f13.net

He must be wearing that good, waterproof makeup. It doesn't look streaked at all, and I'm sure after the seniors flushed his head down the toilet a few hundred times, he was just a wee bit damp.

Inform the kid he's not in the WWE and is just, in fact, a dumbass.

If he had done a more professional job, would you guys still be hard on him?

I think it's the lipstick that bothers me the most.

[EDIT] I forgot to add the text that was originally under the picture.


So which is it? He's wearing the makeup for religious reasons or he's wearing it for a morale boost?

Yes.

Teaching kids in a public school is hard enough without them wanting to make public spectacles of themselves. That's why they have dress codes.

He's in the ninth fucking grade and the stubble on his chin is thicker than the stubble on top of his head?  Am I wrong that 9th graders are usually 14 or 15ish?  This kid looks 18 easy.

Anyway, that get-up would hardly have raised an eyebrow at where I went for 9th grade.

The article says this is his second go-round through the 9th grade.

In other words, yes, he was a complete dumbfuck before he put the makeup on.

Just be glad they didn't show a picture of his mother. I bet she could show you some stubble.

Same here.

Paolos, I'm saddened to hear that you support dress codes.

In an era where girls want to come to school in things that would embarrass strippers and kids want to wear pants so baggy you could conceal a shotgun in them, you're damn right i'm in favor of dress codes. To the high school kids out there, you live in your parent's house still and you are not a functioning member of society. You pay no taxes for the education you enjoy. So STFU about what you can and can't wear and get with the program. If you want attention, trying getting it for doing something good.

I fail to see where that applies to the remaining 99% of high schoolers out there.


Kids --- the most oppressed minority in all of society.

Thanks Paolos. You illustrated that better than my statement ever could.

I have absolutely no problem with dress codes.

If kids want to express themselves they can sign up for art class.

Kids aren't oppressed. They pay for nothing, eat for free, and don't have to have jobs to support themselves or anyone else. They have the freedom to express themselves in numerous other ways. They literally have it on easy street and like to bitch about the little rules saying, don't paint your face like its time for the circus. High school is not the forum in which you are allowed to do whatever you want. It's a public service, and they can deny it to you want to be a big enough jackhole about things. So yeah, wear are the makeup you want, express yourself however you like in public, but in a place of learning as in any job in later life, learn not to be a tool. That's your PSA for the day.

Wow, I must be getting old. I agree- dress codes at school are not a horrible idea. Kids shouldn't have to wear a uniform, but a 'community standard' is not too much to ask. They are there to learn to be semi-productive members of society, not to look cool.

Fuck it. What the hell do I know about high school?

First year -- Absent 138 days (Or was it 137?). Expelled. 0 credits.
Second year -- Expelled in the first week.
Allowed to attend a private school soon after.
Expelled. 0 credits.
Third year -- Drop out.

But yeah, you guys sound like you're getting old....And that's definitely NOT a good thing ("Fuck the man" etc., etc.).

But there's the rub.  If "community standard" is not rigidly defined, someone will wear their pants on thier head and then cry discrimination. If it is rigidly defined, then its essentially a uniform.

I don't like dress codes, because I do want kids to be able to express themselves.

However, I think doing so allows them to learn a valuable lesson in pack mentality. Essentially, if you are perceived by the pack as being too weak to contribute, or too weird to fit in, you will be taunted incessantly. You will learn that you can either be a complete pariah by expressing yourself fully, or you can learn that completely expressing yourself every minute of every day generally just makes other people think you are a raging douchebag. Especially when you get pissy because someone calls you a faggoty nancy boy when you wear lipstick.

I like expressing myself. But we all need to learn that some things really don't need expression. You don't need to show how "different" you are by wearing lipstick and makeup. You don't need to go on the Internet and tell people you're a furry deviant. You really don't, because not only do most people not fucking care, it's none of their business.

So while I'm not in favor of dress codes, I'm not in favor of kids being allowed to look like fucking freaks at school. And if they are allowed, they have to take responsibility for the fact that some people will want to give them permanent swirlies because of it.

"Fly your freak flag high." 

Another boo-hoo poor fucking me story: I started working when I was 14 (the legal age kids can work in Oregon) because at that time I was still wearing donations from clothing drives (we were financially-challenged). It was nice to be able to pick out what I was going to wear for once. I also had to pay for my own lunch and bus fare. Luckily (and this totally dates me), the grunge thing blew up in 1991 when I was a sophomore, so I was able to dress like a homeless person and still be fashion-forward. When I was 16 and became a vegetarian, I was responsible for my own groceries. The only thing I'm jealous about with this kid is that I couldn't wear makeup until I was a junior! It's so easy to forget that the teen years are a crucial stage in our human development. We have to learn the final boundaries that can be tested, and what the consequences are for our actions. Getting suspended/expelled from school is the closest thing to getting fired from a job that we can experience before the consequences are actually real. I wouldn't say that most kids have it on easy street. The ones that do will probably have the rest of their lives pretty well taken care of. However, I do support the idea of a dress code, if only to level the playing field and eliminate the fucked-up elitism that comes with varying economic backgrounds. Feeling like I was being looked down upon for my parents' financial status was probably the most damaging experience of my formative years.

Hmm...Wow. Good points from Haem and Lily. Never even considered that.

This was something I meant to address in my post. Thanks for bringing it up.

Actually, a dress code won't do dick for eliminating the elitism of high school, because it has little to do with high school and everything to do with the fact that human beings really like being total douchebags to each other. Especially if it makes them feel better about themselves.

Just because you are wearing the same clothes doesn't mean you'll look the same. The poorer kids will still get noticed for being poor, because the rich hang with the rich. Like congregates with like.

Point of note; there is a difference between dress codes and uniforms.  Soon as the school says that you can't wear a bikini or a kilt (correctly), you have a dress code.  Same for bans on Tshirts advertising pot, alcohol, or wearing your "farfromfuken" shirt to German class.  Uniform means "here, you get to wear this".

And no, I've no real problem with either.  The first is all but a requirement, and no problems if that includes facepaint.  Second is a bit tougher sell, although I'm not against it.


They can.  At home, at their friend's house, at the mall, etc.  They can write, draw, and talk.  Public schools exist to teach the students something, hopefully lessons that are valuable.  It looks like this kid got a good lesson; don't be a jackass to authority.  Most public schools have a very casual dress code, but expect those minimums to be met as a matter of respect, decency, and as a weak stab at professionalism.  If he doesn't find that atmosphere suitable, he and his parents are welcome to home school him, or he can go to whatever private school names itself "Clowns Too Stupid To Pass 9th Grade High".

Haem and Lily made a good point....Then you turned me right back around to where I stood before.

You guys really sound like a unfriendly bunch of old farts.

Not unfriendly, just unsympathetic to bullshit cries of discrimination.  I'm very much behind ideas of protecting victims, and victim rights.  Misuse of authority is something that gets me irate fairly quickly, since it pretty much requires someone(s) be victimized in the process.  However, the key point is assuming there is a victim.  I'm in total disagreement that being told you can't show up at school looking like he did (http://www.silverbox.com/krusty/images/krusty.gif) makes him a victim - just stupid. 

This wasn't totally my experience. After the aforementioned grunge movement, kids seemed to stop noticing that I wasn't wearing branded merch because the affordable old-man sweaters and tore-up fishnets with combat boots were edgy and gaining popularity. It only took a year or so before I was getting compliments from the richies instead of glances of disdain. The other shit, like being told to shut up by some dumb jock for spouting feminazi propaganda, seemed to cross class lines pretty equally. My point is, ridicule came to and from the economic classes of students equally once the clothing (and other obvious economic) issues were rendered moot.

Was this you in high school?  :-D

(http://www.riverblue.com/hughes/articles/princessmolly.jpg)

I'm guessing your parents had money to actually buy you clothes, instead of (for a significant period of time at least) receiving hand-me-downs that were out of style, and often didn't fit quite right.  The worst part about the elitism of clothing isn't that the rich are douches, it's that you get a visual slap every day that your life is suck.  It's utterly demoralizing without anyone *needing* to be a douche, although that they are doesn't help.  It's even more fun to get blamed for it, like it's your fault.

None of that has to do with not painting your face. Wear all black, look like you hate the world, frown a lot. That's all fine in my book. This kid obviously crossed a line, and that's why the dress code is there. It's not a uniform, it's a guideline to keep people from being stupid.

I went to an elementary school and middle school without a dress code. Kids who couldn't express themselves socially dressed like jackasses. I've zero sympathy. I was a jock, computer geek, and pretty popular guy all around. I never dressed like a jackass. Well, not a complete jackass and when I did it was because I'd either lost a bet or did it to prove a point. That said:

Dress codes are good. If only because most kids can't dress themselves. These are the same kids who think posting in the WoW forums is high intellectual thought. The same kids who don't think English class is worth their time. The same kids that wouldn't know MLA guidelines if it were injected into them while they were sleeping in class.

My high school had dress codes. People still stretched it as far as they could, but not because they wanted individualism. It was just to undermine authority. Which I can understand. In most cases, those with authority have some sort of plunger up their ass, providing pain and discomfort with every word they speak. I've no respect for arbitrary authority, but going from a non-dresscodified 8 years of school to a high school with a dress code, all I can say is good on them.

I started working the moment I legally could, roughly 3 days after I turned 15. I dressed in a way that could be described as normal. Sometimes a t-shirt, sometimes a polo, sometimes a button down. I had some stupid gimmick shirts, and then shirts from the goth/synth culture I was involved with. But never have I ever worn makeup to get attention or any reason for that matter. By and large, those who have to dress a certain way to make themselves feel better have very obviously got an absolutely core fundamental misunderstanding about how civilization operates. It's asinine, stupid, and only goes to show you how little parents pay attention to them. While it's a pity story, it's one I can't partake in. Dressing like a dumbass does not make you new friends. Particularly not the friends you were aiming to intimidate/charm with your newfound style.

As for the guy in the article, fuck him. There's extreme and then there's stupid beyond all conceivibility, he's the latter.

I don't believe in dress codes.  I don't believe the age of 11 to 19 is easy.  The kid in the article obviously has esteem issues, not because he likes the punk look, but because he claims it makes him feel better.

Claiming kids have it on easy street is bullshit, at least in my perspective.  Middle school was a proving ground and highschool was hell.  Learning shit was secondary to discovering how to be a social individual.

Economic elitism is the only sound reason I have heard for a dress code and still does not cross that boarder for me.  Parental involvement and empathy are two of the aspects that should be emphasised, as well as teacher too student ratio.  The way kids dress is irrelevant next to those issues.

Except that we were discussing, among other things, dress uniforms vs dress codes.  And aside from that, makeup is normally included in any rules regarding personal appearance.  Further, when considering institutional rules like these, how the rules (or lack of) affects others is certainly important.  In this case it's not just about what this kid feels he should be able to do for his own sake, but also how what he does affects those around him.

Middle school was hell for me as well. I wouldn't be such a cynic if it had been better. I'm thankful for that. Earth isn't flowers and marshmallows.

My high school had a dress code M-Thu and a dress uniform Friday. They gave tours on Friday and wanted us to look pretty. It made sense if you're a neanderthal. But you know what? They were pretty lax on M-Thu, and we still stretched it.

As far as the economic situation goes, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm suck it up. Public Schools however, if they have a uniform, they should provide it. If they aren't going to provide it, they need strict guidelines for what NOT to do, but not what to wear. Good taste shall prevail.

And Catholic schools should NEVER remove the plaid skirt. Ever.

I wore hand-me-downs a lot of my life. I was and am a skinny mofo for which nothing fits quite right. I got ridiculed more for being skinny than for my clothes. Not like I would have given two fucks if someone had ridiculed my clothes, because for the most part, I really didn't give a shit about anyone who wasn't a friend of mine or what they thought. The skinny stuff hurt a little, but having an older brother thickened the skin for me on that one.

My point is that if there is something to be pointed out or ridiculed on a person, whether its their clothes, their hair, their spotty skin, their funnel chest, their ginormous ass, or their tendency to dress like a retard complete with clown makeup, not only will high school kids ridicule you, adults will ridicule you, at your job. Now, adults might be a bit more subtle about it, depending on the adult and the situation, but humans really are just monkeys with language and an aversion to feces on our hands. We instinctively know the weak/different/scary/stupid and we seek to Darwinize them.

To quote two King Missle songs:

"We're pigs. That's just the way we are."

"I want to be different, just like all the other different people!"

I'm guessing that the kid didn't learn a damn thing from all this except that school authorities and authorities in general are enemies to be opposed at any cost.

