The kids should be coming out to ‘play’ soon

At Broadway Elementary School here, there is no more sitting around after lunch. No more goofing off with friends. No more doing nothing.

Instead there is Brandi Parker, a $14-an-hour recess coach with a whistle around her neck, corralling children behind bright orange cones to play organized games. There she was the other day, breaking up a renegade game of hopscotch and overruling stragglers’ lame excuses.

They were bored. They had tired feet. They were no good at running.

“I don’t like to play,” protested Esmeilyn Almendarez, 11.

“Why do I have to go through this every day with you?” replied Ms. Parker, waving her back in line. “There’s no choice.”
[...]
Playworks, a California-based nonprofit organization that hired Ms. Parker to run the recess program at Broadway Elementary, began a major expansion in 2008 with an $18 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
[...]
Dr. Romina M. Barros, an assistant clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx who was an author of a widely cited study on the benefits of recess, published last year in the journal Pediatrics, says that children still benefit most from recess when they are let alone to daydream, solve problems, use their imagination to invent their own games and “be free to do what they choose to do.”

Structured recess, Dr. Barros said, simply transplants the rules of the classroom to the playground.

“You still have to pay attention,” she said. “You still have to follow rules. You don’t have that time for your brain to relax.”

You will obey, slave!

Ionia kindergartner suspended for making gun with hand — More from Michigan? What’s going on there?

To the little boy’s mother, it was just a 6-year-old boy playing around.

But when Mason Jammer, a kindergarten student at Jefferson Elementary in Ionia, curled his fist into the shape of a gun Wednesday and pointed it at another student, school officials said it was no laughing matter.

They suspended Mason until Friday, saying the behavior made other students uncomfortable, said Erin Jammer, Mason’s mother.

School officials allege Mason had displayed this kind of behavior for several months, despite numerous warnings.

“I do think it’s too harsh for a six-year-old,” said Jammer, who was previously warned that if Mason continued the practice he would be suspended. “He’s six and he just likes to play.”

Principal of Ionia, stylin’

Found by Bunni.

Rachael Greer, Martin Bell and the untouchable

Rachael Greer said it happened on Feb. 23 during fifth period gym class at River Valley Middle School when a girl walked into the locker room with a bag of pills.

“She was talking to another girl and me about them and she put one in my hand and I was like, ‘I don’t want this,’ so I put it back in the bag and I went to gym class,” said Rachael. The pills were the prescription ADHD drug, Adderall. Patty Greer, Rachael’s mother, said she and her husband are proud of their daughter for turning down drugs, just like she’s been taught for years by DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) instructors at school.
[...]
But just saying no didn’t end the trouble for Rachael. During the next period, an assistant principal came and took Rachael out of class. It turned out the girl who originally had the pills and a few other students got caught. That’s when the assistant principal gave Rachael a decision.

“We’re suspending you for five days because it was in your hand,” said Rachael.
[...]
We wanted to know what would have happened if Rachael had told a teacher right away. Bell said the punishment would not have been any different. District officials say if they’re not strict about drug policies no one will take them seriously.

“That’s not a good policy,” said Patty Greer. “We’re teaching our kids if you say no to drugs you’re going to get punished, it’s not right.”

Although he got who wrote White Rabbit wrong, here’s what law professor Jonathan Turley said about this.

So now students know an easy way to get an enemy kicked out of school. I wonder if you put a pill into a teacher’s hand if she would … Nah. Who am I kidding. As if the teacher’s union would allow that.

Lots of rules in their student handbook (pdf), but oddly, no mention of expulsion for drug touching. Interesting that the two main goals of the school are not to impart knowledge and wisdom, but to ensure the inmates.. er, um… students pass tests. BTW, today is Domino’s Pizza Day (pdf)! Hooray!

Finally, out of idle curiosity, I’m wondering how you’re able to send “sensitive information to school officials” (i.e., rat out someone) anonymously when the “Anonymous Alert’ web form found at the bottom of every page reports your computer’s IP?

Tough customer for coppers.

Six-Year-Old Handcuffed — Why weren’t the parents called to take care of this. Welcome to the US School/Prison system.

Kathy Franklin says she wants to get her daughters back in school. But after her 6-year-old was handcuffed and then sent to a mental health facility, she no longer feels her children are safe at Parkway Elementary.

“These people are going to the extreme,” Franklin said. “She is so tiny. They didn’t have to use force on her.”

On Tuesday, after another disruption, the girl was put under a law enforcement involuntary Baker Act and taken to a mental health facility. Franklin says the latest events have traumatized her daughter. She is afraid of law enforcement and school, she said.

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A federal class action claims a suburban school district has been spying on students and families through the “indiscriminant use of and ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students,” without the knowledge or consent of students or parents. The named plaintiffs say they learned that Big Brother was in their home when an assistant principal told their son that the school district knew he “was engaged in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in minor plaintiff’s personal laptop issued by the school district.”

