The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Breathalyzer test required for Homecoming Dance

MLeake · September 9, 2011, 02:14 PM

mehavey, I'm not a teacher, nor married to one. I was a Navy officer, and am now a defense contractor, and I'm married to an RN. I work in Afghanistan, and she's job hunting.

My mother was a teacher, though. My uncle was a middle school teacher and, for a while, vice principal. I have friends who are teachers, and I hear a lot of stories.

The recurring theme is that the system does not or will not deal with known problem kids, and so the system comes up with asinine crap such as zero tolerance policies, which got a girl suspended from one Florida school for having a toenail clipper with (gasp) the file still attached, which some lame-brain faculty member decided could be a stabbing weapon; a little boy in trouble for having his GI Joe Doll with its teeny tiny gun at another Florida school; and another kid in Florida charged with assault with a deadly weapon for shooting an airsoft rubber pellet at another kid with an improvised slingshot - since it was able to raise a welt, it was dealt with as a deadly weapon by the school, the school resource officer, and the local DA.

The system has become gutless and brain dead.

Meanwhile, one poster says that breathalyzers teach kids that everybody is treated equally. What an utter crock. What breathalyzing everybody teaches kids is that actions do not have consequences. Good behavior means nothing to the authorities, and neither does bad behavior. If you breathalyze kids who have shown prior behavioral issues that support reasonable suspicion, you reinforce that negative behaviors have consequences. The "breathalyze 'em all and let God sort 'em out" approach is morally bankrupt, intellectually lazy, and in the long term only makes your problems worse.

Look at your own posts, mehavey. The problem is that "the system" won't let you deal with problems in a way that uses any sort of sense or moral compass. You can argue that what you are left with is breathalyzing them all, but the least of all evils isn't close to the ideal. The ideal is bringing back the concept of individual accountability and consequences.

And if the dance can't safely be held without mass breathalyzers, perhaps it should be cancelled.

September 9, 2011, 02:14 PM	#118
MLeake Senior Member Join Date: November 15, 2007 Location: Outside KC, MO Posts: 10,128	mehavey, I'm not a teacher, nor married to one. I was a Navy officer, and am now a defense contractor, and I'm married to an RN. I work in Afghanistan, and she's job hunting. My mother was a teacher, though. My uncle was a middle school teacher and, for a while, vice principal. I have friends who are teachers, and I hear a lot of stories. The recurring theme is that the system does not or will not deal with known problem kids, and so the system comes up with asinine crap such as zero tolerance policies, which got a girl suspended from one Florida school for having a toenail clipper with (gasp) the file still attached, which some lame-brain faculty member decided could be a stabbing weapon; a little boy in trouble for having his GI Joe Doll with its teeny tiny gun at another Florida school; and another kid in Florida charged with assault with a deadly weapon for shooting an airsoft rubber pellet at another kid with an improvised slingshot - since it was able to raise a welt, it was dealt with as a deadly weapon by the school, the school resource officer, and the local DA. The system has become gutless and brain dead. Meanwhile, one poster says that breathalyzers teach kids that everybody is treated equally. What an utter crock. What breathalyzing everybody teaches kids is that actions do not have consequences. Good behavior means nothing to the authorities, and neither does bad behavior. If you breathalyze kids who have shown prior behavioral issues that support reasonable suspicion, you reinforce that negative behaviors have consequences. The "breathalyze 'em all and let God sort 'em out" approach is morally bankrupt, intellectually lazy, and in the long term only makes your problems worse. Look at your own posts, mehavey. The problem is that "the system" won't let you deal with problems in a way that uses any sort of sense or moral compass. You can argue that what you are left with is breathalyzing them all, but the least of all evils isn't close to the ideal. The ideal is bringing back the concept of individual accountability and consequences. And if the dance can't safely be held without mass breathalyzers, perhaps it should be cancelled.