I don't think he should be able to wear all that at school either, and I think we all agree that he's doing it to get attention and push boundaries rather than his stated purpose. But ever since (at least) my high school days, it seems like the progression of methods of disciplining kids has gone something like this:
"Time to crack down"
"Time to crack down harder"
"Play time is OVER!"
"Play time is REALLY OVER!"
"Play time is SO OVER!"
"This time, play time is REALLY FUCKING OVER!"

And guess what?  It's not working.

Obviously the kid is dumb or socially inept or something like that; duh, that's why he feels that he needs attention.  Someone should address the root cause instead of making tougher and tougher policies. This kid is proof that (at least) ever since 89 when I graduated, things have gone nowhere but south.  Time for some creative solutions.

edit: tense and whatnot

Except that you don't hear people complain about mistreatment by coworkers in the same light they view mistreatment from schoolmates.  Adults are (mostly) held responsible for their actions, and it normally makes for a far more comfortable social atmosphere than the schoolyard.  The difference is extremely sharp, and I'm honestly surprised that your and schild's reaction is "oh well, suck it up".  Not that I care for my sake, being well out of school now, but it is still a very pressing matter because of things like this (http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/DB/issues/99/05.26/view.editorial.html).

If your feeling is that public schools are OK with having environments that teach social darwinism instead of social responsibility, it's an endorsement of the product.  The product of social darwinism is fairly simple; win at all costs.  If you cannot win by the rules, make your own rules and force others to comply to them so you win by that route.

It's kinda funny, but giving all this attention to this kid has only made him a martyr of sorts. He doesn't even look that hardcore from my perspective. If he hadn't gotten the what-for from the faculty, he'd only have his peers to answer to. Maybe he looks scary enough to them to gain some power from it. No one really fucked with goths in my school, and that was 10 years before Hot Topic made all that shit so trite and accessible. They just got ignored as the outsiders they were so desperately grasping to be. I bet he "feels better about himself" because he gets some attention. Everyone knows, even negative attention is better to a kid than no attention. And I don't recall red eyeshadow and black lipstick being particularly Wiccan, so his reasoning is flawed. Some kids use drugs, others use makeup. But they all just need to stretch their little wings and test the waters.

I hope those cosmetics weren't tested on animals, because that would be very bad for his Wiccan/Neo-Paganism.

Yes, it's addressing the symptoms and not the cause, and I wish more time would be spent on understanding and addressing the social issues within schools.  That just doesn't come across as politically sexy as "cracking down" though.  However, I do think there is some merit to it; allowing obvious rebellious behavior encourages more of the same.  There are rules regarding personal appearance, I would endorse them for a host of reasons, and even if this kid had real personal issues that led him to break the rules not because he hates administrators but because he has problems, that doesn't mean it should be allowed. 

At the same time, I would hope more work was invested in the problem to find out what was going on, why, and what might be done to correct it.  He failed a grade, he's dancing for attention, and that's not adding up to a bright future.  If suspending him is all they do, you're right, I don't see him learning anything but "authorities are assholes", and that's not a fun road to send kids down.

Edit: Bit more on this specific situation, the article said he's been wearing it for some time, so no telling what other warnings or counselling might have gone into it, so trying to fault the administration would be premature I think.  Just sitting in the realm of "if they did this or that" right now.

The worst thing is these problems are given the least attention.  The kid was probably sent to the school laughingstock guidance counselor who told him "um, you'l never get into college wearing that"

Don't be haters. Good for the kid, fuck da man.

I guess this kid should get on the football team and get to some date-raping to conform in a way parents approve of. The world needs used car dealers.

I think public schools should teach both. Whether we like them or not, ALL organizations that create community teach social darwinism, because it's in our very blood. It's how we are.

We do not teach social responsibility by coddling children, by telling them "It's ok if you're a freak," or, "Beauty is only skin deep." Because you know what? It ISN'T ok to be a freak until you are happy in your freakness. Until you learn a lesson that cannot be taught. "You have to be happy with who you are or change into who you want to be." If it takes getting a pounding school to learn that, so be it.

LIFE IS HARD.

Kids aren't being taught this lesson. They are being taught they are a special and unique snowflake for which nothing will ever happen bad. And it's a lie, just as much as Santa Claus is a lie. Kids are waking up with this idea that they are entitled to everything, and that consequences will never touch them. And when the consequences of them being a freak job DO touch them, such as being suspended for looking like Punk'd Bozo or getting their mohawked head swirlied, their fragile little egos force them to do stupider shit, like hurt themselves or shoot their bullies or blow up schools. Or post on WoW forums.

Guidance counsellors are jokes, and always were. And yet we still as a society keep feeding that system. Why? Did a guidance counsellor ever give you one piece of guidance you needed?

You guys are pretty off-base from where I'm sitting.

I went to a Catholic High School, we had a full dress code that has now become a full uniform.

That didn't help anybody, the whole it protects the poor kids thing is a complete crock of shit.  You can still tell from the rich kids from the poor, and the elitest fuckwads will still be fuckwads.  Highschool is hell, I'm sorry I can't imagine anything being as shitty as the way I saw so many people treated in those four years and this was at a fairly nice private school.

Who fucking cares what he wears?  The real world will teach him when he applies for a job to take the makeup off, but in the meantime if it makes him feel good to dress like a moron then let him do it.  All that should matter is the kid feels comfortable, so he gets through those four years of being amongst the most vile and judgemental group of human beings you will ever find.  

To me this is just a jump down from prayer in school, most of "society" thinks this is good so you should do it.  Fuck that, let the stupid whiney wiccan bitch wear whatever the fuck he wants.  As long as he stays in school and passes some classes its a win in my book.

Apparently, he can't manage that passing classes part.

Yeah - kinda back to the whole cry-for-help-needs-attention thing. He's prolly just gay and wants to detract from all the other ways he feels alienated. Dressing wierd has always been the easiest way to manifest estrangement into the tangible. Feeling different is too hard to articulate, so looking different makes it more clear. Hey, kid - a little on-the-nose, don'tcha think?

Edit: If he does try to bust a Columbine, maybe he'll do it with crystals and his level 60 scrying ability.

I believe "community standard" is rarely a carved-in-stone thing.  It's basically a matter of "would the average person in the community" dress like this, yes or no?  Yes, it's subjective, but this is the same community that's going to be judging them outside of the school, for good or ill.  Is individualism a good thing?  Sure, it can be, but it can also get you a boatload of crap, and you need to be prepared for that because there's not a lot you can do about it.

As far as rights go, kids don't necessarily got 'em.  There's a reason they're called "minors."  There's a point where your "right" to dress yourself interferes with the right of other kids to get an education; when your clothing is disruptive of a learning environment, it's time to get with the program.  Hell, personally I'm all for the idea of school uniforms.  Sure, they look stupid, but then everyone looks equally stupid...

I'd like to take this opportunity to suggest "Saved!" as a movie to watch.

2 comments.

I also went to a private catholic high school with a full dress code (i.e shirt, tie, dress pants, coat) from 7th grade through 12th.  While I think it was a small help in terms of school enivornment, it didn't hurt matters.  By FAR the larger impact item in the school environment was the lack of girls.  :)  Yep, all male school.  In retrospect while I wasn't thrilled with the lack of females, it DID eliminate a ton of distractions an behaviors that occured daily at my friends public school.  IMHO, most of the fucktardary that happens daily at schools, including dressing to get attention (both good and bad), is done purely for the attention of the other gender, not so much for your friends.

In terms of dress codes vs uniforms today.  My wife teaches 8th graders at a public school and could certain relate many anecdotes of how clothing undermined the environment.  It's very easy to cause a distraction or disruption in a hyper charged adolescent atmosphere with the simplest of things like clothing.  Recent problems she's had at her school this year alone involving clothing range from gang colors, to confererate flag wearing race baiting, to inflamatory t shirt slogs (religions etc), pagers and cell phones (considered part of your attire), excessive jewelry (being stolen, or used in fights), sexually provocative clothing (too short, see thru, lack of underwear, wearing sleepwear/swimwear to school) and probably other stuff im forgetting.

The reason it's such an issue today is you can't rely on adequete parental supervision of this stuff anymore.  So schools get saddle more and more with trying to do stuff just so the majority don't suffer from the assheadedness of the minority.  Let face it, 1 kid with a dress code issue can easily disrupte an entire class for ~25 others... like say the teen slut with self esteem issue who wore a micro-mini and no underwear and simply bent over in class to pick up a pencil she "accidently" dropped.  Yes, that really happened, and of course, it pretty much blew any chance of an instructional session for that class, and of couse became the issue of the week school wide.

So no, Im not opposed to dress codes and uniforms.  But, give me a competancy test that must be passed before you're allowed to reproduce and have kids and it probably wouldn't be needed. :)

Xilren  

Amen.


Ahh, to be a teen again. You don't get that kind of excitement in software development.

Where did you go to school, because that sure as hell wasn't my experience.  It was closer to, "conform or die".


Because, well, they *are*.  They don't, and can't, earn anything on their own.  Everything they get is an entitlement, up to and including education.  Breaking the culture of dressing up like clowns (or whatever else outlandish thing they want to do) is one way to try and snap them out of that, but it's not much of an answer, and does nothing to stop the social darwinism that goes in in schools which is a bad thing.  You do NOT want kids thinking that's the right social path, because for starters it teaches you nothing about life outside of school (you don't score points with the manager for not being a team player - even less so in a marriage), and for another it doesn't touch on any of the reasons why life is hard.

The difficulties in life mostly revolve around having to work with the people and resources you have to solve your problems, not against them.  Most of us can't get rid of our relatives, our coworkers, or financial issues; you have to coordinate, plan, and balance, and you sure as hell aren't learning any of that in the schoolyard.  There, you learn two things; you had better be setting trends, or following them, because anything else is a social death.

Looks like this kid can't follow the trends, so he's going to set his own.  He probably doesn't have a choice; if he's on the social outs and can't win on that front, he's going to angle for another avenue for 'teh win', because that's what you have to do in social darwinism. 

Think about every griefer-catass that you've had to deal with in online games is out to get you, and how much you bitch about game designs that allow it.  Now slap that in a PvP- world where you can't do shit to stop it, and THAT is what he and others have to put up with.  If you were paying for a MMOG and were told that by a GM, you'd cancel and move on.  His problem is that he can't cancel. 

Get over yourself.  He needs to learn life is hard?  If he's anything like the kids I knew who acted like that, his life is harder than I, and I seriously suspect you, had or will ever have to deal with.  The problem isn't that he hasn't learned that life is hard, it's that he keeps getting told that he's got it easy, and go get over it.  In short, no one gives a rip about his problems, and he can go stuff it.

This is an unfortunately random first post/topic from WoW. Quite literally the first one on the page when I looked.


Yes, these kids need to learn that life is hard. Because seriously, it is. We're lucky to be able to afford time to have for gaming and when the little ass crispies in high school get into college, they're minds are going to be blown. They're individuality will be shattered because everyone is an individual and teachers won't care if they can only afford to wear burlap sacks. They also will get zero respect from anybody. College kids don't go out of their way to make friends and anyone who wants to be such an individual that they stand out like a sore thumb will not be making friends. Unless it's other outcasts. Misery loves company and whatnot.

That said, a little order in every kids life will teach him the most important thing of all: He is not unique.

Once you understand that you aren't unique, you can start being an individual. Until then you're just an arrogant cockbite wearing makeup. The best time for this bit of order? Middle and High School.

Life's easy when you don't have bills. I was a little piece of shit when I was a teenager (well, up through high school) and I gotta be honest, I wish I hadn't been.

Edit: Here's a link to the WoW thread. (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-off-topic&t=286263&p=1&tmp=1#post286263) Don't click it if you value your sanity.

How screwed up do you have to be to want to make your face up like he did?  That's not the kind of thing you do when you're doing well with your peers and life is peachy.  Would you go to work dressed like that?  No, why?  Ok, what is it in his head that made him to decide to override those social constraints and break out on his own in a very bold way?  Hint:  It's not because the status quo was going well.  When people take drastic measures in their life, at any stage in their life, it's not because they like things how they are and life is good.

How screwed up do you have to be? Well, let's pull a more informative newsclipping out.

Here ya go (http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43802)


Apparently you just have to be wiccan. I'm not buying into their lame ass pity story. SO SORRY.

Let's finish the story schild started...

Someone spent a little to much time in the CoH character generator.


