9 and 10 year-olds charged with felony for drawings

msolga wrote:

It IS a problem when "disturbed" children are integrated into regular schools without the proper support.

We have special classes for integration here at regular schools - generaly, a big success. Thus, more and more schools (and parents of "normal" pupils) are asking for such.

0 Replies

That sounds like a special education school to me, Walter.

0 Replies

OCCOM BILL wrote:

That sounds like a special education school to me, Walter.

What I wrote in my response? (No, I was referring to normal, regular schools there.)

0 Replies

Walter

In the state of Victoria, where I live & work "Integration" is the go. The ideal is that you're obliged to bring all students together, for the good of all! There are withdrawal classes for students with particular educational needs, like reading or literacy, & counselling for students experiencing difficulties, for whatever reason.

The integration requirements that I described above are an obligation of all state schools. Rather a noble aim, but shot in the foot by reduced funding for education (despite the "special" institutions being closed systematically one by one.) Teachers have not received extra professional development to cope with the additional expectations of them.

0 Replies

Walter Hinteler wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:
That sounds like a special education school to me, Walter.

What I wrote in my response? (No, I was referring to normal, regular schools there.)

Just trying to answer your question. You wrote:

Walter Hinteler wrote:

So this wasn't a special education school those boys attended?

0 Replies

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Just trying to answer your question.

Thanks, Bill.

I didn't make it clear enough that I on my part was responding the to the quotion in msolga's response above:

WhoodaThunk wrote:

...I say finally because they had previously been part of a unit in an actual psychiatric hospital. The school bused them there and paid for their instruction. The hospital closed, so they were all dumped into our regular classrooms the next year. Because of privacy issues, the teachers were not even informed of their former status. We got to figure it out for ourselves.

Hoping now, not to have confused more :wink:

0 Replies

Nothing personal, but those who are aghast at the thought of a child in handcuffs have probably not seen these kids in action. An 11-year-old girl can be pretty good-sized, and because of the immaturity, "not remorseful" once she makes it to the principal's office. There is too much time spent worrying about the aggressors and not the victims.

The prevailing thought is to establish a juvenile record. If it was just a schoolyard fight, then nothing more is added to that record -- a youthful indiscretion. But when Problem #2 and #3 and #4 get added to that record, the courts realize the magnitude of the situation when the kid gets arrested for something big at age 17.

Plus ... a whole lot of kids watched her walk out the front door and get cuffed & stuffed in a police cruiser. That's a powerful message to those who might be tempted to haul off and clobber someone at school.

Cuffing and stuffing has almost eliminated school fights at my school. We used to have two or three fights (often bloody) each week -- sometimes two or three in a day -- but I can think of maybe one so far this year.

BTW, I would rather break up a boy fight any day over a girl fight. Boys sock each other and get over it. Girls are vicious.

0 Replies

WhoodaThunk wrote:

Nothing personal, but those who are aghast at the thought of a child in handcuffs have probably not seen these kids in action.....

Wrong. I've taught hundreds of 11 year old girls, plus many more older adolescents of both sexes, for many years ....
Never could I imagine any student being treated in this way. I can understand the need to bring in the police for exceptional reasons (eg assault, drug dealing, etc) but handcuff students as a form of control? I don't think so. Once things have reached that stage you may as well close down the school. It's a total breakdown of cooperation & understanding between the students & their teachers.

I'm curious though, WhoodaThunk. Is "cuffing & stuffing" permissable under the laws of your state? In my country it could get you into a lot of trouble.

0 Replies

WhoodaThunk wrote:

Nothing personal, but those who are aghast at the thought of a child in handcuffs have probably not seen these kids in action.

Wrong, deadly wrong.

I've worked - professionally and voluntaryly - with some hundred of those pupils, in clinic, special schools, integrated classes and 'normal' schools.

Besides, two of my students wrote their MA-thesis about such (I'm having been their supervisor) - so I got some knowledge about that as well.

0 Replies

msolga wrote:

I'm curious though, WhoodaThunk. Is "cuffing & stuffing" permissable under the laws of your state? In my country it could get you into a lot of trouble.

Child abuse such is called here.

However, the USA never signed the "UN Convention on the Right of the Child" - worldwide only two nations didn't sign that: Somalia and the USA.

0 Replies

Walter Hinteler wrote:

gungasnake wrote:
Anybody other than myself here ever see a copy of the little book they used to use in Germany to teach kids about bad habits and what can happen on account of them, i.e. "Struwelpeter"?

"Struwwelpeter reflects its creation at a time when the political state in Germany was becoming centralized, social status was becoming more dependent on individual merit than on inherited position, and public education was developing" - my dear gunga, this book was published more than 150 years ago.

The biggest problem teaching kids to read when I was growing up was that the books they used were absolutely boring and insipid and kids could not focus their minds on them for more than five seconds. When all else had failed my mother finally in desparation bought me a dictionary and a stack of comic books and I tought myself to read in about three weeks. If the person responsible for the infamous "Dick and Jane" books had been handed over to the children where I grew up, he'd likely not have survived the experience.

Germans on the other hand seem to have solved that problem 150 years ago. That's something to be proud of.

