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| Thread: Parents, children, the government, and social engineering |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Elodin
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posted April 12, 2011 06:19 PM |
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Parents, children, the government, and social engineering
Rules for participating in the topic:
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1) This topic is about government control of children in general, parental rights, rights of children, and other related issues. It is not just limited to the first issue I am presenting about a Chicago school.
2). Religious viewpoints are not banned in this topic, whether theistic or atheistic in nature or whatever.
3) Any relevant source may be quoted be it CNN, the Bible, the Qu'ran, or any other other source the poster feels is relevant.
4) No personal insults or slurs of any Heroes Community member in this topic. Critique the arguments of any poster but do not make negative comments about the person advancing the argument. It is ok to call non-community members like Palin, Obama, or Homer Simpson whatever you want.
5) A request to the moderators with respect to moderation of this thread: since moderators have different interpretations of the Code of Conduct please consider the below definition of an insult to be the one applicable to this thread:
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In this thread it shall not be considered an insult if someone calls another person's comments silly, nonsensical, illogical, delusional, insane, funny, old-fashioned or another other adjective or phrase that is aimed at the idea. For example, it is ok to say, "Elodin, your idea is immoral and moronic and reeks of elderberries."
What shall be considered an insult in this thread is applying a negative adjective to the person presenting the idea. Such as "You are stupid/ignorant/delusional/moronic", ect. So, for example, it would not be ok to say, "Elodin, you are an immoral moron and you reek of elderberries."
Now, for the first thing I wanted to talk about.
A Chicago school has banned children from bringing homemade lunches to school (a public school.) The child must purchase lunch at the school cafeteria or go hungry if he is not in the free lunch program for the poor.
Clicky
What do you think of this? Should a public school be allowed to force a child to either eat what the administrators want him to eat or go hungry?
My opinion is that a parent should be free to send his child to school with a homemade lunch and that the public school should not be allowed to dictate what the child can eat. Further, I think the school is wrong in making children go hungry who do not purchase lunch from the school.
I view a public school as a place for learning, not for parenting or social engineering. The school is not there to dictate what a child must eat but to teach academic matters. It is the job of the parents to parent the children.
It is perfectly fine (and desirable) for a public school to teach about nutrition. But it is up to the child and the parent to put the knowledge about nutrition into practice.
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del_diablo
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posted April 12, 2011 06:40 PM |
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I would have been OK with it, if lunch was free. Because then there would at the least be some basis in reality.
But as the issue stands, this ruling is silly.
I partially agree that school should be for academy, but on the other hand I do think teachers should get a bit more freedom is what they can do.
The reason is simple: As the current generation is, moral has weakened and so had discipline.
What today are "Normal kids" was something viewed as poorly parented kids back in the day.
However I am not sure what exactly has changed to cause this.
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yaeliccc
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posted April 12, 2011 07:48 PM |
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If the reason is to create more equality between students such as not allowing richer kids to eat mcdonalds/wendy's/whatever in front of a poor student who cant afford anything then im ok with the idea but it needs to be raised in front of the parents first, since they're encouraging students to buy food in the cafeteria, that seems like an economical profit for the school hence pretty damn outrageous and rude coz with all due respect to the school who the hell are they to tell me how to eat ? thats the same as Religious coercion.... not cool
regarding the "its on parents to educate their kids", its a great statement in theory however in reality a huge and i mean a huge part of parenting kida falls on school districts as sad as it sounds....
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bLiZzArdbOY
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posted April 12, 2011 08:19 PM |
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I'm honestly not sure what I think of this one. I suppose it entirely depends on what the school is serving  . Hopefully wholesome food. This means the school will have a greater legal burden of accommodating students that have to follow any variety of unusual diets: glutton free diets, milk free diets, peanut free diets, etc, rather than just allowing the option of students bringing in a lunch from home.
I'm not really against this any more than I'm against how some schools have uniforms. I can see some pros and cons of either or. In this case, I would only be okay with it if the school is able to have a good amount of variety on their menu. Children, like adults, vary greatly with their metabolisms and particular dietary needs, so the idea of "all students eat the exact same thing in the exact same portions" is a big fail.