There is a noticeable behavioral difference when kids wear school uniforms vs. not. Ask any staff member at a school that has uniforms. They will tell you on the days when kids are allowed to wear non-uniform cloths they are noticeably more obnoxious.

Humans are tribal animals. If you watch a basketball game between the blue team and the red team you will see the blue team and the red team even if there are black and white players on both teams. You won't see a black team and a white team on the court. We notice the biggest differences between people and group them togather based on that subconciously.

Which leads back to everyone wearing the same uniform makes you think they are all part of your tribe subconciously.


I'm done talking out of my hat now, kthx.

Hey, mom.  Put down the candles and try to actually talk to your son. 

Makeup made him feel better after the divorce.  Do you think that he might actually not be feeling better?  Do you think that he is acting out in rebellion against, hmmm, let's say, HIS FATHER?

Stop being a self absorbed woman and figure out why your kid is so screwed up that he couldn't pass the freaking 9th grade and has to wear makeup to calm himself. 

FYI, kids have no rights except the right not to be a criminal victim.  Everything else is a gift from adults.

 For those that had to work as kids, join the club.  I had my minorities removed in high school.  I was an adult and I was a complete asshole to authority.  I was a National Merit scholar who had his own chair in the principal's office because I didn't treat the idiot teachers with respect.  I learned my lesson because they wouldn't let up on me no matter if I could ace the classes or that I dressed well. I was a dick and a distraction in class because I was bored.  Oh well, I guess they should have let me continue to challenge the teacher's authority by quoting the textbooks back at them and telling them that they were wrong and were wasting my time.  I was a snowflake, dammit. I should have been left alone to disrupt the rest of school one class period at a time.

Kids are just young people learning that they are broken.  It is our job to educate them in how they are broken.

This idiot is a freaking wreak and his mother is too stupid and broken to see it.  Oh, well.  Sucks to be him.  Now, dress like you are told and you might get to learn the 9th grade curriculum this year. 

What is the over and under on the number of weeks until this kid drops out?  6?

The kid has red hair and some eye makeup - who gives a fuck? Are you going to ban girls who get breast implants, because I'm sure that's more distracting.

School uniforms don't do shit. The kids that go to Catholic schools and wear the uniforms and follow the rules turn out to be the crazy sluts when they hit college. That's the whole preacher's daughter thing. The biggest drinker I know in college went to Catholic school, as did the biggest slut.

So, you guys are making a common fundamental error: Your proposed solution doesn't address the problem. It doesn't teach kids anything about life, nor does it make them learn more in school.

In high school what other people are wearing is the least of your worries. Those girls that dress all slutty? They're in basic math with a bunch of other retards who aren't going to learn much no matter what. So at least let them look good.

I don't think kids should be going to school topless, but some makeup and red hair? Seriously who cares? Oh no, I can't learn, his hair is too scary!

A good portion of Catholics being raging drunks doesn't stem from repressive uniforms.

I can't wait for someone to notice you were talking about fathers. Oh man, that'll be great.

I'm sure the slut ratio from Catholic school is no higher than any other all girls school. That said, the plaid skirts do draw that much attention vs. jeans or whatever.

So they followed the rules and got through high school without being a huge distraction to their classmates? Mission accomplished.

Quick post because my day is about to start:

As a student, I hated the idea of dress codes/uniforms.  Kills individualism, pointless display of power by the administration just because they could.
As someone training to be a teacher, I still thought dress codes/uniforms were a bad idea.  Any 'good' teacher ought to be able to work around any distractions they might create.  
Now, as a teacher, I love dress codes.  It creates an instant line that puts all the students in one group and the teachers- who NEED to define themselves as authority figures, even if it means being a dick- in another group.  Can this be done either ways?  Sure, but not as easily.  It has NOTHING to do with a 'awww make the poor students feel better' concept.  If you've ever heard that line, its just PR.  
Its one less way for the 'look-at-me' students to disrupt the class, and you'd be amazed how quickly attitude disappears once a student puts on a uniform.  Think you're a 16 year old thug?  Dress like it when cruising the mall, not in my fucking classroom.  
When I first started teaching, I asked the students in every class what they thought of uniforms.  90 percent said they liked it, that it was one less thing they have to worry about.

And for you people who think that dresscodes/uniforms are a form of oppression:  You are a fucking moron and have absolutely no idea what oppression really is.

Wasn't able to read the entire thread, I'll try to post more later

I'd rather ban their parents for being fucking idiots.

What would Jesus do?  Light 'em on fire and send them to hell!

I guess a simple "Fuck you" is appropriate here. You don't know anything about me.

And to think, I actually liked you before you posted that.

Yes, let's just write off all those kids as never being anything. I'm glad you're not my kid's teacher.

Dress codes work within certain limitations. I went to a catholic highschool and we had to wear uniforms. This was all fine and dandy for me. Never having to choose what you're going to wear makes waking up 5 minutes before your bus comes REALLY easy. But, I'm scarred. I look at the ground when I walk up stairs now. Why? Because letting young girls wear kilts above knee length can lead to some scary fucking shit. I looked up once.. chewbacca was stuck and I couldn't help him. Scarred for life.

I am not personally a supporter of dress codes. It's the wrong approach, albeit for legitimate concerns regarding the observation of social ostracization and 'class markers' that are used informally but implicitly within school populations to denote upper and lower social classes.

All dress codes manage to do is attempt to band-aid the problem in a mostly ineffective manner. It's a scrappy tactic that is rarely implemented well enough to achieve any of the things they are ostensibly put in place to achieve, and even when done 'well', it's the wrong approach to social engineering of conformity in schools.

Much like I believe that any group should be able to peaceably express their views - even if that means that you get KKK marches - I also believe that schools should allow students to dress as they wish, even if that means that you get this eye-shrivelling abomination before Taste Immemorial.

Not to say that there shouldn't be limits imposed strictly towards the purpose of maintaining a professional educational environment: certain excesses in dress are disruptive, whether intentionally or not. So said my high school principal when a student - newly arrived from Kansas - began wearing a genuine article godhatesfags.com t-shirt to school. The same principle might apply to Gotharella here.

And I'm (partially) surprised to see him playing the Wicca card. I'd like to see - I imagine it may yet exist in one of the many incarnations of self-designed Wicca practice - where and how wearing terrible makeup is part of his faith.

I notice that many of you seem to be anti-uniform in principle except when it comes to Catholic schoolgirls. I'm not sure when they started to gain their reputation, but I bet a lot of the "sluts" you guys refer to are simply buying into the fucked-up fetishes laid upon them. Why don't they make the girls wear a shirt, slacks and tie like the boys, so they don't have to look like the jailbait they have unfortunately been turned into by pedophiliac assholes who wanna destroy innocence and fuck something pure? These girls don't start school knowing that they look like Japanese porn, someone lets them know.

Having boundaries enforced and learning to respect them is exactly that test.  When there's nothing to push against, there's no way to learn your own potential.

100% Comfort Zone <=> Useless Fucktard

It sounds like you personally came through a penultimate test and succeeded.  Hope you're doing something way cool with that accomplishment.  Having something *real* to push against is an amazingly effective and constructive way for a kid to grow up.  I'll bet you knew lots of kids back then who did not have something real to push against and probably came out nowhere near as well as you.

That's why dress codes are needed.

I can't define a fucked up person who needs a ten kiloton weight dropped on them to get them to fly straight.  But I know them when I see them.


Comfortable? No they don't gather around you and mock you to your face.  Unless they're the Kiss-up/Kick-down types.

One just never gets anywhere.  Mocking is gentle compared to never being able to provide for one's family as much as one needs.

So yeah - one really does have to make their own way.  I find the folks who have been through this shit and took it as a challenge are some of the most interesting people out there.  The bullies and the dishrags never seem to get interesting.

I teach in South Korea. 
In schools here, they can't flunk you.  They can't expel you.  There's no kind of detention.  Instead, if you act like an ass and disrupt the class, you get whacked with a wooden stick all the teachers carry for just that purpose.  It hurts, and will often leave a bruise.  If you get in serious trouble, a certain teacher will take you to the 'punishment room' (thats how it translates), and beat the shit out of you with an even larger wooden stick.  If you're really bad, they might shave some of your hair as well as beat you, or crop it very short if you're a girl, to show you've been punished. 
That might qualify as oppression.  Maybe.  For a school, yes. 

Now, I've traveled a good bit around Asia.   There are plenty of countries around here where the POLICE do this shit on a regular basis when the bribes aren't paid.  Or if you piss them off some other way.  Or they'll lock you away for 30-40 years for having more than a few ounces of pot or other hard drugs on you if you don't have the equivelent of 300-500 American to bribe them to look the other way.  I'm mainly talking about southeast Asia here (Thailand, Cambodia, a few others around there.  Thailand isn't as bad as it used to be).  THAT is what oppression is.  So if I sound arrogant and condescending when I say school uniforms aren't really a form of oppresion, so be it.  

Weird. THere's stuff in the quote that wasn't there the first time I read it. Oh, well.

Thanks, Poco, for the nice comps. It's funny, actually, I had friend in high school who had this really "cool" mom. Y'know, let us smoke and drink and stuff. Well my friend ended up dropping out like, 3 or 4 months before graduation because school was "too hard". It was too hard because she was stoned all the time! And then she got knocked up and started stripping to stay off welfare.  Also, her dad hadn't been very present when she was a kid. Text book!

Raging Turtle is right, and as an American it's somewhat bothersome to say it. But nearly any white kid growing up in America knows NOTHING about oppression. Nearly everyone alive today knows nearly nothing about oppression except a very small, select group of people over 75 and kids who live so deep in the inner city that they haven't bothered to name the area for fear that people might speak it.

Much of the known world still lives under horrific oppresion. Particularly parts of Southeast Asia, Africa, and parts of South America. They're living and fighting with it today. Even the police/citizen relationship in central America is more fucked up than anything most of us know about oppression in America. Saying that we understand oppression is a pompous act. And this is without even specifically pointing to parts of Columbia, North Korea and Peru. I still wouldn't take a holiday in Cambodia.

That said, people who put on motherfucking clown makeup and don't think it's a disruption in school are goddamn deluded and don't deserve the time of day and deserve to be ridiculed, suspended and expelled for continued disruption. I don't care what their mother, priest, rabbi, religion, or anything/one else tells them. It's not OK and you just look like a jackass.

Umm...I dropped out and I make more money than most people my age (Well, I "did" up until recently, but that's due to me looking for a change and/or other bullshit. I can still stay in the line of work I was involved in, if I really wanted to). I'm also happy with myself, and not a self destructive person.

Dropping out doesn't mean anything as far as I'm concerned. Some people just don't have any use for school after a certain point.

"The only guys that wear earrings are gays and movie stars, and I ain't seen none of your movies lately."

father to Lewis Grizzard

I have to go with George Bush on this one. Some kids are just plain dumb and don't learn. Or at least, aren't interested in learning. People who aren't interested in learning at all just don't. Hopefully that doesn't describe your kids. If people are genuinely interested in learning I don't think red hair is going to dissuade them, nor are uniforms going to make someone uninterested snap to attention.

Comparing Korea to the US is foolish, it's a very different culture. It *is* valid to say that uniforms aren't a form of oppression though. If that's the worst thing that ever happens to you in life you've done pretty damn well.

Edit: Dress codes and uniforms are different things. Most schools have dress codes to some degree (no hats in the classroom for example) and that makes sense. But is red hair genuinely disruptive? Christ. When I was in high school I had long hair, was that disruptive? I'm sure it was for some people - fuck them. You know who was disruptive to me? This Korean bitch that spent an entire period of math arguing with the teacher over her test grade because the test expected her to deduce something. Can we ban her for a day? She derailed an entire period with her mouth. How about the smart guy that won't shut the fuck up and let another kid get a word in edgewise?

If this kid showed up in school wearing the aforementioned "god hates fags" or whatever shirt, I might grant someone a point. But red hair and some makeup?

Some of you are making the argument that kids need to be taught that life is hard. Maybe Suzy Honor Student should learn the valuable lesson that not every environment is 100% tailored to her pampered needs. What's she going to do in real life when she walks into a bus station, break down and cry?

If I was that kid my defense would be this:

"If you can't learn because of my red hair you're retarded, fuck you." And it would be true. If your kid can't learn because another kid in his class wears makeup your kid is dumb.

When I was in high school one girls would dress super-slutty (who was also a raging feminist oddly) and once, when sitting directly across from me, spread her legs under her desk quite wide wearing a skirt and looked at me quite deliberately. I didn't learn shit in that class, but that's because the class sucked, not because my poor mind was subjected to crotch shots.

