Hello Darkness, my old friend...Follow

Joph, that's why I specifically stated in that scenario "didn't have an option". Two different things.

Sometimes I just like to talk about things related to the topic without actually getting caught up in ongoing arguments. :p

You don't have to care.

No, I agree. Being required to attend study hall is not onerous, sorry. It's a chance to do all the homework you'd otherwise have to do at home anyway. What's the big deal?

Apparently the school I go to is very different from the ones you all went to :p

For my school:

ISS (In School Suspension) = Either multiple periods of a day, or the entire day is spent inside one of the two detention rooms. You have to do work that is handed out and you can't talk or do anything really. If you want lunch you have to get somebody from the outside to get it for you; good luck finding someone when you can't leave the room.

OOS (Out of School Suspension) = You're suspended from the school temporarily.

After/before school detention = You have to stay after school or come before and stay there for a certain amount of time. If you can do homework and other stuff depends on what teacher is watching you, chances are you'll be able to do at least homework though. Talking and many forms of communication are not allowed.

Study Hall = A free period that you have to attend. Study hall periods 1-4 are in the lunch room and periods 5-9 are in the little theater. Attendance is taken regardless and most people usually opt to get a pass and go to the library or computer room. Some people prefer to stay where they are and finish work/read/talk/etc. If you're a senior and you have 9th period study hall you are allowed to go home early as long as you sign in at the beginning.

Having different meanings for all the terms being used really makes this topic semi-annoying.

Ok. I'm not sure why this isn't clearer.

Regardless of what you call it. In school suspention/detention/whatever is a punishment. It's where they stick the kids who are disruptive in class. It's where they stick the kids who violate any of a set of school rules.

Creating a "choice" between attending an assembly and being placed in the exact same conditions as the in school suspension is identical to punishing anyone who does not attend the assembly.

Which is not a problem as long as the assemblies are not intended as political indoctrination. So if the school is putting on a play, or having a rally, or doing any of a dozen different things that are legitimate reasons for having an assembly, then I have no problem with it. But this places any assembly in which political speakers are involved in the catagory of the state forcing children to a specific political view endorsed by the speaker(s) at these sorts of events.


Someone please tell me you can see why this is wrong. Yet it goes on all the time, and largely goes unreported. And I'm not sure which is more troubling: That this goes on in the first place, or the willingness by so many people to just ignore it.

Madrassas are often draconian.

Odddly. I'm pretty sure that if the school had a speaker who said "Blacks are lazy", you would have all heard about it and heads would have rolled. Yet this story got nearly zero national attention. I wonder why?...

Probably because one it true and one isn't.

Alas.

The thread was about silly "protests" and whatnot that are allowed/supported by our public schools. You *started* the thread by pointing out that the whole "day of silence" concept was a bit off. I'm not sure why me pointing out another example of a public school allowing/supporting political activism that is disruptive in some way to the principle goal of education is wrong in this context.


Why'd you start the thread if you didn't want people to discuss the issue? I'm discussing the issue by showing other examples of similar things happening elsewhere. I'm expanding on the issue to argue that public schools should not be involving themselves in political issues, especially when (as my example shows) it's often very one-sided.

How is this not a valid response to the topic you started Joph? Color me curious, but you seem to be trying to argue that it's ok to point out something that's a bit "strange" in our public schools, but it's not ok to draw any conclusions from that, or propose a course of action, much less present additional examples in order to highlight the issue itself. We should just kinda shrug our shoulders and say "Those wacky public schools!", and just ignore it, I guess?




I'm reasonably certain that had the case been one of a school assembly in which say Anne Coulter had been the speaker and she'd said something like "Democrats hate white people", it would have been national news. The question you should be asking youself (and yes, this is a side topic and I'm aware of that), is "why do some stories become national news, while other's dont?". With a correlary questions "Is there a pattern to which become national news and which dont?", and: "Who benefits as a result of that pattern?".


Side issue? Of course. But I keep hoping that maybe if I point out this sort of bias in the media enough times and in enough topics, some people on this forum might start to see that this happens with incredible frequency and across a wide assortment of topics.

I honestly have no idea what your point here is. I agreed that it was a poor idea for an assembly. However, I also noted that, in this instance, the school was called on its poor choice and its unlikely to occur again within that district.

Given that I agreed that it was a poor choice, I'll ignore the rest of your musings about why I'm not saying it was a bad thing.Well, as long as you're certain. Actually, it probably would have made national news but only because Ms. Coulter is a nationally known figure. Ms. Huerta is a bit more of a niche market.

But pick some equally obscure right-wing figure and I'd have a hard time agreeing that it'd make national news.Yeah. Especially if you compare little known farmers' union leaders with nationally known quasi-celebrities and published authors that folks would actually recognize in a headline.

Oh, I think his idiotic stance was already proven to be idiotic sufficently. It's not as if he'd ever cop to it.