Should this be allowed in High School? (1 Viewer)

[John Alvarez]

From what I have read there was no WRITTEN RULE they couldn't wear these things.

Funny I seem to be reading people responding to this the same way I responded to the girl who wore the tux in a photo.... And we still haven't heard a word from her and her great cause anymore.

 

[WillG]

Maybe not anarchy, but it often takes very little to derail a lesson plan in the classroom. And students, when I was in high school, would deliberately try to get teachers to go off on tangents. I remember after the Rodney King verdict, we spent a whole FRENCH class discussing it. Was it a worthwhile discussion, yes. Were we then a day behind on the syllabus, yes.

 

[Jason Adams]

Jeez...it was a BUTTON! It wasn't girls with a bullhorn saying "I love my vagina", they werent throwing red paint on people, hell the button doesnt even make sounds or have a strobe-light on it, it was just a regular button. How in the HELL, with the distracted and scatterbrained kids of today, would they possibly find that distracting? It would just be a quick laugh, and they would be done with it.

Now, the fact they are protesting the fact that they can't wear a BUTTON, is quite lame and dare I say...pussy?

 

[Greg_R]

I'd take it even further. Does anyone really think that these girls were really trying to support the cause of battered women? I think they saw some buttons in the mall and thought that they'd be funny to wear to school. They knew if they were called on it then they could fall back on the "helping battered women / 1st amendment" argument (having seen the play). If they really wanted to make people aware of the battered women cause then they could have found a better (and more informative outlet). Kids that are smart/sensitive enough to want to support this kind of cause also know what will be found acceptable in their school.

When I was in school we would do this all the time... test the boundaries of the rules and see how far we could push the teachers / administration. Both my parents are teachers and they have seen this kind of behavior with students from day 1. In these cases it is important to have a strong administration that will back the teachers (instead of caving to B.S. demands).

 

[Adam.Heckman]

Writers such as Socrates, Hobbes and Mill might disagree. It's a good quote, but meaningless. I could quote my buddy on how BBQ chips are better than sour cream and onion, but it doesn't make it true.

I am seriously confused as to how people keep coming back to the 'disrupting the classroom' thing. My fiance is a teacher, and I hear a lot about how the high school kids act, and I graduated HS 6 years ago. Wearing a button is not going to disrupt the learning process. So, you admit the discussion on Rodney King was a good discussion but set you behind the syllabus, well, which did you more good in the long run... learning how to conjucate verbs in french, or how to deal with social/political issues?

 

[MarkHastings]

Hopefully they were talking about more serious issues and not this petty situation.

I would agree that if a store didn't allow a particular race inside, then protesting (by having that race enter the store) is something I'd agree with, but if a store didn't allow naked people to enter the store, having a bunch of naked people enter (for means of protest) is just plain asinine.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Depends on if he wanted to become fluent in French. Far be it from me to assume (as you have assumed the "level of disruption" that was created) that people who take French class expect to be instructed in (gasp!!!) French.

I personally disagreed with 90% of my teacher's/professor's views on social/political issues and I certainly did not want to discuss them in a class in which they held no bearing. I expected education in the subject that was in the title of the class, not "social/political" issues, unless I was taking Social Studies. Silly me...

 

[Adam.Heckman]

Mark: True, but walking around naked isn't protected under the first ammendment. In fact it's against the law - public lewdness.

This is a First Ammendment issue. True, it seems a bit petty, and it's definately complicated by the fact that it's a school. But what if the owner of a store were to keep out the girl with the vagina button? What then? Whom would you side with there? And if you'd side with the girl, then why is it any different from the school?

I understand the response will most likely be because it disrupts the learning process, but I would/will argue that it wouldn't. And if it did get a teacher off track to talk about the issues, that one day of talking about issues is more valuable to a kid than learning about valence electrons (for one half hour class, that is.)

 

[Jeff Gatie]

In your opinion. If I were a future physics major looking to get into CalTech or MIT, I'd be friggin bullS&%t that some idiot caused my valuable learning time to be spent on a petty social issue of which I had no interest in. I know you feel differently because you think learning about social issues trumps the value of actually learning the curriculum described in the course title (as do a lot of educators, which is why our science scores are lagging behind the rest of the developed world). Me, I think if you take a physics course to learn about valance electrons, you should be learning about valence electrons. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think diverting the discussion away from the core curriculum of a course is the very nature of class "disruption" (which you claim did not occur). Again, silly me.