If your philosophy is "suck it up" I say suck it up to the kids who complain about red hair. Babies. OMG I kant lurn that guy has red hair! Whatever. If his hair is such a distraction make him sit in the back row, problem solved. What are the chances they'll ban kids who show up wearing a couple hundred dollars of clothing? My guess is zero.

God hates fags is genuinely offensive on purpose. A mohawk is not. It's not like high school kids have never seen goth dress before. It's just a dress style, same as a polo shirt and slacks, or the guy who always comes to school looking like his mom dressed him.

Which one of these is not like the other,
which one of these doesn't belong...

First off, to Stray:

I won't give you my opinion on drop outs. Suffice it to say you'll discover that your potential is incredibly limited in the long run. Look up the term glass ceiling. Odds are you're already at it.

As for those whining about high scholl is hell, dress codes are Nazi oppression:

Get over it. Maybe it is hell. It takes so little effort to fit in and survive in high school it is astounding. I was a certified geek with horrible fashion sense and I still made it through high school.

You're there to learn. Not to express yourself. High school is alot like most forums. You may think you have the rights of the US Constitution, or whatever law applies in your country. But the truth is you only have what rights are given to you. (Yeah, guess that makes Schild our local principal)

Christ, you guys are truly some grumpy old men. This is all rather amusing. "Kids today..." and all that.

The guy has a red mohawk and some eye makeup. God forbid! Are you the people that watch 20/20 specials about kids going to raves and recoil in horror? Talk about blowing things out of proportion. Again, the kid has a red mohawk and some makeup..oh no! How many miles uphill did you guys walk to school each way?

I will say the whole "high school was hell" is overplayed.

On a different note, I would never hire or not hire someone based on being a drop out. If you can do the job you can do the job. If a guy drops out to do drugs and doesn't do anything with his life then yeah, that's lame. If they guy drops out and is productive then good for him.

I would also point out that people expressing themselves *is* learning for other students. You know, free exchange of ideas and all that. God forbid someone in school see something slightly different that makes them a bit uncomfortable. Learning isn't all reading, riting and rithmatic. If the goths have to interact with the preps in the end it's probably good for both of them.

In a place like Japan the students wear uniforms but guess what, compared to the US Japanese society as a whole is extremely reserved and homogenous. You'll see more variety in the US riding a bus once than on the Japanese rail in a month. Why not educate people in a way that prepares them for introduction into larger society?

I just don't see what the big deal is. Maybe instead of getting their panties in a bunch the other kids could talk to freak boy or learn to FACE THEIR HEADS IN ANOTHER DIRECTION DUMBFUCKS. Math is hard!

If I had come home from high school one day and told my parents I couldn't concentrate because someone in class had some wacky makeup on my parents would have told me to get a life and stop being a retard. Maybe they understood that education isn't about dredging up flimsy excuses for being a moron. Treat your children like retards and that's what they'll be.

If I ever have kids and they whine about a kid with red hair I'll tell them I know they're smarter than that. Look the other way or move your fucking desk genius - try a little.

Edit:

"Feeling like I was being looked down upon for my parents' financial status was probably the most damaging experience of my formative years."

I've felt like that before, not solely financial status but more financial status + societal status + nasty divorce + little Johnny is acting kind of crazy in school for some reason. I wasn't hurting for money but I was low-class compared to a lot of my peers. But the moral of that story was, fuck them. At the time it wasn't so hot but looking back it was at least neutral and more than likely taught me some valuable after-school-special type of lessons. I certainly wouldn't go back in time and be a kid who got carted around in an SUV until my parents bought me a car for my birthday. There's a difference between hurtful and damaging. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger and such. (Cue "I'm still standing.")

High school isn't hell.

Middle School is hell. It's social boot camp. Either you're cool all 3 years or your not. There is no floating between groups for most people. Unless you're some sort of singing, dancing, charming triple threat. I'm sure even Fred Astaire hated middle school.

That said, we're not grump old men. We just think that the little snot nosed brat who's wearing that stupid shit because his mom is a wiccan pagan freak deserves whatever punishment he got and that kids can't be allowed to dress themselves. What was the name of that Adam Sandler movie where the kid wanted to dress as Frankenstein or something all the time? Yea, that's the situation here. I think it was called Big Daddy.

Some kids could use a big daddy that barely has 2 decades on them. I was a dumbass kid once and I wish I hadn't been such a dumbass. Kids today can be dumbasses also. But there's a line before you cross way past dumbassery. From where the guy with the facepaint is sitting, he can't even see that line.

Hrm...And all this time I thought I was looking into a mirror.

One kid with red hair and a silly makeup job, maybe that's not that bad in the grand scheme of things.  And over in the next chair is the kid who won't shut the fuck up, people can still learn, right?  And in the corner is the one who won't take a goddamn shower *EVER* and stinks like a Nebraska pig farm....

As has been stated, school is not about freedom.  It's about learning shit, and no matter how much a person may want to learn, a school classroom doesn't work if it's thirty raging individualists constantly doing their own thing.  It does work if it's a group of quiet, respectful, non-disruptive people who can focus on the task at hand (or at least not prevent others from focusing) without someone or something constantly stabbing them in the eye.

So, standards are set and lines are drawn.  Are they fair?  To the nonconformist, no.  But they work for the other 29 students.  And that's good enough for me.

*edited for some wierd-ass grammar.  <----is a product of public skoolz and all*

That kid is never sent home. Especially not if they are an honors student who won't shut the fuck up.


Neither is that kid.


How is MY HAIR COLOR akin to stabbing you in the eye? Are people really that easily distracted? I'm not in your face yelling at you or dancing on tables - I'm sitting there. You can't learn because of that? That's pathetic.

30 people "raging" doesn't make for good learning. 30 people dressing differently...who gives a fuck? And if it's disruptive to you because some retards in class keep talking about me or throwing spitballs THOSE are the people who should be sent home. Just sitting there with a mohawk is not disruptive in my book, and if that really prevents you from learning you need to re-roll a character with Mental Willpower above 3.

If the kid isn't bothering other people (I don't consider a different hairstyle bothering) who cares? If he is truly disruptive then yeah, send him home. But if he's sitting there quietly learning what's the problem?

I'm sure my long hair was "disruptive" to some retards in school if "disruptive" means morons who look for any excuse to not pay attention can find it by staring at my hair.

Edit: And again, exposure to different things IS learning.

Kids who want to learn something at school do even with the distractions. Kids who don't want to learn something at school find anything to distract them. Even with school uniforms and soundproof single-person cubicles.

I went to a public school without school uniforms, my sister went to a private catholic school with school uniforms. Difference? None at all. Kids find their pecking order without fault. If its not the clothes its the accessories, if its not the accessories its the wristwatch/glasses. If not its the haircut. The way people speak. Body language. The same way old money people can detect and single out the new millionaire on the party, even if he looks exactly the same. There are treaties on these things. Different "classes" have different mannerism.

Children find their ways to rebel. Stricter rules just mean they have to work less to annoy others. Nothing solved there as well.

That said, even if you allow nearly everything some adolescents will find out what isn't allowed and do it. Just to test their limits. Its something almost everybody does in his youth, one way or the other.

I don't view this as a "he is distracting other kids" thing. Hell he's probably giving the nerds a break by distracting all the bullies. I view it as something very simple. There are rules. The rules are there for a reason. He broke them. He's punished for it. Stop trying to make it out like he's opressed. You sound like a bunch of whiny defense lawyers.

The ACLU disagrees with what you said.

Yeah, those people *ARE* sent home--or at least to the office, after which they shape the fuck up and learn to act normal, or get suspended until they do.  I knew those people, those are real examples.  And some of them were otherwise the smartest kids and best students in school.  Everyone's got problems they have to learn to deal with before the rest of the world backhands them across the eyes.  

Individually, it's not a big deal.  He's relatively harmless.  But if you start to let people slide, then other kids will push it farther.  You KNOW they will.  Kids are that way; "so and so gets to do this, so I should get to do that."  They do it all the freakin' time, and even just arguing "no" is a huge waste of everyone's time.  Limits HAVE to be set.  Sorry that this kid exceeded them, but the line has to be somewhere, and it is usually (and reasonably) set at somewhere around what "society" considers "normal."

FYI, "raging individualist" does not mean people throwing tantrums.  It means people who absolutely must do their own goddamn thing no matter what.  You know them, I know them, we all know them.  These kids' fellow classmates know them outside of class; they don't need to see it in school to be exposed to it and 'learn' about it.  If the malcontents want to do it in their own life, at home, where it doesn't impact anyone else, fine.  Their choice.  In schools or the office, it's inappropriate.

Those other students do not choose to be in that class.  They're told to be there, and they have to make the best of it.  Do not try to tell me that they should have to suck it up when someone fucks around (even if it's something like a mohawk and face paint).  It's their job to learn, and it's the school's job to help them, at least in part by creating an environment that is friendly to learning.  Dressing like a jackass is not learning-friendly.  If he wants to do that, let him homeschool with his equally irritating mother so nobody else has to put up with him, and he doesn't have to deal with them; it's a win-win.

School is NOT ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL.  It is the Borg collective.  Assimilate, or get the shaft.

I'll quote my best friends dad on this one, "Children are barbarians who must have civilization forced upon them."

Chances are he got it from somewhere else but it's a good analogy.  Civilization is literally the techniques required for people to function together when they have to live around each other, its a skill that must be taught.

Wearing red hair, mohawk and make-up to school is not the act of a civilized person, a person attempting to do thier part to make life livable for himself and those around him, it's just a drain on the time and energy of other people.

All that said I still think all this is too big a deal, shave his head and have his face scrubbed in front of the school assembly.  Public personal embarrasment is probably the only really effective form of behavioral reform there is.

Margalis, I was that kid who wouldn't shut the fuck up.  I got sent to the office all of the time.  I got suspended.  I was a complete and total dick who liked to sign his own progress reports and excuse slips in front of the teacher so that she would begin arguing with me again.  The school took every negative action that they could. 

Guess what?  I learned where the line was.  I learned how to get close to the negative consequences without actually triggering them.  I still didn't learn anything in class but I found other ways to amuse myself and the rest of the students learned.  Teachers figured out that it was easier to let me roam the halls on another trip to the library or to allow me to go run errands instead of forcing me to sit in my chair for an hour. 

Hey, maybe something worked.  After 6 years in the Marine Corps, I became a lawyer.  I am productive member of society who knows where the limits are and has the ability to determine whether or not I want to face the consequences of pushing past those limits.  I tend to break the speeding laws frequently.  In fact, I wasn't allowed to become a Camp David guard because of my "reckless disregard for the law."  So, I am now a lawyer who speeds.  That's pretty much the limit of my challenging the system.  I don't care enough about the other stuff to push those limits. 

This kid needs to learn who he is and how to make his place in society.  I'm sorry that this particular idiot and his mother are completely unable to figure that out. 

Feel free to keep the kid home.  You don't get to break the rules and demand that the rules change.  There are no civil rights for idiot children. 

God forbid someone shows some individuality in the midst of our conformity factories. He should just join the football team and date-rape cheerleaders like a good boy.

Dumbassery != individuality, there are already enough idiots in the world, that does not make you unique.

Here is the bottom line: If I'm sitting next to you wearing a mohawk but otherwise keeping to myself and being studious, and that somehow is preventing you from learning, why is the assumption automatically that *I* need fixing?

Just some more information.  Neat little article googled up "here (http://www.keepschoolssafe.org/school/codes-uniforms-3.htm) on a survey of school principles. Short snippet


They also note Urban principals are much more inclined to want school uniforms, not just dress codes, which anecdotaly supports many of the storys you see of magnate or high acheivement schools being established in very poor urban neighborhoods (most of them start with uniforms from day 1).  Some other good linkage on that page.

Im a little surprise to see several people claiming dress code or uniforms don't "work".  What exactly are you expecting them to do? Eliminate all teen social problems?  Ain't gonna happen, no matter how they dress.  What they most definately do accomplish is remove clothing/appearance as an easy distraction and disruption to the classroom, and that certainly DOES work.

I could never do my wife's job; I'd want to kill to many of the little wankers and their parents in week 1.

Xilren

The one who looks like mom dressed him. Seriously.

When I went to highschool, that was the guy who would get picked on and shitkicked, mainly because those were the guys who lacked friends.

It is not that the sight of the kid is distracting, it is the murmur through the class when he walks in, and people whispering about him and craning their necks to see what stupid shit he wore today. It is the body of kids together that allow themselves to be distracted. When a teacher has to spend 10 minutes at the beginning of every period trying to get everyone's attention instead of getting on with business, the kids lose.

