
I had a discussion with some friends earlier today, before seeing this article, about the state of public education in the United States. I went to a public high school in California, and the experience was much as you would expect - a percentage of serious students and a greater mass of people that were never really trying, either not showing up for class or simply being disruptive and dickish.
I'm a graduate student now. Every semester since my high school days, through my undergraduate years and until today has left me with the same impression, that the majority of students are disinterested and lazy, doing just enough work to get pushed through an education system that is constantly dumbing things down for the slowest student. It always amazes me to see even graduate students, whom I thought were supposed to be somewhat professional in their studies, complain about having to read a book, or that coursework is taking too much time outside of their classes, or showing up to class only to sit in the back row with a McDonald's meal and a cell phone. I'm even more amazed each time I see professors tolerate this sort of behavior and even offer to use class time to bring said student back up to speed. I'm willing to wager money that anyone who has gone to college anywhere in the country in the past 10 years has had a few of these people in their classes, all the way through their college careers.
So, wtf is wrong with our students? Has it always been like this or is it just a recent phenomenon that a large chunk of the student population turns class time into meal time? Why even bother showing up for class with that sort of attitude, and at what point in their educational career does someone get it into their head that this sort of behavior is acceptable?
Sorry for the rant, I'm just tired of lazy and disruptive classmates bitching that school is "too hard". As for the girl in the article, perhaps being arrested was a bit excessive, but she deserves the suspension. Want to spend your day texting and resign yourself to being a lifelong moron? Good, do that shit on your own time. See you at the grocery store when you're bagging my groceries.
Re:Mandated (Score:4, Interesting)
Overreact much? Kids will be kids and any adult that expects that kind of obedience is better off being wrong. This happened in the US where much of our wealth ultimately comes from that sort of "attitude problem." Just because adults can behave in anti-social ways because of their power doesn't mean that it's appropriate to do so.
Fires are a very different matter, I can not conceive of a way in which that analogy is cogent. Like it or not in most places kids do not have the option of withdrawing from schools or moving over to other ones just because they're not being appropriately taught.
The scary thing is that this sort of thing happens every generation and yet we've yet to get even a single generation that doesn't get drunk on power when it's their turn.
Re:Mandated (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually it's adults acting like children, probably because they never got smack down as a child.
Reminds me of a time when I was sitting with an old friend in a coffee house. The friend was a former DEA undercover, who looked about 10 years younger than he was, so they would send him into schools to bust drug dealers. We're having our coffee while the group of teenagers behind us is talking about the pot they scored next door in the alley. After listening to them for about 20 minutes or so, my friend casually leaned over and said, "You know, I don't care if you want to screw with your own mind, but you do realize that everyone here could hear every word you said?" When they replied, "So what?" He pulled out his badge, flashed it, and said, "Cause you never know when they guy next to you works for the DEA. You get one pass, next time be a little brighter."
I had never before seen people piss their pants in public before, but MAN did they move getting the heck out of there.
Re:Hmm.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Education is not required by law school attendance is.
The reason for school is to cage all the kids, free up more adults for the workforce and to train the next generation of worker bees. Follow orders blindly, do as everyone else does, do not question imposed authority etc is what you are taught in school. But most of all do not think for yourself, do not hold independent ideas and do not think you know better than those in charge.
As an adult with a honors degree etc and 20+ years of work experience in engineering I am 100% against mandatory schooling the damage done to the young mind is devastating and in the majority of cases irreversible.
Your post would seem to show a remarkable lack of thinking on just what School is and is for. I would suggest you read how and why mandatory schooling was introduced in the US.
Re:Sounds fine to me (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Fire the teacher AND the cop (Score:1, Interesting)
Ok, seeing how I am still in high school and I see things like this everyday, I will show you how it probably went.