 

[Adam.Heckman]

You make an excellent point. Perhaps I should revise to say that the disruption is occuring in specific classes, but not the overall learning process. The students then learn about social issues and how to talk about them in an open setting.

I agree with you Jeff, our science scores are lagging, and I value the time spent in schools on it. However, I think that taking one class out of the 180 to talk about a real issue is still okay. It helps to create a well rounded student.

I'm into tech as an Architecture student right now, but I'm also into thinking about social issues because it helps us make informed decisions about ourselves.

Somebody that is into nanotechnology also has to know how to discuss issues important to Americans in a positive, non-confrontational way. Otherwise, the debate about how nano-tech could revolutionize medicine would stall. Because that student couldn't understand others points of view or how to express his own views, he couldn't convince a governing body that nano-tech wasnt' the start of 'the matrix'.

Don't get me wrong, I value the subjects that they learn, but one day talking with peers about something as important as the first ammendment isn't a big deal.

Of course, this is all opinion, so YMMV.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

That is why the young ladies in question, if they really wanted to start a discussion about the social issue of domestic violence, should have taken advantage of the innumerable outlets available to them to discuss the issue in a proper time, place and environment. The school simply advised them that this is the way an important social issue should be brought to the attention of the student body. They have every right to tell them that, for the school is not a bully pulpit and some effort has to be made to allow those who take a course to learn about a specific subject (hopefully a majority of the students) are not waylaid by constant distractions due to inflammatory actions by a minority of the student body. If they allow Physics, Math, English, French, etc. to be interrupted by every Tom, Dick and Ellen that thinks they can monopolize every student in the class because they have an axe to grind (no matter how petty), then they indeed are suffering from anarchy. Thusly, you draw the line right where they did by not allowing any distractions that can be avoided (and no it is not a violation of anyone's rights, the right to an education is paramount in a facility whose purpose is to educate, not proselytize).

 

[MarkHastings]

I would side with the girl if she thought the store owner was out of line, BUT I would NOT agree with her if she then got 100 other kids to walk into the store with the same message written on a T-Shirt to protest the store owner.

In other words, the store owner may be over reacting, but I would also have to respect the wishes of the store owner in this case and not take it to a 'protest' level.

 

[Adam.Heckman]

Sure, they should have gone the route of the "innumerable outlets available". I agree and posted to that effect earlier.

Lets go at this a different way:
She wore a button. One that if the admin wouldn't have outlawed, there wouldn't have been a distraction. I cannot image a situation where her wearing a button would derail a class, unless it said something offensive like: "kill whitey".

Situation if she wore the vagina button:
*bell rings, teachers says "it's time to quite down, any discussions you'd like to have with susy q can happen on your own time, but for now we're learning about pronouns"*

The school admin decided to take away her right to wear a button that is in no way offensive (health teachers use the word vagina all the time) and have now brought this upon themselves. The distraction has come from the school's blatent violation of the first ammendment. The rucus was not made over the button itself, but over the fact that the school violated her rights.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

This is your opinion. You are not at the school. You are not the administration and you do not have to deal with the multitude of differing opinions of what is "offensive" that every student of the school (and/or their parents) are entitled to have (and are entitled to have respected by the administration). You only have to consider (and only have considered) you own opinion of what is "offensive" and what is a "distraction". Sorry, but the administration does not have that luxury.

 

[Adam.Heckman]

Jeff,



True. This is just opinion, as I stated earlier... so YMMV.

So, should the admin ban anything that anyone deems offensive? You say that all the parents opinions are to be respected. What about the ones who don't like gays or blacks? What about the one that says that Black History Month is offensive because it's unfairly giving attention to one group of people based soley on skin color? What about the one that doesn't want his son being taught by a gay man? What about the one that doesn't want the word vagina being anywhere near their child?

Somethings are just knee-jerk reactions. This is one of them.