Since when did you become a moderator?

We're dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed.

80% of billionaires don't have college degrees. Next.

How many of them don't have high-school degrees?

Edit:  According to Forbes you're full of shit:

http://www.forbes.com/2000/06/29/feat_print.html

Not to mention those involved in an artistic career -- Drop outs or not college educated. The whole lot of them (I'm not just talking about the mega rich and famous -- I'm also talking about the illustrators, designers, catelog models and photographers, and the guys who score acting gigs at dinner theaters and cruise lines).

God, amen schild. This was where I took the brunt of it for being poor. Like I said earlier, high school was kinda a cake walk compared to middle school because of the grunge scene. I was just talking about this the other day - I've noticed that generally speaking, people who were successful socially in middle school hit their peak at around age 16. Almost all of the girls who were popular in high school got complacent and fat. The nerdy chicks are all hot and successful now.

Stray, when I said "text book" I was referring to my friend getting knocked up and becoming a stripper because her dad was absent. You should get your GED. It's really easy.

I wonder how many of you guys are actually parents...

I mean if this was your kid, for whatever reason who wanted to dress "too differently" by the school standerds your saying you would have no trouble?

What if he just died his hair blue?
What if he just didn't want to shave?
What if he just felt like wearing pants that were too baggy? had tons of tears in them?  had those wierd bondage straps?
What if he wanted to wear a diamond stud earring?

What if your daughter wanted to wear really big earrings?
What if she liked to wear some really crazy color of lipstick?
What if she just wanted to dye her hair?

These are all things I've seen outlawed at dress code schools.

The point I'm making here is, this is not just about wiccan makeup wierdos.  You implement dress codes and they only get more and more strict over time.  At my high school now you have to buy your clothes from the school, basically there is one approved shirt and one approved set of pants each comes in a few colors.

Eventually the "Student Handbook" just becomes this bullshit document that gives the school a loophole to fuck with any kid they decide needs fucking with.  This kid sounds like he's not a good student and he probably pissed his teachers off and now they are suspending him for what he wears.  Thats a crock of shit.

I did, a little after I first left. I even attended college while my peers were still in high school....Decided to quit that though.


Umm....Like Father, like son?

What the hell is wrong is blue hair anyways?

edit: My bad. Sounds like you're on my side (?).

That isn't the world list. Something like 691 in the world. The US only has 234. I can't find college stats for the world list right now but I did find where it says 41% of billionaires on the US list inherited the wealth (the world inherited percent is much higher).

Even if that were true...

What do you suppose is the ratio of dropout billionaires to dropouts who are poor?

Yeah, i hear winning the mega lottery works well too.

Xilren

He was referring to high school dropouts.

Did any of you learn about social castes in high school? Specifically, which one you fit into?  Learning about how to fit into society and, I'll say it again, how far you can push boundaries, are as important, if not MORE important than learning which civilization developed cuneiform. Teens are at the most difficult developmental stage because they look like adults (and are biologically mature) and are expected to act like adults but are still treated as children. "Conform or die" is not necessarily the reality of being a productive member of socitey. Teens have to struggle with figuring out in which circumstances originality is acceptable (e.g., critical thinking) and when it is unprofessional or garners negative consequences (e.g., dressing unconventionally). Even the straight kids have to figure this shit out, albeit within a smaller sphere of reality.

Also, don't you think it's better that they do this when they're young and don't have to suffer the real consequences? I spent my last two years of high school either selling LSD or on it, and yeah, I was a bit distracting to some kids (drawing trippy pictures and saying spaced-out shit in Economics), but I got it all out of my system so that at age 18 I had gotten a job, my own apartment, and enrolled myself in college (luckily, I had been an accelerated learner throughout my academic career so blowing off my senior year didn't really impact me). A couple of years of challenging authority and trying to figure out who I was was crucial to my development as an adult. At least this kid is learning now what he can get away with instead of finding out later when our taxes pay for his room and board in jail.

God please don't turn this into a street smarts vs. book smarts thread. It's stupid enough as it is.

Let me start by making two quite obvious statements.

I was a non-conformist dick in high school. Yeah, I know, shock. I would have been this kid, except I really didn't want the rest of my life and potential future in college fucked up because I kept wanting to push the principal's buttons. It just wasn't worth the hassle.

Our educational system is fucking borked.

Now, as the first point, I was a know-it-all cockmunch in high school, and honestly in need of a beating most likely. A lot of the stupid shit I believed then has been refined by experience to more accurately fit with the picture of reality I have now. I had a few things over on this kid. First, I didn't have a divorced set of parents, and there's your first clue that this kid is acting out. Secondly, my mother, who was a teacher in the same school district, rather than support my asstardery, would have told me to shut the hell up and do what I was told. She would have disciplined me in addition to whatever I got from the school, because that's what parents should do when their kid gets in trouble at school.

Now, had I ACTUALLY been the victim of harrassment from school officials, she'd have gone after them with flamethrowers; but this is quite clearly NOT THAT SITUATION. This kid wants to dress up like a retard, in a clearly disruptive manner. I'd say the same thing if he wanted to wear a dress, or if a girl wanted to wear a skirt so short you could see morning dew on the bushes. It isn't that other kids can't concentrate when Boppo the Clown walks in, it's that the potential exists for disruptions to happen. The kid will get a beatdown; the kid will get spitballed and harrassed by other students; hell, other students will spend so much time making jokes that they don't pay attention. The potential exists for trouble. As a policymaker, you have to weigh whether or not the negatives of that policy outweigh the positives. The negatives of him not being able to wear makeup? Not much really. The kid feels put upon by authority, boo-fucking-hoo. The positives? Other kids don't have another excuse to treat this kid like shit, possibly causing fights, disruptions in class, more discipline, etc. No contest. His "freedom of expression" is not worth that.

Our education system? They ARE conformity factories, and they all too often are given more responsibility than power. It seems like society wants the schools to be surrogate parents, but then they aren't allowed to discipline the kids. Spankings? Right out? Suspensions? Wheee, kids get free vacation days. The only "real" power they have is expulsion, and that's not a solution except in cases where the student is a clear and present danger to the other students and teachers. Parents seem to be abdicating their powers as disciplinarians, yet litigious asshats have removed schools disciplinary powers at the same time. My mother has been a teacher for years, as has my sister. I know thereof what I speak.

Add onto the educational system the inequalities in funding because of differing tax bases, and you have excellent schools with an overabundance of funding 10 miles from schools 1 step removed from gang-infested cesspools. Then you have grandstanding politicians who pass laws like "No Child Left Behind" mandating corporate-style school district reviews that affect funding, and yet don't bother to fully fund the program that is supposed to help. THANKS, MONKEYFUCKER.

Money is not the only solution. Evening out funding across all districts might help. Upping teacher pay would be another good step. Removing dumbass useless positions like "guidance counsellor" would be another good start. But the biggest change needed is one of curriculum. Yes, it's different than in my day, but it's still wrong. We educate for standardized testing and rote memorization, not actual learning. We don't teach kids to think critically, for themselves, and we don't challenge kids. Our schools do not teach them about life in the business world, nor do we teach them good job habits. Not even job skills, but job habits. I cruised through school, not because I was some kind of genius some of the other kids thought I was, but because I knew how the system worked and I GAMED IT. I knew how to pass tests with little effort.

College education is a much better model for education, because colleges give less of a shit about testing and memorization and more about the actual learning process. Now, for some teachers, college is just a harder version of high school with more reading and writing. I think, especially at the high school level, the separation between teacher and student is handled incorrectly. Look at most classrooms. Teacher stands in front and lectures, students sit and take notes. Why? Why isn't the teacher less of a lecturer and more of a storyteller? Why is memorizing what's in a textbook such a preferred method of learning, instead of application and critical thought and discussion? For math and the sciences, application is more important than memory. For things like literature and history, application is never considered except for the "exceptional students." Why aren't more students made to write and discuss poetry? Because it's easier to just throw useless laundry lists of symbology at students and have them memorize that for the test. That's why most adults don't read literature these days, because they were never taught how to. That's why most adults don't understand history, because they memorized it for a test and then forgot it, never learning or discussing the importance of the events.

Teachers have been trained to be fact vending machines, not leaders of discussion. The base problem with education is that it was built for assembly line construction of lever-pullers, and we've moved beyond that. The only way for the education system to improve is for it to unlearn its bad habits of the past.

But none of that involves allowing Johnny Rottencrotch to dress up like a goddamn idiot just to get attention.

I would seriously consider it (and as a manager, do).  If they don't even have a high school degree or GED I wouldn't even consider them.  Sorry, if you couldn't put up with that level of bullshit you won't make it here (development + gov't).  All of the requirements we have as far as organizing meetings, doing project planning, writing technical evaluation reports... no way.  Maybe they can do the job, but I get dozens of applications and am only going to interview a few. 

For that matter, I would take serious consideration to tossing anything that didn't have a 4y degree on it.  There are technical skills taught in schools that are simply not taught anywhere else.  You don't get them from a certification, and you don't get them on the job.  Someone would have to otherwise be very attractive on their resume to get an interview. 

But it depends on the job.  If I were hiring for a shift manager at a fast food place (done that, too), I'd have different standards.


If one of my empoyees shows up dressed like a goth, they get to go home.  They do it again, and they won't be back.  How's that for education and as an introduction into a larger society?  Good thing they learned not to dress like a jackass early in life, right?  You know, like maybe in school, where they are supposed to learn and be prepared for later life?  Oh, wait.

What they need to learn isn't that expression is bad, they need to learn that there are right and WRONG times to express yourself, and that there are different ways in which you can express yourself.  Not all of them are valid in all places.  They also need to learn that when you express yourself, people respond accordingly.  Want to express that you hate The System?  Guess what, it will return the favor.

Thanks, Haem, for addressing the larger issues. Also, I think what you said about your own experiences strengthens my point that the primary education system (and our parent(s)) is/are supposed to gear us up for the more abstract aspects of adulthood. I, too, knew how to work the system to my advantage and skated through unscathed, with very little effort. What is expected from us is never so clearly delineated as it is before we become adults. This kid will hopefully learn from this.

I'm a parent.  If the school tells my daughter not to wear something, unless it defies all reason ("underwear is banned"), she won't wear it.  If diamond studded earrings were banned, but huge ass hoop rings were not, that's the rule - although I'd be curious about it, for sure.  If the school feels something is causing them a problem, or even if they just want to hold up a rule to make an example of their authority, it doesn't bother me all that much.  She can be all expressive-like when she gets home.


I have multiple family members and friends who are teachers.  My wife started down that track but switched to a liberal degree, but is going back to get a masters in teaching.  She's also done work in schools in the past.  While there are always bad apples, if you really think that teaches by and large go around suspending people for bullshit reasons just because they get on their nerves, your head is screwed on the wrong end of your ass.

Yeah this works against a lot of young people in the technical field, or used to anyway.  Some kid makes himself into a hotshot programmer/modeler whatever and goes straight from High School junior to working for a company.  Where they hit their personal glass ceiling almost immediately.  Not because they lack the capacity to learn all the other skils required to reach their true potential.  But because they lack the exposure to different kinds of people and experiences that a technical or collegiate school delivers as intangible benefits.

Of course some rise anyway - they're just that good and they're often the scrappy ones that exceed pretty much anyone else anyway.  But the great majority spend their energy whining about discrimination because they don't "have that piece of paper".  Never once realizing that the least bit of information communicated by the piece of paper is the GPA...

I personally don't care about this kid or his mother - from my POV he can wear what he wants and spend all his days in suspension telling everyone at the bar how unfairly they've been treated.  I can be pretty liberal on some social issues but I give everyone the right to decide their own life.  The world badly needs drudges too and often folks like that become pretty damn good citizens by the time they hit their late 30s.

*shrug*

Unfortunately for you no matter where you claim my head is screwed you can't tell me my personal experiences are false.  I'm not really trying to convince you of anything.  If you dont mind that schools create these ridiculously ambiguous sets of rules, with big loopholes like "anything deemed inappropriate" then enforce them as they see fit.  You dont mind, good for you but try not to come across as some whiney bitch telling me how hard waiters work because they've done it that I need to not be offended by receipts that tell me what the 15% 20% and 25% tip are with your comment about all the great fucking teachers you know.