0 Replies

gungasnake wrote:

Germans on the other hand seem to have solved that problem 150 years ago. That's something to be proud of.

Well, Struwwelpeter was never thaught to be 'educational' at all: it was written by a physican to intertain his little patients wizth some funny stories while there were waiting.

Thus, the original title was: "Funny Stories and Droll Pictures with 15 Beautifully Colored Plates for Children Ages 3 to 6."

0 Replies

My son learned to read playing Pokemon on his Gameboy. He realized that if he couldn't read the instructions and hints, he couldn't master the games. All he needed was some motivation.

0 Replies

msolga wrote:

WhoodaThunk wrote:
Nothing personal, but those who are aghast at the thought of a child in handcuffs have probably not seen these kids in action.....

Wrong. I've taught hundreds of 11 year old girls, plus many more older adolescents of both sexes, for many years ....
Never could I imagine any student being treated in this way. I can understand the need to bring in the police for exceptional reasons (eg assault, drug dealing, etc) but handcuff students as a form of control? I don't think so. Once things have reached that stage you may as well close down the school. It's a total breakdown of cooperation & understanding between the students & their teachers.

I'm curious though, WhoodaThunk. Is "cuffing & stuffing" permissable under the laws of your state? In my country it could get you into a lot of trouble.

Msolga: I, too, have taught hundreds of boys and girls in the 12-16 year range, and most kids are just that ... kids. But if you truly have never seen a need for a student to be placed in handcuffs, escorted to a police vehicle, and driven to the Juvenile Justice Center, then there really is a difference between the public education systems in America and Australia. Last year, one boy attacked the vice-principal and was physically restrained (pinned to the floor) until the authorities arrived to take him away. I remember another time when a female co-worker finished her work day wearing the imprint of a 12-year-old's shoe on the crotch of her pants where the child kicked her full-force. Yes, I suppose you could say that amounted to a "breakdown of cooperation & understanding between the students & their teachers." Said child was cuffed & stuffed. Drug possession gets one cuffed & stuffed, as do weapons of any sort. And of course any assault on another person gets the student taken away ... in handcuffs ... in a police cruiser ... to a juvenile detention facility, which is hardly Alcatraz.

BTW, I teach in a fairly typical middle-class suburban district, and this is a fairly new approach in our area. In the past, the schools never wanted to have flashing police lights on the property as it was seen as bad PR, but now, I believe it is the school's reaction to the near-epidemic abdication of parental responsibilities. If the kids (and parents) don't respect the school and its rules of behavior, then the student is removed from that part of society. Private and parochial schools simply kick them out, and this is the public system's only legal recourse to do the same. Of course the difference is that eventually the public schools must accept those kids back.

Someone mentioned earlier that we are doing these kids no favors by coddling them through their adolescent years with no real consequences for outrageous behavior. I agree. Who will be there when they turn 18 and haven't learned that consequences exist for their actions? Please spare me the talk about programs and counselors and all that. These kids have been through all of that and it means nothing. P.O.'s and D.H. and more initials then I've ever heard in my life ... house arrest ... ways around their drug tests. It's really sad. At some point, you have to draw a line that says there really are consequences in this world. In this case, I believe sooner is better than later.

Walter: Sorry, I don't agree. Actually, in this case I think child abuse is what is perpetrated on the victim by the school when the only response to an assault is to hustle the aggressor off to a warm & fuzzy 12-step program designed to soothe and assuage the mini-monster's self-image.

0 Replies

Well, even if you don't agrree: our Criminal Law says so. (And as said: we have signed and ratifyed the "UN Convention on the Right of the Child".)

Honestly, if such happened here, the school would have a hard time, if they wanted to exist any longer.

0 Replies

When I was a kid, every May Day, we put together little May Baskets (often just decorative napkins filled with little candies and tied with a ribbon). We would race around the neighborhood, place the little baskets on people's doorsteps, knock on the door -- and RUN.

The recipient of the basket (usually the other kids) would have to chase you and give you a kiss -- if they caught you. Hmmmmm. I didn't realize how dangerous that was --- waaaaay back then.

0 Replies

Really ... Christmas must be a real cardiac event for that lady.

0 Replies

WhoodaThunk wrote:

Really ... Christmas must be a real cardiac event for that lady.

lol! I am enjoying your posts.

0 Replies

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Well, even if you don't agrree: our Criminal Law says so. (And as said: we have signed and ratifyed the "UN Convention on the Right of the Child"

Walter: I find it quite bizarre that you keep citing this U.N. protocol whose language relates primarily to child labor, sexual exploitation, etc. as an excuse to let schoolyard bullies off the hook. Don't you see the irony in ignoring the plights of those children victimized by the hooligans? Their situations are more directly addressed by the "law" than those who are the aggressors. Yes, I'd like to save the world, too, but I try to save the victims long before I save the perpetrators.

BTW, what are you really saying, Walter, when you note the U. S. of A. and Somalia are the only two countries which have not ratified that treaty? A statement of fact and nothing more, I presume? I'm sure you'll never understand the sentiment on this side of the pond of our aversion to most anything which drizzles out of the United Nations assembly. Take Oil For Food for example ...

0 Replies

9 and 10 year-olds charged with felony for drawings

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know