1. Girl gets caught texting
2. teacher says put the phone away, that's the first and last warning
3. girl gets caught texting again
4. teacher asks for phone to confiscate
5. girl refuses
6. (while this is going on, class is stopped and no children are learning)
7. 5 mins of this and the teacher says fine, go to the disciplinary office
8. student refuses
9. disciplinary teacher comes to classroom
10. student flat-out denies ever using the phone
11. in order to avoid risking a ton of head-aches with over reactive parents who think their child is never wrong, the teacher calls in the police to confiscate the phone
12. Now all in all this is about 10-15 minutes wasted. Believe me this happens every single day in my school, but it doesn't get to the extreme of police. I say first offense phone gone for the day. Second offense, for the year. Third offense suspension. 4th Expulsion
Re:I call bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
Not quite sure what you mean by a case "coming to court." If someone sues a school district, they have to pay a lawyer to defend them. Sure, a judge could dismiss the case, but these are often fact-sensitive inquiries. Here is a case from Wisconsin that might explain the school's policy. Child attacked teacher. Child's mother complained to the sheriff who(rightly) did nothing. Mother complained to the DCF who investigated and didn't find anything. Mother then sued for not providing a proper educational environment. Here is an excerpt:
Alex R., ex rel. Beth R. v. Forrestville Valley Community Unit School Dist. No. 221 375 F.3d 603 C.A.7 (Ill.),2004.
On October 11, Alex began pacing in the back of his classroom and speaking loudly. He swung his backpack near students and desktop computers and charged his individual aide, striking her. Alex then began rolling around the room, first near students' desks and then near the legs of a folding table holding computer equipment. School staff removed Alex to another classroom, where he imitated karate-style chops and kicks. He also charged his teacher, ramming her into the classroom door, clawing her, and, as a photo taken by the District reveals, leaving scratch marks on her chest. Beginning on October 12, Alex served a five-day suspension for this incident. Also after this episode, Alex's mother filed a charge with Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, alleging that Cheek kicked Alex without justification during these events. The ensuing investigation did not find that the teacher engaged in any wrongdoing. Alex's mother also complained to the sheriff's department, but the investigation by law enforcement resulted in no charges being filed against the teacher. In the wake of these events, school superintendent Lowell Taylor wrote a memo to staff members, dated October 16, in which he instructed that "[f]light risk will be responded to by summoning law enforcement. Faculty and staff should not put themselves or others at unreasonable/substantial risk because of Alex's violent tendencies."
As you can see, a litigious parent can cause lots of trouble if the teacher ever gets involved physically.
Re:Sounds fine to me (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sounds fine to me (Score:1, Interesting)
You know, I for one am sick of how much crap kids get away with these days.
HOWEVER, this whole incident reminds me of a bullshit algebra class I had back in high school.
Nearly every single day, one student or another would pass a note to another. From whatever point this happened at (usually 10-15 minutes into our 52 minute period), the rest of the class time was spent with the teacher bitching about it instead of teaching.
What disturbed the class...the act of passing a note or the idiot teacher?
In this case here, it sounds like...in fact...the security officer states in his/her report (almost proudly) that he/she disrupted no less than three classes while conducting his/her investigation.
My algebra teacher was a fracking moron...the people at the school noted here are amoebic brained twits.
PERIOD.
Re:Mandated (Score:3, Interesting)
So, you have a child suspended for texting with no phone, and you expect the parents of this little drama queen to believe the evil teacher over their little angel? Yeah, that will work well. If the teacher calls the cops, they at least get to keep their jobs, even if the little liar manages to tell one lie too many and piss off one too many people and ends up in jail.
Slashdotters not as radical as I had assumed (Score:1, Interesting)
I've been following the slashdot posts for a couple of weeks now and I must say I'm shocked that there is so much agreement here. I thought slashdotters were a more radical group. But judging from the comments to this post they seem to be all in favor of obedience. In my view school should be about learning, not obedience. You can force a child to obey but you can't force them to learn. In fact obedience is a very dangerous thing. Americans are so obedient we just sit and watch as our authorities wreck the economy.
Re:Who cares about texting (Score:3, Interesting)
You are under the mistaken belief that every student can learn just from listening to lectures. It is incorrect. Learning requires participation, which requires the students' attention.
If the student had provided the phone immediately, the disruption would have been minimized and confiscation would have been the punishment. The student, by refusing to give the phone to the teacher further disrupted the classroom. I had it happen a lot as a teacher. Amazingly often. 3 to 4 times a week security would have to be called to confiscate a phone. The students learned they could stop the class by refusing.
Re:Lying is not a crime... (Score:5, Interesting)
From Wikipedia: "In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual."
Does the rule of inclusion elude you? Fraud is performed through lying, but lying does not necessarily imply fraud. Just as a DUI requires you to be driving, yet driving is not illegal.