I know several people who are cops, they are all really great dedicated people who believe in what they are doing.  Does this mean every time I see some news story about police abusing their authority I assume somebody just has their head up their ass?  No, there are good and bad people in every job, besides we're not talking about teachers really, we're talking about administration who set these rules and typically enforce them.  I'm pretty sure any teacher can tell you administration is typically a bunch of fucking assholes who often dont care much about the kids themselves.

I can tell you your English teacher would cringe at that sentence.

Since Haemish brought up the 'our educational system is fucked' point, I figured this might be of interest: John Taylor Gatto's "Underground History of American Education" (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/). I recently finished reading it myself. I found a lot of the conclusions he draws in the book to be tinfoil-hat conspiracy crackpot material, but some of the raw information - especially anecdotes about working within the New York City public school system - is very interesting with regards to just how broken the US educational system is. Particularly the part about standardized testing vs. learning actual skills and principles.


 Sadly, I think most of our colleges are moving away from the university ideal and towards a more school-like experience. From what I've seen, there's a push to make a college degree a surrogate for early job training, whereas, in my opinion, the real purpose of a university education is to expose yourself to a wide variety of ideas and to enable the exploration of a vast store of knowledge and skills.


 It still does, and that's exactly why, although modern technical degrees (at the bachelor's level) are meaning less and less. Self-taught technical folks rarely have the opportunity or the means to explore a wide variety of the possibilities out on the market - they tend to pick one thing, get good at it, take a job hinging on that single skill, and get stuck. The advantage of a good education is that you have guides who can point out variations and other paths to look down that lend a breadth of experience unparalleled by anything aside from years of experience in a very diverse working environment.

 However, a lot of the kids coming out of the degree mills today that I've met seem to have been exposed to very little breadth or depth. They seem to have been given the basics, a slip of paper, and a pat on the back. It's distressing, to say the least.

...and the winner of the run-on sentence award goes to....

Edit: oh, Paelos beat me to the punch.

Life is full of rules that are non-specific yet need enforcing.  Dress codes are an easy example.  Summed up, ours (at work) is "dress appropriately" - if you don't know what that means, don't bother applying.  Whether you should (and some places, expressly should not) wear a tie are minor faux pas, but if you show up looking like a chicken, you missed the mark.  The only alternative is to list every conceivable item that is forbidden - or else go to uniform, and only list what is allowed.  You can't enumerate inappropriate behavior, which requires some ambiguity, and somewhere in there is the need for thinking.  I don't mind that this is required at a school, by its students.


That's bullshit.  Teachers know that administrators are hamstrung by the politics of public education, almost all of which are the parents themselves.  Whatever the teacher thinks is best for the student is, after a point, irrelevant.  Public schools are at the mercy of the public, specifically the parents, and it's an administrator's job to mediate the needs of the parents and the needs of the teachers.

Considering there are 2 high-school drop out billionaires and 18 million drop outs (2003 census (http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2003_EST_G00_DP2&-ds_name=ACS_2003_EST_G00_&-_lang=en&-_sse=on")) your odds of being a high-school drop out billionaire (1:9,000,000) are better than the odds of winning the Florida Lottery (1:22,000,000 or so) at least in the US.

Hmm, 100 billionaires in the US have advanced degrees so therefore you are 50x more likey to be a billionaire (in the US) if you get an advanced degree than if you drop out of high-school.  Interestingly, there are also about 18,000,000 people in the US with Graduate or Professional degrees (nice bell curve there) which means your odds being a billionaire are about 1:180,000 or so.

My, my, my. Someone did well in statistics!

I don't mind.  I think one of the biggest problems with the American legal system since 1930s is we keep trying to make a rule for every single situation that can occur.  The problem with this is that it removes human judgement from the equation.  Which is how we get into some of the most awful abuses like mandatory sentencing.

As far as school dress codes, we know it's the definition of cool to find every flaw in a rule and dance through it.  A thirteen year old thinks it's cute to stand while singing at the table since after all the rule is no singing when seated at the table.  "Anything deemed appropriate" is a much better standard.

Every now and then I get "adults" who think that way.  I don't keep them on my teams very long if they can't cut bait.

A sense of entitlement is a crippling character flaw.  It does a kid a favor to shock them out of it.

It's a gaming board. These people learned Stat from EQ.

A better teacher there never was...

Ok, we've killed 345 Giant_Mob_X's there should have been two uber_gimp armor drops and a mega_foozle killer sword drop.  Who ninja-looted?

Those kids are creating the problem, they are the ones who should go home. You know, the ones talking in class and actually bothering people.

God, I am glad you aren't running anything other than your mouth.

Lets see.  We can toss the one kid who shows up dressed for an 80s horror show and obviously breaking school rules regarding dress, or we can toss the twenty odd students who are shocked by the display.

Low hanging fruit.  Paint a target on yourself, you get shot.

I'm so grateful that I actually had good teachers and went to a liberal public school. I was, like some of you, the know-it-all who caused everyone to mutter "shut up" under their breath every time I went on a political tangent. One time, I just turned around and told one them to go fuck himself. The teacher was like, "watch your mouth" or something, and when I told him that so n' so told me to shut up, he actually made the kid apologize to me. That is a good teacher.

I wouldn't be surprised if most people on this website are the Breakfast Club type.

Is that what's up with the Anthony Michael Hall avatar? The Jesus posted a pic of Molly Ringwald yesterday. This explains a lot.

I think all the mods have Breakfast Club avatars right now. Oh, the administrators too, can't forget Haemish, myself and that other guy. Shock...shock....shock....something.

I hung out with the marginally rebellious youth who could be found skipping class behind the library smoking.  Oddly enough in that group of kids was one who scored near perfect on the SAT (1590's) and another who is highly placed in one of the major political parties, all the kids from that group I have talked to have gone on to be at least moderately successful.  Except the hot girl, she worked as a stripper for a while and dropped of the radar.

Except none of my detentions ever went anything like that, dangit.

They're trying to build a prison.

Following the rights movements
You clamped on with your iron fists,
Drugs became conveniently
Available for all the kids,

I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch,
Right here in Hollywood,

Nearly 2 million Americans are incarcerated
In the prison system
Prison system of the U.S.

They're trying to build a prison

Minor drug offenders fill your prisons
You don't even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars
Against the new non-rich,

I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch,
Right here in Hollywood,

The percentage of Americans in the prison system
Prison system, has doubled since 1985

They're trying to build a prison,
For you and me,
Oh baby, you and me.

All research and successful drug policy show
That treatment should be increased,
And law enforcement decreased,
While abolishing mandatory minimum sentences.

Utilizing drugs to pay for secret wars around the world,
Drugs are now your global policy,
Now you police the globe,

I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch,
Right here in Hollywood,

Drug money is used to rig elections,
And train brutal corporate sponsored
Dictators around the world.

They're trying to build a prison,
For you and me,
Oh baby, you and me.

A million years have come and gone
the Earth is shifting towards the sun
synthetic atmosphere is lost
and forces the computers off
communications are confused
the tides reverse
and start a chain reaction

the seismograph's consulted
incredible results
it says we're losing all control, losing all control
the scientists around the world
decipher everything they do
but they don't really know, they don't really know
instead of systematic,
the news becomes irratic
no-one can agree, no-one can agree
the world is getting frantic
as people start a panic
what does all this mean?

Hey cool another group I don't get to fit into.

Just like High School, and every endeavour since then.

Categorize me as "the guy who fits into all of the above, and none" since we're playing the label game.

I was in put a special detention group called "The Launching Pad" (the highschool mascot had something to do with "Rockets" -- go figure). It was me and 7 of my friends. Basically the worst kids in school. Breakfast Club material we were not. Judd Nelson would have gotten his ass handed to him in a second.

I'm not sure how it happened though. We were just a group of cocky little skate punks that knew each other from middle school. When we got into highschool, we got involved with the Latin Kings -- but ended up being more crazy than those guys were.

Anyways, I (and the group I hung around with) were so low and beyond hope that I almost have to be proud of it. If only because I turned out OK in the end. Not my friends though -- One ended up becoming the head of the San Antonio Latin Kings -- he ended up with a bullet in his head (but he's not dead!). After that, he ended up going to prison for rape -- now serving a 20 year sentence. Another is serving a 20 year sentence, in the same rape case. Another just got out after a 10 year sentence. Another was serving a 60 year-till parole sentence for murder, but was killed almost the moment after he stepped into prison. Turned out the guy he killed was in the Mexican Mafia. One of the girls from that group has kids from multiple fathers -- one of which is serving a life sentence.

Anyways, there's more horror stories, but I won't go on. I swear it's true though.

And me? For some odd reason I turned to religion.

Odd reason? No, many people do.

But as you can see, that's very very not about oppression, my friend. If anything it sounds like you brought that shit on yourself.

It was just a joke. I have to be a little humorous after mentioning all those bad memories in that post.

As for oppression, my story had nothing to do with it. You're right. I was just relating to the subject of the "Breakfast Club".

Edit: Hmm...Time for a new avatar.

Are you asking for The Shocker?

I think I can oblige you that.

(http://people.clarkson.edu/~keilmw/RPI-Union%20Road%20Trip/Brian%20shocker.JPG)

I think the girl behind him just got one.

Is this thread NSFW? Or was it already when you made the first post?

What's the name of the LAtino gang on the Shield? The Holy Rollers? YOu should use the guy with the crown of thorns skull tat from that gang.

No, I need something more innocent....Like a woman.  :-P

This highschool subject is depressing me. Buddy Revell had to go.

Emilio Estevez. As Repo Man.

Oh wait, I see where you're going.

Uhhhhmmmmmm, Queen Latifah.

If schildy sez it's okay, you can use this picture of my cuzzin La Fawnduh.

(http://www.geocities.com/ghettofabhairdos/cheryfr.jpg)

That is not a regulation Shocker, it lacks the clitoral stimulation nub (aka thumb). Though I guess it does count as a ghetto shocker, since the 'shock' finger is in place...

Anyway, in school I spent a lot of time in lunch detention and full-day detention, I was always skipping the afterschool suspension (which led to two lunch detentions, skipping those led to the full day).

Full day detention room was with a guy I knew outside of school as monitor (my singer's father's friend), and it was right behind the music rooms (actually it was held backstage of the auditorium). So I'd grab a guitar and be able to sit and play all day long, wrote several songs that way. Kinda funny now that I think about it, my other guitar player used to bitch our music was getting too acoustic, I didn't give it much thought.

Geez, Sky. You and all your Save the Music moments.

*edit* why bother.... you guys with the panties in a bunch... doesn't that get uncomfortable after awhile?

-me

The same way a car wreck on the other side of the median effects traffic. People will get distracted and stare.

I'll rehash the point that actually, yes he is asking for something special. He's asking to wear what is obviously something worn for shock value to a place run by the public. This is America, you have the right to look like a raging idiot, and the people have a right to refuse services to you because of something you can easily change, like your clothing. Part of being in a society is realizing where the boundaries are. He crossed one.

Thanks, Paelos, for catching that quote before it got edited away.

This is kinda a case of making mountains out of mole hills from my perspective. It's all relative, really. I don't remember where this kid lives (and am too lazy to look it up again), but in most major cities he wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow. At least if this is truly who he is, he know he can always just move to LA and live happily ever after.

Edit: spelling. I've been having technical difficulties all bleedin' day!

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/lonestar627/Misc/square.jpg)

Hope that works out for you, Paolos.

If you are going to insult my POV, at least spell the name right. It has an "e" in it.

Okay, "Paelos".

You're POV sucks, btw.

Sorry society touched you in the bad place. Continue to rage against the machine...for some reason I'm still not clear on.

Always refreshing to see the your/you're mistake in reverse.

I have nothing to actually contribute here. (I'm not very interesting. I just try to forget high school.)  So, carry on.  :)

Hmm...Damn....Yeah, I'm like stupid, but in a good way.

Shocked! SHOCKED I SAY!

I'm going with Paelos on this one.

Who do you blame for traffic slowing after a wreck on the side of the road? I blame the stupid drivers who slow down to look, not the guy who ran into a ditch. Maybe that's the difference. I think people are directly responsible for the things they do and "gee, I just couldn't help it" or "that's human nature" is a dumb excuse.

I'm going with Margalis on this one.

Yeah, but unfortunately blaming the drivers doesn't fix the traffic congestion.

In the school case, I'm sure there are kids in his class who whisper, make jokes, and otherwise disrupt class. Those are the kids who should be suspended. And if it's every kid, they just won't learn anything by their own hand. I think "the kids just can't help from wasting class time making jokes" is a weak excuse. Treat people like small children and that's what they'll be.