Either way, with a large Chicago school, I see this ending up being a legal problem with them having to allow certain exceptions for students.
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mvassilev
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posted April 12, 2011 08:36 PM |
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As someone who ate school food as recently as two years ago (I was one of the unfortunates who ate it in high school), it's disgusting slop. Forcing children to eat it and forbidding any alternatives is a terrible idea. Sure, it'd be one thing if the food was actually edible, but then school lunches would get more expensive.
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Vlaad
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posted April 12, 2011 09:06 PM |
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Edited by Vlaad at 21:09, 12 Apr 2011.
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It's not about equality or profit, it's about a healthier diet. The article states that about 45% of poor kids and 30% of all kids in the US are overweight. Since they have lunch at school, it was logical to try to improve it. They're doing it wrong though. Don't ban ****, it's counterproductive. Simply make the cafeteria awesome and cheap compared to a coke and sandwich or cookies. How? By using tax dollars, of course. 
P.S. 50 bucks a month for a kid's lunch is too much? Really?
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bLiZzArdbOY
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posted April 12, 2011 09:12 PM |
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Don't update the labs with new computers every 3 years. It's not a big deal if a student is using Microsoft 2007 instead of Microsoft 2010. Put the money into having a wholesome lunch that doesn't taste like a shoe.
The U.S. spends more per student than almost every other country; maybe every other country, yet performance in U.S. education starts off really good in elementary school and alarmingly turns to cow**** in high school. A lack of tax money spent on it isn't the problem. Policy is the problem. (This 2nd paragraph strays into a whole new can of worms, but my point is that a lot of schools get more money than they truly need and it ends up being spent to make the school look like a marble temple)
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shyranis
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posted April 13, 2011 01:06 AM |
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Edited by shyranis at 01:17, 13 Apr 2011.
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Policy is the problem.
You mean like how after no child left behind, the schools were given way, way more funding on the condition that only a certain percent can fail or they lose their funding... so the schools just tailor kids to pass those tests and fail at life instead so they keep the money?
Glad my kids won't have to go through that.
Back to the original topic:
That is just stupid, they'd never do anything like that here because it's far too intrusive and an abuse of power to make kids only buy from the school or get free, lower quality garbage from tax dollars... or starve. The last part is certainly a sticking point that all the political parties I can think of would agree on.
Regardless, we should all be grateful it didn't happen in our respective countries... except Americans... sorry...
A school should definitely teach proper nutrition, but why not do that in a health class? I seem to remember learning that stuff a couple different years. Earlier years showing how to take care of yourself, later years showing the results of failure to look after yourself.
We also as part of those later years health classes had Sex Ed, where we learned that if you absolutely must do things to people, use a condom, but the best way to avoid pregnancy and STDs (they're called STIs now right?) is abstinence. Teaching abstinence only we'd learned from centuries only encourages some people to be unsafe.
So, a school should not force things on students. Generally that's just asking for that school to be scrutinized by message boards like this and possibly some people with some actual power that pretend they care =p
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gnomes2169
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posted April 13, 2011 01:12 AM |
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Alright, now I find a school system that goes beyond the regular amount of stupid...
No! They should not be allowed to restrict anyone's food supply. If a child doesn't buy food from the vendor that they want them to (the school), then in America's capitalistic society they should be allowed to purchase from a vendor of their choosing (In this case, home). Great going there guys...
Edit: Liking your new signature BTW Elodin. 
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mvassilev
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posted April 13, 2011 01:16 AM |
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performance in U.S. education starts off really good in elementary school and alarmingly turns to cow**** in high school
Possibly because at least 75% of the curriculum is repeated year after year in middle school.
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shyranis
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posted April 13, 2011 01:18 AM |
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As someone who ate school food as recently as two years ago (I was one of the unfortunates who ate it in high school)
Are you saying.... you were recently jailbait?
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blizzardboy
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posted April 13, 2011 01:19 AM |
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Policy is the problem.
You mean like how after no child left behind, the schools were given way, way more funding on the condition that only a certain percent can fail or they lose their funding... so the schools just tailor kids to pass those tests and fail at life instead so they keep the money?