The families say the Lower Merion School District issued Webcam-equipped personal laptop computers to each of its approximately 1,800 high school students: in Harriton High School in Rosemont, and Lower Merion High School in Ardmore.
[...]
“Additionally, by virtue of the fact that the webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the school district, the webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it.

This and the experience working at Walmart should look good on their resumes when they look to step up to a management position at Sizzler.

Walmart has been widely condemned for offering its employees only low-paying, dead end jobs. Even President Obama criticized Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign for having served on Walmart’s board and stated that the firm ought to pay “a living wage.”

In inner-city Detroit, however, where the unemployment rate is estimated at an astonishing 50%, the prospect of a Walmart job may appear far more attractive.

Four inner-city Detroit high schools have decided that employment with Walmart is an opportunity worth training their students to pursue. The schools have teamed up with the giant merchandiser to offer a for-credit class in job-readiness training that also includes entry-level after-school jobs.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the principal at one of the schools optimistically suggested that “the program will allow students an opportunity to earn money and to be exposed to people from different cultures — since all of the stores are in the suburbs.”

The announcement of the program outraged Donna Stern, the Midwest coordinator for the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). “They’re going to train students to be subservient workers” she told the Free Press. “This is not why parents send them to school.”

Sit down and obey like the sack of meat you are is the only lesson a kid gets from this.

An irate Staten Island mom blasted a grade school principal Wednesday for treating her son like a pint-sized Plaxico Burress after he brought a 2-inch-long toy gun to school.

“This principal is a bully and a coward, and needs to be held accountable,” said Laura Timoney, 44, after her teary fourth-grader was nearly suspended for playing with the tiny toy at lunch. The school should be embarrassed. This is a common-sense issue.”

Patrick Timoney, 9, was terrified when he was yanked into the principal’s office to discuss the teeny-weeny plastic “weapon.”

“The gun was so little,” the boy said. “I don’t understand why the principal got so upset. I was a little nervous. They made me sign a statement.”

Patrick and a friend were playing with Lego figures in the school cafeteria on Tuesday when he pulled out the faux machine gun and stuck it in the hands of his plastic police officer. Boom! Trouble ensued, with Patrick’s mom getting a phone call from Public School 52 Principal Evelyn Mastroianni saying her son had somehow gone from straight A’s to the NRA.
[...]
Laura Timoney remained upset. Her son, a typically eager student, asked to stay home yesterday because he thought the principal was mad at him. The mother said she expects an apology and may sue.

A growing number of science students on British campuses and in sixth form colleges are challenging the theory of evolution and arguing that Darwin was wrong. Some are being failed in university exams because they quote sayings from the Bible or Qur’an as scientific fact and at one sixth form college in London most biology students are now thought to be creationists.
[...]
In the United States there is growing pressure to teach creationism or “intelligent design” in science classes, despite legal rulings against it. Now similar trends in this country have prompted the Royal Society, Britain’s leading scientific academy, to confront the issue head on with a talk entitled Why Creationism is Wrong. The award-winning geneticist and author Steve Jones will deliver the lecture and challenge creationists, Christian and Islamic, to argue their case rationally at the society’s event in April.

“There is an insidious and growing problem,” said Professor Jones, of University College London. “It’s a step back from rationality. They (the creationists) don’t have a problem with science, they have a problem with argument. And irrationality is a very infectious disease as we see from the United States.”
[...]
Most of the next generation of medical and science students could well be creationists, according to a biology teacher at a leading London sixth-form college. “The vast majority of my students now believe in creationism,” she said, “and these are thinking young people who are able and articulate and not at the dim end at all. They have extensive booklets on creationism which they put in my pigeon-hole … it’s a bit like the southern states of America.”

Girls often believe themselves to be bad at math, in accordance with gender stereotyping, and often experience high levels of anxiety about the subject. That anxiety appears to be driven by social influences, and may be vanishing in early education. Still, identifying its causes could help eliminate it at later stages of education, and prevent it from making a reappearance in young girls.

A new study suggests that elementary school may be a breeding ground for this anxiety. The study found that when elementary school teachers, who are primarily female, displayed a high level of anxiety about math, that skittishness was transmitted to their female students. Those students who spent a year with a math-phobic teacher displayed lower math achievement and an increased belief in stereotypes about female mathematical ability.

Elementary education majors have been found to be particularly afraid of math—more so than any other college major—but often have little chance to overcome this fear because the math requirements of their programs are usually minimal.

Of course, there’s no other possible place the young’uns could go to look up words so as to prevent them from using them properly in a sentence. And if you don’t know the meaning of a word or phrase like “oral sex,” there’s no possibility of them doing what the word means.

The Menifee Union School District is forming a committee to review whether dictionaries containing the definitions for sexual terms should be permanently banned from the district’s classrooms, a district official said Friday.

The 9,000-student K-8 district this week pulled all copies of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary after an Oak Meadows Elementary School parent complained about a child stumbling across definitions for “oral sex.”