If the kid with red hair is quiet, and I'm in the class and quiet, and some loudmouths are constantly tittering about his red hair, *that's* who I'm complaining about. "The red hair made me do it" is weak. It's as if you guys think kids are incapable of controlling their mouths and shouldn't be expected to, and that it's not a teacher's place to enforce classroom order. The guys talking are ok but the guy with the mohawk is not.

You are missing the point that WE have to create a generation that is mostly functional.

Teaching one kid with pink hair rather than 30 who think pink hair is funny (which it is) is a pretty sure way to end it all miserably.

For once on this board the cart before the horse analogy fits.  Your so stuck on the rights of the accused that you're going to sink the ship to save docking fees.

Just as the kid sporting the mohawk should grow the fuck up and dress appropriately, the rest of the kids should grow the fuck up and respect diversity and others' right to self-expression. Except that the mohawk kid is a kid who won't get many more chances in life to sport a bad haircut (which I actually think is cute, btw) than right now. The main difference is that while bad taste should be "just a phase", tolerance should be a trait we all have all the time.

I refuse to tolerate the black lipstick. It makes him look cheap and trashy.

Shhhh... it's just a phase. Next season silver will be the rage. Mark my words.

/applaud

Unfortunately, the message being sent and example being set by our political and religious leaders is that of intolerance.

Uh...way to go, leaders!

Thanks, Sky, for the unsarcastic applause.

The "zero-tolerance" policy is so misdirected. Why not save it for hate crimes and the like instead of tormenting kids trying to make a statement?

Why are "hate crimes" worse than other crimes?

What the fuck?

When did High School change from a place to get an education to a place to "express yourself"?

Put on a uniform, shut the fuck up, and try and improve your lot in life.

Or bitch about how you're oppressed....

Whatever...

Notice I said "and the like". Some crimes, like smoking marijuana that you grew yourself, or consentual sex in minors, are relatively victimless and don't need the fervent smackdown they usually receive.

No, I mean more like, why is simply killing a person bad, but killing someone who is gay a "hate crime" and therefore worse? It's like affirmative action in sentences. It's silly. Murder is murder.

They've taught the kid a valuable life lesson. You can express yourself all you want, but if you do so, you better be willing to except the consequences of how others react to your expression. If you handle that by pissing and moaning about being oppressed, here's your sign, go wait in line with the other victims.

Do you really think there's no difference between a murder and a lynching?

Edit: a hate crime is one that is intended to "send a message" to the surviving members of the targeted group.

Some murders disproportionately destabilize society.  Otherwise we wouldn't particularly penalize assassinations of public officials like cops and judges.

Crimes done for hate I can understand.  Someone or something pisses you off and you act on it, I get it.  I think we should penalize hateless crimes more.

"Why did you beat up that man?"

"Damned asshole pissed me off!"

"Ah, ok, well thats wrong, being upset is no reason to hurt someone.  Three years and an anger management course.   Next case."

"Why did you shoplift that pen?"

"Dunno, nothing better to do."

"You're broken.  Death penalty.  Next case."

Punish crimes, not motivations.

A cop or judge being gunned down should be prosecuted exactly the same as a driveby shooting should be prosecuted the same as a mother drowning her kids in a tub. To the fullest extent of the law. Prosecuting 'special' crimes to a fuller extent of the law cheapens the 'normal' cases and is a slap in the face of the victims. (and cops and judges know the risks they are exposing themselves to when they join the force/bar, a murdered child doesn't have that kind of choice).

But mostly, punish according to the crime. Someone with a truck full of marijuana shouldn't be looking at time anywhere near anyone who ever violently injured another human being, the american sense of justice and punishment is severely out of whack. As evidenced by Murgos thinking a shoplifter should get the death penalty (in an ironic attempt to show a broken person).

I'm pretty damn liberal and I'm not a big fan of hate crime legislation. Murder is murder and rape is rape and all that. Now you hear things about how for example the guys that beat Mathew Sheppard to death didn't do it because he was gay - ok, so what? They chained the guy to a fence and beat him and now he's dead, what changed exactly?

I also agree that cop killers shouldn't get worse sentences. Nor should victims of terrorism get special treatment for anything. If you lost a father/husband you lost one either way.
---

About the school stuff again. So the kid with the hair got a message. What message did the other kids in school get? It's ok to disrupt class if you have a weak excuse?

I don't see the irony... I've always thought Murgos was broken.

Don't act like a fucktard or you are next.

We have degrees of murder because not all killings are black and white. Motivations have to be taken into account or the guy defending himself gets the sentenced along with the planning killer. Also, it's a good thing people are prosecuted harder for killing cops and members of the justice system that let you sleep at night without clutching a gun and hoping the raving mob doesn't decide your house is next. You can be liberal about sentencing, but not going after copkillers is a stupid way to run a society.

Is that supposed to be a threat of some sort? I'm shaking. Seriously...wake up on the wrong side of bed?

How is what I asked acting like a fucktard? That is what they learned, isn't it? That it's ok to not learn in school as long as you can say it's because you just couldn't stop looking at the kid with red hair.

Like I said before, when I was younger if I had pulled that shit my parents would have told me they expected better. That's just weak. Set the bar low and people will stoop to meet it.

Self-defense of course I think everyone will grant you. Same with people who mean to brawl but accidentally end up killing a guy. But in my mind there is not a big difference between "let's go kill that guy because he's gay" and "let's go kill that guy, just because." If anything the people doing the latter are even more screwed up than the former.

As far as going after cop-killers, I'm all for going after them the same way you go after anyone else who kills somebody. I know the idea is to drill into people that if you kill a cop you are fucked, so don't do that - but shouldn't that be the message for killing anybody? That doesn't mean we have to weaken some murder laws; it may just mean we should strengthen others. But killing another person is pretty much the worst thing you can do, WHO you killed is really just splitting hairs next to the gravity of the crime itself.

I think he was saying that's what the message was, rather than directing that statement at you in particular.  (Speaking of waking up on the wrong side of the bed.   :wink:)

That's fucking hilarious.

All of the posts today were funnier than usual. Thanks guys.

Beautiful.

Though I fear it may be a bit late, here's my two cents on the dresscode issue.

Like a few others in this thread, I went to a fairly nice, fairly expensive private school populated mostly by rich spoiled white kids. Yes, there was a dresscode but it didn't do anything to eliminate the distinction between the haves and the have-nots.

I ran with the group of social outcasts for a couple of reasons. One of the biggest reasons was that we were interested in more than getting drunk/high every weekend at the age of 15. We didn't give a shit about football games and cheerleaders; we liked reading, acting, learning how to take computers apart and put them back together, learning how to program, etc.

Yes, we listened to typical angsty anti-authority teenage industrial/punk, but we didn't dress to the extreme. The dresscode itself was pretty lax; boy's shirts had to have a collar, boys couldn't have hair that went past the collar of their shirt, couldn't have earrings, and so forth. I did take a particular joy in pushing it as far as it could go, starting off with Hawaiian Shirts and eventually buying whatever ridiculous button-down shirts I could find at TJ Maxx or similarly 'classy' stores. My main reason for dressing differently was that I didn't want to be mistaken for the typical spoiled private-school asshole. Of course, I was picked on for formulating opinions and beliefs that differed from my parents, for listening to DEVIL MUSIC  and being of ambiguous religion, and for actually wanting to DO something other than party my life away on daddy's dollar.

I'm not sure if anyone here has read anything by Paul Graham, but I largely agree with what he writes. To paraphrase some of his work, teenagers really have no place in modern society. School is little more than a holding pen to keep kids busy so that adults can actually get things done. The idea is to keep the kids busy with school until they (hopefully) age and become mature enough to contribute to society in some meaningful way. The problem is that schools basically become like a prison. The teachers enforce the surface-level rules and keep the kids on the premises until 3pm, but the kids create their own barbaric cut-throat society with its own set of rules. It really sucks being a kid who actually wants to do something with their life. For the most part, adults will assume you're just a stupid kid who as Paelos said "pays for nothing, eats for free, and has no job to support themselves".  At that age, it's really tough to get a job that will help you develop useful skills. Besides working dead-end retail jobs or dead-end physical labor jobs (this was my route), there isn't much else. So, most adults blow you off, most other kids your age hate you because you're not interested in being cool like them. Not exactly the greatest place to be.

After spending the first two years of highschool Fighting the Man in full teenage rebel glory, I realized the best course of action was to slog through the bullshit and try to learn the things I wanted to learn in my spare time. I'm now finishing my second year of college, and I can't help but chuckle while watching others struggle through programming class. There's still certainly a contingent of the fratboy/party crowd who gets drunk and parties while failing all their classes while daddy foots the bill, but at least they're easy enough to avoid now.

I realize this post is somewhat lacking in focus, and for that I apologize. I'll try to summarize it a bit: Not all kids suck. There's a severe lack of opportunities for kids who actually want to do something constructive with their time. They are going to be antagonized by their peers for not being interested in the popularity game. Being able to get away with wearing funky clothes makes the ride at least somewhat more tolerable until they get to the point where they can say "Fuck You" to the harsh popularity-driven society of grade school. While it does seem that the kid on the front article is something of a loser, there is some value in his cause.

Thanks, Samwise. 

Hey, Margolis, back away from the keyboard.  You are taking this issue a little too personally.  I was trying to communicate the message to other students that can be taken from this kid's suspension.  I'm sorry that your highschool flashback has you in the fetal position.  However, I am fairly sure that I had nothing to do with it.

I'm broken for riffing on 'hate crimes' and thier ridiculous penalties with an absurdity and yet you're sane for thinking a truck load of Marijuana is less damaging to our society as a whole than a simple battery case?

Right, ok.  Maybe you should lay off the ganja for a while hippy.

Recommend pre-emptive thread bifurcation for imminent legalization derailment.

Request denied. Buckle up folks, let's see how far this ride goes.

Yes. Here's an example:

I show up at your house and kick your ass until you can't walk.

I show up at your house with copius amounts of weed and we smoke a couple and play some video games.

Which one should be a crime? The only crime in the prohibition of marijuana is the prohibition of marijuana.

Note I do not smoke marijuana, but nice try.

Actually, I'll go ahead and nip that fork in the bud right now.  If Mary Jane were legal then I wouldn't bat an eye at a truck load of it, it would be no more damaging to society than a Bud-weiser Truck with women in bikini's painted on its side, damaging in a long term lessening of ability to contribute by a few overindulgers but otherwise mostly harmless.  The thing is that its not legal, so a truck load of 'bud' is actually several cases of young men being imprisoned for years for distribution for the ones that don't get away with it and is a general lessening of regard for this society and contempt for it's laws (some of which are actually important to maintaining the society) for those that do.

What it comes down to is that a large enough portion of the population feels that recreation use of marijuana is detriment and that they wish to discourage that practice so, yes, a truck load of bud is more harmful to society as a whole than simple battery.  Thats one of the problems of living in a republic, your personal beliefs tend to get stepped on by the majority.

Thanks for making my point again.

If by majority you mean rich white guys who make laws, sure. You obviously have no grasp on the issue whatsoever, I should have stuck with my original position of not wasting my time with you.

Nope, your point was that a truck load of marijuana was not as damaging as a case of battery.  You are obviously wrong - the prisons are full of dope-peddlers sitting out long term sentences while people who get in bar fights walk the streets after a slap on the wrist.  You wish it were otherwise but wishing just doesn't work in the real world.  You actually, you know, have to live here which means abiding by the rules even if you personally don't agree with them.

I smoked plenty of pot when I was a teenager, now that I am an adult though my own sense of enlightened self-interest keeps me off that path and I don't mean keeping myself out of jail, I mean doing the little bit I can do to keep the structure of society that supports me strong and best able to provide for my needs.  Grow up and live within the system until you can affect a change because by breaking the systems rules in fits of petulant self-gratification all you are doing is making the whole structure weaker and less able to provide for you.

I'm going to ignore the pot debate in the hope that it just goes away.  Back to hair!


I disagree.  There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college.  

My high school had a dress code that was fairly relaxed but did prohibit overly "distracting" getups, which included excessive makeup and unnatural hair colors.  So I went through my "bad hair" (dyed it bright blue) phase in college.  Waiting the extra 4 years to do strange things to my hair didn't scar me for life.

Murgos, you are truly a douchebag who's ignored what the fuck I wrote. Time wasted, I'm done with it.

I really can't believe the idiocy you just exhibited. Fuck, man.

I appreciate the point Murgos is trying to make (if perhaps for the sake of making one), but I am appalled that he thinks there is no difference between violent crime and use of a controlled substance. Seriously, dude.

