I've mentioned in previous posts of my desire tp move to New York City, because obviously they have the whole crime thing under control there that they have more time to spy on antiwar activists and such. Apparently, all crime has been so removed form the city that police officers have time to now arrest 13-year old girls for writing on their school desks. Boy have things gotten stricter since I was in school.
Now I used to draw on desks frequently, mostly when I didn't have a piece of paper handy, and I don't believe I was ever called on it, even when I was drawing elaborate landscapes in my psychotropic state. So I figured whatever 13 yr-old Chelsea Fraser wrote on her desk must have been absolutely horrible. Did she write an expletive? Did she criticize a teacher? The government? Threaten her classmates?
No. What she wrote that was horrible enough to have dragged from school in front of her classmates in handcuffs was just one word.
Okay. That's it. The one word. Okay.
So I know I am safe moving to New York because all the major crimes in that city have been solved and all the criminals locked safely away, so that the police now have the time to arrest a teenager for writing one word (and a positive word at that) on her desk. So much for freedom of expression.
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Okay...so it's gotten that bad has it? In my day we were put in the town square stocks and sometimes flogged. I never quite got over the witch dipping though...that was real rough on the lungs.
They should change the tourist shirts from 'I "heart" NY' to 'I Am "Okay" With NY'.
I'd like to carve that one word in the forehead of Bush and Cheney.
Just so I completely understand this: Chelsey wrote "Okay" on her desk, right? Well NO WONDER she was arrested. Geeze. Everyone knows that the word Okay means that she's a terrorist. I mean, really.
When I was 13, the boy who had the desk in the class before me would draw cartoons and leave notes to me. I would respond, and the notes would miraculously still be on the desk for his class - we had the last two classes of the day. If we'd done that in New York in today's climate, we'd be sent to San Quentin. I'm just saying.
I live in a rural area in NE Oregon.
I remember when I was in 7th grade (that's about 37 years ago now... yikes!) we would get sent to the dentention room for talking, chewing gum, or other trifling things during class time that nearly all students do in all classrooms nowadays, or so it seems they all do. Our vice principal at my middle school wielded a fast and nasty paddle. We were just about all on good behavior just about all the time, because we knew the consequences of assholian behavior would be might unpleasant.
There would be an occasional fight after school, a crowd would gather, the fight would usually finish before the principal, vice principal or teacher could break it up, and nobody ever got charged with assault. We would make lists of people we didn't like and share them with each other, giggle about it, draw negative caricatures of people we disliked, and we never got arrested or had to go to therapy. High school kids would show up at school with their rifle in the rifle rack in their pickups, and nobody got arrested. We all carried pocketknives, which were useful for sharpening pencils at times, and for other non-violent things. Today, either of those things would be completely taboo.
At our local high school nowadays, the kids all just call their teachers by last name only, rarely if ever prefaced with a Mr., Mrs. or Ms. They wear hats in class, sit on their desks, interrupt, etc. I hate it. The rod has been spared, and many of the kids have been spoiled rotten. Coming from a lefty such as myself, I know that sounds AWFULLY conservative... and it IS conservative... but the lack of respect for teachers that has been generated among students through all the lawsuits of the last 30 years has simply taken control of schools away from teachers and placed in the hands of students. I believe it has created an atmosphere in which things are too student-directed at the high school level, and the kids simply don't end up learning as much.
I am a special ed teacher, and I work as a speech-language therapist with groups of from one to four kids at a time... I love my work! But you couldn't pay me to be a classroom teacher nowadays for kids beyond 6th or 7th grade. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to try and teach a large classroom of kids in a metro area... and re. that line of work, NYC doesn't sound all that "okay" to me.
New York is just as safe as Baghdad and Detroit.
wow. incredible. Since when is this a big deal??
one word...wow -- this boggles the mind for sure...
What did she write with? Did she carve "okay" with a machete? Did she write it in bulletholes? No? So, she used a PEN! There's yer problem right there - PENS are Very Dangerous; those who wield them must be controlled!!! They may start with simple, happy words, but Look Out! they could be baby subversives who will oneday write, gasp, critiques!
Okay. That's it. The one word. Okay.
Damned midget anarchists! When I was a kid I would have been dragged from school in handcuffs...uphill...both ways!
What's wrong with the adults who arrested that girl? They charged her with mischief and graffiti, but they handcuffed her? I'd say they over-reacted and showed a definite lack of common sense. The principal or teacher should have handled this situation. The police should never have been called in.
Of course, it could have been worse for that poor child. If that had happened here in Michigan they might have locked her up.
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