Re:Lying is not a crime... (Score:1, Interesting)
Uh what? Who exactly did she defraud of a monetary sum by saying she didn't have a phone?
Schools and police in the US have a history of violating student's privacy by confiscating communications devices and then perusing the contents. Lying while not under oath is the compliment to freedom of speech, freedom to think and all that other shit that your army raped Iraqi girls for. At least appreciate it you fuckcunt.
Before you call my response disproportionate to your stupidity, let's consider that the poor girl is appearing before court for texting during class.
Re:Call their parents (Score:3, Interesting)
And those laws don't say that possibly causing minor disruption to class is not justification for an inside-underwear search?
Re:Mandated (Score:5, Interesting)
Anecdotal evidence of course, but, it sure kept my young ass in line. I respected authority, I learned to avoid an ass whuppin' by doing what I was supposed to.
I've noticed too...there seems to be a steady decline of child discipline and respect for adults and authority since we stopped corporal punishment.
Hell, back when I grew up, it wasn't just your parents...ANY parent in the neighborhood could full well swat your ass if you acted up, and they'd call your parents (who were thankful for the help) and you'd likely get another one when you got home.
Try that today..and the parent/neighbor is a criminal....
Re:What makes you think it would do anything? (Score:3, Interesting)
If a student is _that_ disruptive, to the point of flat out refusing to cooperate or obey in any form or shape
What's "disruptive" about wanting to be left alone? Where's the evidence that this girl typing text messages on her phone was actually interfering with anyone else's education -- that is, before the teacher put class on hold to have her searched and arrested?
Re:What makes you think it would do anything? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not disruptive, uncooperative. Nobody's said that she disrupted any classes, or called anyone any names, or raised her voice, or been cheeky, or threatened anyone, or encouraged anybody else to rebel. We aren't told that she refused to cooperate "in any form or shape", only that she refused to cooperate on this one point of handing over the phone, or doing anything that might result in her being forced to hand over the phone.
As for her "attitude to the cops", we aren't given evidence of that. We have an allusion to her having crossed paths with one particular officer, who coincidentally (or not) also happened to be the officer who was called in this case. We don't have information telling us whether her attitude to this particular cop was justified or not, or why the same cop was involved in both incidents. Is he assigned to the school? Had they actually ever met before, or has he gotten his info from a teacher he knows socially, who may or may not be the same teacher who called him?
We don't have the information. You could construct a scenario in which she's obviously a shoplifting drugtaking gang-leading con-shagging product of a broken home, running wild, or I could construct a scenario in which she's a model student whose sick granny is ill in hospital and on the point of death, and who is beside herself with grief and anxiety, and texting desperately every hour for news.
We don't seem to have any information at all about the circumstances except what's in the police report, and that doesn't paint the adults involved in a very inspiring light, regardless of the circumstances. So all we can really comment on it what the adults actually did, according to the official account written by one of them. Saying "I'm sure that the kid did something else to deserve it", and then going on to blame the parents seems a very kneejerk response.
The Silent Side of the Coin (Score:2, Interesting)
Cell phones in particular are a real big hot button in the education setting right now. At my school as long as we don't see them or have evidence they're there we leave well enough alone. I teach band, I'm down right happy for cell phones when I come back from trips - they keep me from waiting till 2 in the morning for parents to show up! The issues of photos, bullying through the phones, and much more importantly emergency management are causing this kind of stuff to begin being mandated to us by district lawyers. Word for my campus is next year they're not to be here at all - automatic consequences.
In the past I have had students outright say that they'll not listen to me on that issue if there's an emergency lock down or something. That kind of break down in discipline at that kind of time is something that can't be tolerated. Now I know that there are none of these circumstances being mentioned here - but please get off the high horse about students should be able to have every disruptive device and use them at all times.
Most importantly with this, I'd be willing to bet the student in question was blatantly disrespectful to all of the authority figures involved. At a certain point the student probably limited the options available to them. Perhaps there were mistakes, but due to privacy issues you will never hear the school side of the story.
Re:Mandated (Score:3, Interesting)
Try that today..and the parent/neighbor is a criminal....
What was the crime you think they should be spanked for? I might agree if they beat someone up and someone spanked them, in a limited fashion, with witnesses, etc.