(as an aside, who complained about the button? If nobody complained, the it clearly wasn't offensive. What parent called to complain about 'that offensive vagina button'? I certainly would call... God knows I don't want my son seeing the word vagina used in context and promoting not beating women.)

 

[Jeff Gatie]

What about the student that wears a "Repent sinners or roast for eternity" button, what about the one that wears a button that says "I (heart) Osama bin Laden", what about the one that wears a button that says "I support the troops...when they kill their own officers"? The list goes on and on and I dare say it is an issue of "appropriateness for a captive forum" and not an issue of "First Amendment rights", otherwise every patently offensive apparel or ornamentation must be allowed (and we all know it is not). The administration of this particular school decided that the positive aspects of allowing freedom of expression are outweighed by the negative aspect of forcing a certain phrase or viewpoint on a captive audience that cannot excuse themselves from exposure to the phrase. That is their job and when the goal is primarily educating, not soapboxing, you err on the side of those being educated, not those climbing on the soapbox.

 

[Adam.Heckman]

Okay, but there is a fundamental difference between your phrases and the one on the button. The phrases that you point out are devisive, and they are worded to be so. The point of those phrases is to incite and to offend (among others). Those slogans would definately anger people, such as an officers son , or a Buddist. Those buttons could start fights.

The point of restricting the first amendment in the captive forum of the school is that the inflamitory speech will lead to the harm of others. Such as starting a fight or interupting class (therefore degrading the education of others). Things are generally against the law when the actions hurt other people. I can swing my fists wildly until I hit another person. If the speech (button, shirt, etc) will directly or indirectly do harm to others, then the school has every right to ban it. As they would with a "I [heart] Hitler" button. (it's 'fighting' words)

The "I [heart] my Vagina" button is in no way going to polarize a room, unless you've got somebody that believes that wife beating is okay. So, if nothing bad is going to come from the button the school has no right to restrict its usage.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I knew you were going to say this. So, what about this scenario - When I went to highschool, my sister was one year behind me. I adored my sister and got into more fights defending her honor than defending my own. If she were to be the victim of abuse by a boy friend I may (after sending him to the hospital) find it to be a fine thing to alert the student body to the dangers of domestic abuse. I could hold a seminar, ask for a special guest speaker, hand out pamphlets etc. I decide, however, that it is not enough to do those things, I want to shock people into action. Since I love my sister and I am abhorred to think anyone would do harm to her body, mind or soul, I make up buttons that say "I (heart) my sister". Perfectly suitable, and able to evoke a response of "what do you mean" without shock. But shock is what I am after, because I am out to get in people's faces, not provoke an honest discussion. So I change the buttons. Since I love my sister body, mind and soul, I change the button to just address my love for her body. Even further, since this domestic abuse was against a woman, I make the button address that part of her which is fully woman. You guessed it, I create a "I (heart) my sister's vagina" (not too far from the original in this thread). I wear this to school, in front of a captive audience who know nothing of my sister's plight. To any criticism, I say they are "taking it out of context", it is "just a word", it's "used in health class all the time", "I just want to alert people to a good cause" and "everyone else is overreacting".

Should I have to take the button off? Is it possible that it would be distracting if I wear it? Would the education process (social or otherwise) benefit at all from my attempt to "shock"? Would my 1st Amendment rights be violated if I was told to remove the button simply because the meaning behind it was misunderstood by any or all of the student body and/or faculty?

Discuss amongst yourselves...

 

[Adam.Heckman]

Well, a situation like that boils down to the principal. Because that is one that's in a gray area. See, 'your' button upon first glance addresses a social and moral taboo: Incest. Personally, I think that that button could start a fight. If a kid in my redneck highschool would have worn that button he'da got a mud hole stopped into his ass. (Rednecks don't normally like sexual deviance.)

What's unfortunate for us is this: The exact issue that we're talking about is specific. Very specific. It's special to the location, society, and phrasing. We cannot come up with an appropriate analogy, because there is none.

Jeff, I have 100% enjoyed this discussion, and thank you for your participation (and the degridation of my productivity at work). However, I think we've reached the end of our respective arguements. We run the risk of just repeating ourselves now. (unless you want to come at me again with something else!!)

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I agree. (I win! I win! You called Uncle! I win!)