And I noticed that when talking about hate crimes, some of you like to bring up gays as the primary target, as if it's no big deal to kill someone just because he/she is homosexual. Again, I ask: do you really think there is no difference between a murder and a lynching? How can you say a "regular" murder is more forgivable than a when a neo-nazi beats an Ethiopian man to death with a baseball bat (which happened in Portland 10 or so years ago)?

Ha ha, never mind, reading comprehension is my mortal enemy.

PS: My name is not Margolis!

I don't think either is forgivable at all. Again, have you been following the recent Mathew Sheppard stuff. It was a big story a few weeks ago when the guys that attacked him said it wasn't because he was gay. Does it really make a difference? Talk about putting the cart before the horse.

Okay, first of all, that kid was killed like, 10 years ago, before hate crime legislation was in place. Second, of COURSE those motherfuckers are saying it wasn't because he's gay! They don't wanna get popped for a hate crime. At the time of the murder, one of 'em admitted that the murder was partially due to Sheppard (spelling?) hitting on them (as if).  It totally DOES make a difference. That kid was singled out and murdered simply because he was queer, not because he did anything to bring it on.

Your first paragraph illustrates what I said. You fought the law, realized that the law is always going to win until you grow out of its clutches, and decided to better yourself without making a spectacle. You win.

The thing this kid doesn't and probably won't realize, because he's too busy playing the victim, is he CAN say "Fuck you" to the popularity-contest right now, without ever having to make an ignorant-looking fucktard of himself. He doesn't have to be "different like all the other different people." The shit you put on your face, or the color or length of your hair, or whatever earrings are tattoos you sport are not who you are, and if they are, YOU ARE A SAD, HOPELESS LOSER. It doesn't make you more or less "hardcore," or "wiccan" in this guy's case, to not look like a clown, because it doesn't define who you are, you define who you are.

His cause has no value because: 1) He's playing the victim card practiced by eons of pussies before, which only makes him an even bigger target for the predators; 2) 'The man's oppressing my religious beliefs!' is his calling card, which if the kid knew anything about Wiccan, would know it doesn't require the wearing of clown makeup. Ergo, he's not just a self-made victim, he's a dumbass, and full of shit; 3) his 'cause' does not help the state of education, or of his education, it is a further distraction to education, both his own and the students around him, because wearing clown makeup or not wearing clown makeup won't make you learn any better or worse, but it will distract others.

I still say rebellious youth are better than regular youth. But Sonic Youth is better still.

Rebellious youth are fine, it's a part of growing up. It's learning the boundaries of your existence and the society you live in.

This kid is just a fucktard, though, for the reasons I've mentioned above.

And Sonic Youth are teh win. One of the best rhythm sections I've ever heard out of a "punk" band.

If your rallying cry in America is "They are persecuting my religious beliefs" it better be because you are Islamic or Jewish and because you are actually under harassment. Those two groups I could believe. Other than that, I don't care about your feelings that you should be able to sacrifice dogs every Tuesday on your front lawn because your Voodoo priest says it's cleansing.

There are already laws to deal with things like aggravated assault and the like. If you "do something" to bring on getting yourself killed the law already views that differently. Manslaughter vs. murder or self-defence or whatever.

Currently the law distinguishes between pre-meditation and spur-of-the-moment, and factors in explanatory circumstances like "he attacked me first" or "he threatened to kill me" or "he was just REALLY annoying" or whatever.

If you kill someone on a whim who wasn't doing anything wrong, I don't see why it matters if you did it because the guy was gay or said he didn't like your shoes or whatever.

I'm with Margalis on this. It shouldn't matter if someone kills someone because of their race or because of the color of their shoes. It should matter if they woke up that morning deciding to kill someone or if it just "happened".

The decision, or forethought, was always already there: that certain people, because of the race or preferences, deserve to die. In a way, all hate crimes are premeditated, regardless of who the actual victim ends up being. If someone goes out with the intention of beating a fag, it doesn't matter that the fag they actually ended up killing was someone they didn't know. It's not incidental, it's purposeful.

Hmm... so looking at the murder debate, I think every post agrees that the punishment should equate to the same, or am I reading wrong.  Are we saying, murder for murder's sake should only end up with a leathal injection, while a hate murder should end up getting flayed?

Aside from that, I enjoy the debate on the kid with the mohawk, but I don't think the article is deep enough for judgement calls on whether the kid is bucking the symp card or just bucking the system.  With out that level of rebellion though, the world would miss the Bob Marley's, Clash's, and Blacksabbath's.  The arguments that keep pounding the kid for not wearing the white wool of the sheep nation make me chuckle though.

By the way Gong, I liked your post.

Rock on!  :-)

For the rest of you: Shame on you. You got old.

Pictures of the kid, along with his insistence that wearing makeup is synonymous with Wicca, and the final nail, his failing 10th grade, leads me to belief he's got more Slomo Marley in him than Bob.

If you're going to buck the system, at least be talented or smart. Nothing in any of the literature on this kid suggests he is either.

I only want him wearing the wool if he wants an education provided by the society. If he wants to shirk the system then don't expect it to do you any favors either.

The sad thing is that this view is probably in the majority, even though quite a few people who did not finish high school have left a larger foot print on mankind than the vast majority that have finished.  The fact a kid who is what, fifteen or sixteen is being thrown to the dogs and being written off is the worst crime.  If the world is growing more to a judgement of the individual by the age of high school then fear for our small world is not just for idle speculation.

The only problem I have with it is him trying to tie it to wicca, that's stupid. I'd say (having just spent the afternoon in the public area of the library) that more kids who come here (the library!) are 'freaks' than not. Sure, it's a self-selecting audience, but these kids are at least hanging out at the library. Red hair, leopard spotty hair, black nailpolish, ripped fishnets, the gamut pretty much. Most of them are good kids, and not disruptive, the only disruption would be if some 'normal' kid started poking at them (I've had to call the cops on a kid (teen) a total of two or three times in 5 years...and it was the same 'clean cut' kid, trying to show off for some girls by picking on other kids).

Ahh Paelos, you make me think of Pink Floyd.

I am another brick in The Wall. Then again, I'm educated. I'm not going to cry myself to sleep over the kids who fail social adaptation 101.

Hey, perhaps Pink Floyd was full of shit? 

I hate to agree with Paelos, but yes, this kid is getting a public education so he has to abide by their rules in order to receive this education.   Don't like it?  Gee, too bad.  There's always the GED.  You could always get homeschooled.  Or hey, there's private school, but they don't want you looking like an idiot either.   Unless you've got other mitigating circumstances like poverty, religion (it really doesn't apply here, if this kid's a wicca, I'm Pope Urban the X), there's just no real reason you can't follow simple rules like this in high school.   

Disobedience over trivial fucking crap doesn't make you Che or the next incarnation of the Sex Pistols.  It makes you a self centered, selfish shithead.  You're not sticking it to the man, you're just being a stupid dick.   I died my hair orange at one point, but hell, if the school said I couldn't attend with my hair that way, I sure as hell would have cut it off. It's just fucking hair, it's not like they asked me to pray to Allah 5 times a day or get expelled.

I didn't get old, I've just always been this way.  There are fights worth fighting and there are fights that will do nothing but make you look bad and ruin your life in the process.  You have to learn when to make your stand and when it's not worth the hassle.  Some people get this and do fairly well, and some people struggle through life getting fired from job after job over stupid crap.   

The kid obviously needs therapy. He's had a pretty rough childhood and he doesn't seem to be coping with it terribly well. Whether or not his suspension was fair though is a completely different matter. To me the question is: would a girl be suspended for wearing the same type of makeup? If so, then awesome, he broke the rules, he should be punished. However, if a chick can wear Syndrome style makeup to school then goth boy should be able to as well. Our public schools shouldn't be in the business of enforcing gender roles.

There is also the question of if they warned him that he shouldn't be dressing up life a WWE star at school. If they just jumped straight to a suspension I call foul. He didn't shoot anyone, he poorly applied eye makeup. Unless he is going to a fashion magnate school, he deserves a couple warnings.

Good point.

When the article was written, it seems there was nothing outlawing what he was wearing per se, but that he was creating a disturbance.

I went to one of the best public schools in the state of New York and in my school that would not have "caused a disturbance." Then again, maybe that's WHY it was on of the best public schools. It says as much about the other people in the school as that guy that what he was wearing would cause a disturbance.

Did you get my point?  Lets check.
First Post:
Initially I mocked hate crime penalties by comparing them in absurdity to a penalty for a victimless trivial crime (shoplifitng a pen for those keeping track).  For which Sky called me a moron and then proceeded to make the same exact argument except this time using a truck full of marijuana.

Aside:  Which is a piss-poor example to make that kind of analogy with because it is VASTLY damaging to society due to it penalties.  This comes in later.

Next post:
I point out exactly that I'm riffing on the whole idea of extra severe hate crime penalties and that Sky made the exact same case in his point but I'm a moron and he's a genius?

Third post:
I tell all of you explicitly that I have no problem with MJ except for the fact of the damage it does to society due to the very fact that it is illegal (see above).  I say nothing on any other point in there.  THIS AGAIN IS THE SAME FUCKING POINT.  Victimless crime, shouldn't be illegal, damage done is because it's illegal, we live in a representative democracy so what you gonna do its the will of the people?

Fourth post:
Sky tells me thanks for making his point?  What the fuck?  Four fucking posts into MY POINT and he's being condecending?  Fuck him.  Maybe dope smoking should be legal but you do have to live here and by not following Ghandi and MLK and acting from within the system all that the fucktards are doing that are transporting the shit around and distributing it is damaging society.  That I have a problem with, that wasn't his point and that wasn't in any part of his posts until he went back and EDITED IT IN  AFTER I MADE THAT POINT IN MY THIRD POST.



I'm not even going to go into the Conspiracy by rich white men absurdity.

Fith post:
This one.  I say again, fuck you sky, quite smoking dope and learn to fucking read.  And to you Voodoo I give the same damn advice, I no where at no time said there was no difference in the severity of the crimes.  I'm done.

Which makes me think that if his dress that was causing the disturbance, they need to update their policy to disallow dressing like Ronald McDonald, and warn him that he is in violation of school rules and should dress accordingly or be punished. I just can't see how a 5 day suspension was warranted unless they warned him multiple times and he was being a defiant asshat. Based on the brief interview it is definitely a possibility(he's obviously two strippers shy of a menage trois), but it sounds like the school wasn't acting in good faith. I understand school administrators need to have some flexibility in interpreting rules in order to prevent with rules lawyers who change their clothing to exploit every loop hole in the clothing policy, but they need to be fair in applying those rules.

As an aside I also think goth boy should be beaten severly for trying to use his religon to validate his wearing of eye makeup. I'd love for him to show some documentation that shows dressing like a two dollar goth whore is an important part of the wiccan faith.

IMO, Sky is a very, very hard person to get pissed at. So, umm, grats to you. You've accomplished something special today.

Hmmm.

Chris Tucker (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0419051_chris_tucker_1.html) seems to be going to the Carlton school of fashion these days.

You can't help those who won't help themselves. Ever. If High school is crushing his will to live and whatnot, he shoudl drop out, get his GED, and go learn something someplace that teaches what he is interested in. In other words, he needs to grow some balls and fix his life, or Shut the hell up. Either one really.

That orange shirt has to be the standard prison issue uniform which he was forced to wear over his clothes.  At least I hope so.

Those uniforms are going to be fashion forward someday, like surgical scrubs.

Fucking douchebag.

Well, maybe if your sentences had something called structure and followed English grammar and spelling rules I'd be able to follow you.

Pot doesn't damage society, letting people with a sixth-grader's comprehension of the English language graduate from high school does.

This thread is starting to look like Old Yeller right before they took him out behind the barn. Let's try to keep it somewhat on topic and civil.

The Jesus, how can I possibly take anything you say seriously when you have that avatar?

Ph3@r Pornffleck.

My post before last was on-topic. I'd apologize for the personal attacks on Murgos if I didn't think he was a douchebag who isn't reading my posts.

But what do I know, I'm just a stupid dope smoker ruining society.  :roll:

Hey, so the kid's back at school now. Is there any update?

I bet you paint your nails too. You truly are ruining society.

In other news, if that kid went to school wearing makeup again, I wouldn't be surprised if the matter was taken into the hands of the other students. By giving him a swirly and beating the shit out of him with a stop sign or two.

We should try to find a pic of him. I bet it's real scary like when celebrities are caught without their makeup.