Glad my kids won't have to go through that.
That's a more recent problem, but it extends beyond that. It's a big discussion for another topic though.
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Back to the original topic:
That is just stupid, they'd never do anything like that here because it's far too intrusive and an abuse of power to make kids only buy from the school or get free, lower quality garbage from tax dollars... or starve. The last part is certainly a sticking point that all the political parties I can think of would agree on.
Regardless, we should all be grateful it didn't happen in our respective countries... except Americans... sorry...
'Intrusiveness' is a daily reality of life for minors. They get told what to do and how to do it, and if they don't do it, they can get in trouble for it, even if what they're being told isn't necessarily a good idea. They're told whether or not they can chew gum in school, listen to music, run in the hall, and innumerable other things. They're restricted from certain things because they can be distracting or cause a mess, but they're told to do other things simply for what is believed to be for their own good. I.E. gym class. Kicking a ball around isn't going to further their academic knowledge, but it's considered for their own good to promote physical activity. You can bring up the issue of intrusiveness for legal adults, but children are a different matter.
I see the main issue here is that the school will be legally burdened with providing for a very diverse audience with diverse needs. They can allow exceptions for students, but that in itself could cause a lot of *****ing and create a loophole.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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mvassilev
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posted April 13, 2011 01:25 AM |
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Are you saying.... you were recently jailbait?
I'm 19. Do the math.
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JollyJoker
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posted April 13, 2011 03:41 PM |
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A public school can't be allowed to do something like that - there is no legal foundation.
If it can do that, it could just as well force pupils to wear a certain kind of uniform in school (it might have the purpose to be drab so that it couldn't distract either teachers or pupils) - to be rented for $1 a day.
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Keksimaton
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posted April 13, 2011 09:53 PM |
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I'm not really sure if mvass' experiences on school food are in any way relevant to Chicago when considering that he propably went to highschool in a completely different state.
School food and cafeteria discipline affect study performance, so it's just right that the school can rule what you can eat what you can't during school hours. At that point it's just figuring out what works best. Teachers should be allowed to do their job and parents should help them do it.
Also, you shouldn't consume any intoxicating substances inside or outside school.
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JollyJoker
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posted April 13, 2011 10:03 PM |
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School food and cafeteria discipline affect study performance, so it's just right that the school can rule what you can eat what you can't during school hours.
Sleep time affects study performance as well - following that logic school should rule bed times as well. Not to mention serious friendships, holding hands or even kissing in pauses, and discussing other things than school stuff.
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Shyranis
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posted April 13, 2011 10:10 PM |
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it's just right that the school can rule what you can eat what you can't during school hours
They really don't have any say during lunch hour though, other than preventing the obviously illegal.
What's next, they ban smoking for all high school kids (even during lunch and after hours) and demand they get their cigarettes from the school?
I mean, it makes sense to ban whatever the heck they want in a classroom, but the school board is really overreaching its boundaries.
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Keksimaton
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posted April 13, 2011 10:23 PM |
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@JJ: That's called boarding school.
School already does dictate your bedtime with a very simple rule: You need to be awake during school hours.
It's not very efficient to police everything, but of course there are certain rules for what kind of social conduct is appropriate in school. It's actually not a long time ago when there were school rules for upper secondary school about what you were allowed to do outside school.
@Shyranis: No say during lunch break? Isn't lunch break just as much a part of the average school day as any class or recess?
I don't know how you jumped from lunch to smoking, but you might be onto something here. Maybe if highschool students were provided with nicotine patches during school so that smoking won't disrupt the flow. It would also encourage to quit smoking. 
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Zenofex
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posted April 13, 2011 10:52 PM |
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The whole thing sounds like some decision-making individual(s) from the school board are friends with some other decision-making individual(s) from a food-producing or food-trading company and the former try to arrange a de facto marketplace for the latter.
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mvassilev
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posted April 13, 2011 11:38 PM |
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I'm not really sure if mvass' experiences on school food are in any way relevant to Chicago when considering that he propably went to highschool in a completely different state.
No, I've heard people from other states expressing similar opinions. School food being terrible is part of American culture.
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