The decision was made without consultation with the district’s school board and has raised concerns among First Amendment experts and some parents.
[...]
The collegiate dictionaries were purchased several years ago to allow advanced readers in the fourth and fifth grades to look up words that they didn’t know, Cadmus said.

And the crowds begin to chant…
“What do we want?” “Ignorance Now!”
“When do we want it?” “Later. American Idol is on.”

California Department of Education spokeswoman Tina Jung said parents need to get involved and talk to their children about what they consider appropriate and inappropriate.

“It’s quite possible that no one could have foreseen that kids would look up words that pique their curiosity,” Jung said.

As the school website says, “Please call us with any questions you may have.”
28600 Poinsettia Street
Murrieta, CA 92563
Phone: (951) 246-4210 Fax: (951) 679-4637 Email: gruiz@menifeeusd.org

School sees science project of 11-year-old as threat — This is incredible. Exactly how stupid are these people? No wonder the kids learn nothing in California schools.

Students were evacuated from Millennial Tech Magnet Middle School in the Chollas View neighborhood Friday afternoon after an 11-year-old student brought a personal science project that he had been making at home to school, authorities said.

Maurice Luque, spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, said the student had been making the device in his home garage. A vice principal saw the student showing it to other students at school about 11:40 a.m. Friday and was concerned that it might be harmful, and San Diego police were notified.

The school, which has about 440 students in grades 6 to 8 and emphasizes technology skills, was initially put on lockdown while authorities responded.

Luque said the project was made of an empty half-liter Gatorade bottle with some wires and other electrical components attached. There was no substance inside.

When police and the Metro Arson Strike Team responded, they also found electrical components in the student’s backpack, Luque said. After talking to the student, it was decided about 1 p.m. to evacuate the school as a precaution while the item was examined. Students were escorted to a nearby playing field, and parents were called and told they could come pick up their children.

A MAST robot took pictures of the device and X-rays were evaluated. About 3 p.m., the device was determined to be harmless, Luque said. Luque said the project was intended to be a type of motion-detector device.

Found by Kevin Terminella via Twitter.

I wonder how this would fly if they wore them going through security at an airport?

At least nine Detroit area high school juniors are in trouble for wearing sweat shirts bearing a design that evokes the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers.

Dearborn Public Schools spokesman David Mustonen has told The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press that the shirts the boys wore to Edsel Ford High School on Monday are “offensive” and in “poor taste.”

The boys are Arab-American, as are about half the school’s 1,700 students. They belong to the 2011 class. On the shirts, the number 11 resembles two buildings, with the school’s “Thunderbird” mascot flying toward them.

Interesting major at the school.

MG Siegler from Techcrunch does some investigation:

The idea of working at Google is a dream job for many engineers all around the world. So where better to go to get ready for this career than the Googlle Institute of Software Studies, right? Hold on a second. Read that name again.

Yes, it appears that some jokers in India are attempting to leverage not only Google’s name, but their logo and even favicon to trick people into thinking they their quite-possibly-bogus online university is related to the real Google somehow. Dubbed the “School For Future Software Engineers,” the Googlle Institute has a website that looks like it could some sort of legitimate online training school — if it weren’t for the sketchy naming, branding, and plethora of dead links.

This should come in handy when [insert catastrophe here] happens.

Springing from the legendary scouting, tracking, wilderness survival skills of Apache warriors, onPoint Tactical offers superior training for modern-day professionals and civilians who require or desire advanced outdoor skill sets to survive and thrive in today’s demanding world.
[...]
onPoint Tactical offers professional certification in Scout, Tracker, and Wilderness Survival disciplines. Course topics include Urban Escape and Evasion, Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) training; Search & Rescue (SAR) tracking, primitive wilderness survival, winter survival, scout reconnaissance, animal trapping, booby traps, sniper fieldcraft, camouflage, off grid medical care, force protection, combat and pursuit tracking, counter and anti-tracking, animal tracking, hostile environment training, and land navigation.

From their Urban Escape & Evasion Course:

While on an international business trip, you are kidnapped and held for ransom. Or, a terrorist attack closes the business district of your city and you find yourself in a dangerous, chaotic fix. How do you stay alive? How do you get to safety on your own?

[...]Topics covered include covert movement (day vs. night), the judicious use of caches, understanding urban baseline movement and urban awareness training, the use of disguises and false papers/identification, lock picking, escaping from unlawful custody, obtaining and driving local transportation, the use of “specialized” urban gear, and instruction on how to develop urban escape and evasion go-bags.
[...]
Saturday’s exercise will begin at 8:30 am and involve putting your new skills and mindsets to the test in a real-life scenario lasting most of the day until around 5:00 pm. You will be “kidnapped”: hooded, cuffed and taken somewhere dark and uncomfortable to start your day. You will be expected to escape, find your own transportation legally using your social engineering skills, and make your way to the first cache location, where directions for a series of tasks using all your new skills await.

Meanwhile, expert trackers will be hunting you down, and if they catch you, you will have to start again from a more distant location.