Rant On Kid Monitoring
Michael Adams
6-1-2005
My response to news reports of prepaid school lunch monitoring by parents.
Here's a thought: we accept this because we live in an era that encourages distrust of others. Consider the maximal range of tools available to control children...
- Don't get to class within 5 minutes of the last one? Automatic detention. I had a locker in HS: never had time to use it (one of the "perks" of honors classes was having to run around campus to get to them). 2 backpacks are really good for my back?
- Some schools have RFID tags to monitor child locations. Kids have also been suspended for refusing to wear them.
- Prepaid lunches when I was in school meant getting real food: not letting me get whatever. School solution: turn it to where the parents control the exact details? The parents criticizing their daughter for an extra 200 calories? Do they lock the cabinets at home too? Being 100 pounds is just as unhealthy as being 200: have her eat what's on the menu, and don't nitpick over damn juice; false choice isn't a choice.
- Most schools have systems to call parents based on morning attendance rolls. "Your kid's not at school." Ok, reduces truancy: but absence also reduces school funding. Enter draconian attendance policies (such as 9 days out a term, period). If you're out on a sports or band team, depending on your school, you could fail because you were out doing those things, regardless if you're getting your work done: it happened to a gal in this area a year or two ago.
- Schools can determine what clubs & publications are made. The other day a school with a satirical play had Bush with a cigar in a Groucho pose on the poster: it was removed "because it encouraged smoking." There's also schools that allow Fellow Christian Athletes, but oppose gay or atheist clubs. There's been several lawsuits at the Supreme Court level asking what the schools are allowed to control.
- Obviously you can't leave school except before & after. Don't forget the walls too, and the admins with walkie-talkies & golf carts. Especially during FCAT time! Can you say, prison? Columbine & Bemdiji happened DESPITE these measures.
- The ever obvious report card. I believe my Dad & wicked stepmother tried to ground me for getting less than 3.5 GPA in HS once. Brother took a lot of mental abuse, plus a few slaps, because he was stuck around 2.0. I believe they also took off his door & boarded up his window because he was hanging out with the wrong crowd: this while Dad was out drinking half the time, and the stepmother ever bitter. This scene has repeated itself all over.
What does all this do for a kid? Nothing really: it fails to account for parenting, and if anything make the child more bitter. But as a grown adult...
- I can be late with a good excuse: crap happens.
- The only tagging I get is the tagging I accept: national security jobs or gigs with AT&T (they've experimented with location beacons & VNC to "move" your computer session between terminals).
- I can eat whatever the hell I want, and it'll make me skinny, fat, whatever. My weight has fluctuated between 165-185 over the last 6 years: and 6 years ago I consumed FAR more cheeseburgers, sodas, and "debbie snacks." I also swam a lot as a kid & still got a pot belly back then. The only thing that seems to take off weight for good is a damn supplement. Some people get obese; some people never gain a pound. I've got a pot-belly, but I'm also called "cute," so I must be doing something right, and I eat whatever I can that is healthy. Income's a big part too: eating better costs more than cheap TV dinners & crap out of a can. You want to end obesity? Make real food as cheap as fake food.
- Work has my number if they need me. They call me when I'm not supposed to be at work too.
- I can write, draw, or publish whatever won't get me sued. I can join an athest club too if I wanted to.
- I've worked at places where there's guards & security badges, and where I work now, there are no guards. Either place, I could easily be gunned down by a disgruntled ex-employee.
- Having a 3.57 GPA average in HS has NO bearing on my current job: because my family didn't give a s**t enough to help me pay for school, they put it on me to get an award from the state & work full-time to get a 2-year degree; I'm told I'll need a 4-year to get out of making paperwork & cleaning toilets for $10.50/hr, but I also know people that have 4-year degrees that wait tables for tips, or work on the production floor at work for $7/hr. Grades are irrelevant. Degrees are worth only as much as the people you know to actually use them.
One thing that has changed for both teen & adult: how many people can get away with "parking" anymore? I really like it that society has encouraged policing & background checks to the point that a mere arrest for screwing in my car can mean I will never get a decent job above cleaning toilets & filing paperwork: as I understand, arrests (notice that I'm not talking about actual convictions) can't be expunged from records. "Innocent until proven guilty?"
I smell police state. And it starts in our schools: because we want to save our children: from ourselves?