But if you did what I imagine many would do and try to hit them for swearing... Well fuck. I don't consider it a crime and would be mighty displeased to find someone beating one of my family members for their choice of words.
Perhaps it was the more homogeneous ethics of the 50s largely-christian USA that allowed this communal punishment to work...?
As for age, I've never said to a child that age conveys anything other than wrinkles, nor would I ever suggest that they defer to anyone because of age on anything except bus seating and other physical concessions. For any given person age usually correlates to intelligence, reasoning ability, even temper, and so on, but for all of that I can point to any number of people of any age that are untrustworthy, dumb, panicky, or any other failure that would keep me from wanting to advise a child to trust them. I'd never assign permission on anything other than a personal basis. One teacher, cop, friend, or relative is not the same as another.
RTFA.... (Score:3, Interesting)
.... the girl was arrested BEFORE the police attempted to contact her parents. I don't know what kind of totalitarian hellhole you live in, but here in Australia the schools don't call in the cops for disruptive students. The girl should have been taken aside by a senior teacher, and her parents contacted from the numbers on file.Seriously what kind of shit hole do you live in that the police can arrest you for not cooperating with their investigations into your own behaviour? I don't even have to identify myself to police here, and that is the way I like it.
This will get kicked out in court and this dumbass cop will get a rap on the knuckles and some bad press.
N.W.A. said it best (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiX7GTelTPM).
Re:not arrested for texting. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong. They are not allowed to "handle the kids". Parents like you make it impossible to do so by teaching their children that it's okay to violate school rules. Any time a teacher does anything, parents run crying to principals and superintendents and school boards and lawyers until the teacher is overruled by someone who just doesn't want to deal with the shit. Schools are powerless when it comes to dealing with kids because of lawyer-happy parents JUST LIKE YOU, so they've resorted to bringing in police to deal with discipline problems.
Around here, it's in the school handbook that USE OF A CELL PHONE GETS THE PHONE CONFISCATED. Period. Any involved parent should be aware of this, as any involved parent would make it a point to know the rules. You know, maybe if your kids would follow the rules in the first place, they wouldn't need to refuse to give up their phone.
Maybe, just maybe, if parents would support the people who work for a penance trying to educate 20+ kids at a time while putting up with the politics of a school board and the pettiness of a hundred different families and the person issues of a hundred different kids, maybe we wouldn't have these discipline problems in schools. Maybe if parents would stop believing whatever their kids say as the gospel truth, maybe if they would assist in dealing with their kids' behavior at school, maybe if they would just attempt to participate in their child's education, schools would work the way they used to.
But sadly, no. Parents are going to continue expecting teachers to coddle their kids, make them feel good about themselves, make exceptions for everyone, and then wonder why our nation's children are increasingly ignorant of the world around them and point the finger at the schools they refuse to support. But hey, that's the school's job, right? Why should parents have to do anything to educate their child?
Re:What else can you do? (Score:1, Interesting)
John Holt: "Escape from Childhood"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Childhood [wikipedia.org]
http://www.holtgws.com/escapefromchildh.html [holtgws.com]
"Young people should have the right to control and direct their own learning, that is, to decide what they want to learn, and when, where, how, how much, how fast, and with what help they want to learn it. To be still more specific, I want them to have the right to decide if, when, how much, and by whom they want to be taught and the right to decide whether they want to learn in a school and if so which one and for how much of the time.
No human right, except the right to life itself, is more fundamental than this. A person's freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic than his freedom of speech. If we take form someone his right to decide what he will be curious about, we destroy his freedom of thought. We say, in effect, you must think not about what interests and concerns you, but about what interests and concerns us.
We might call this the right of curiosity, the right to ask whatever questions are most important to us. As adults, we assume that we have the right to decide what does or does not interest us, what we will look into and what we will leave alone. We take this right largely for granted, cannot imagine that it might be taken away from us. Indeed, as far as I know, it has never been written into any body of law. even the writers of our Constitution did not mention it. They thought it was enough to guarantee citizens the freedom of speech and the freedom to spread their ideas as widely as they wished and could. it did not occur to them that even the most tyrannical government would try to control people's minds, what they thought and knew. That idea would come later, under the benevolent guise of compulsory universal education."
Re:What makes you think it would do anything? (Score:1, Interesting)