

Seen Not Heard: How Obscure Security Makes Schools Suck - dfield
http://boingboing.net/features/security.html

======
lmkg
Very important point here:

> She accomplished [having well-behaved students] not though harsh discipline,
> but by treating us with respect and being genuinely hurt if we did not
> return it.

People rise, and lower, to your expectations. The more you treat your students
like potential criminals, the more they'll act like ones because of (largely
unconcious) expectations that that's how they're supposed to behave.

My college had a very liberal behavior policy. During student orientation, we
were all told, explicitly, that the only real rule was "don't be a jackass."
We were allowed as much alcohol as we wanted, as long as we drank responsibly.
We were allowed take-home tests, as long as we didn't cheat (most such tests
had hard time constraints, too). We were allowed free run of the academic
facilities at all hours, as long as we didn't abuse the privelage. We were
allowed to make all sorts of bonfires as long as no one got hurt[1]. You were
allowed to pull all sorts of stupid pranks on people, including faculty and
administrators, as long as you left contact information and could clean it up
in 24 hours.

Guess what? There were very few problems. No incidents of alcohol poisoning,
vanishingly small amounts of alcohol-related theft or assault or property
damage, and maybe one or two instances of people breaking in and
stealing/breaking things during my time there. All of the stupid pranks were
done in good faith, taken in good humor, and tended not to involve the police
(unless that was part of the prank). No fire damage, and no drunk people
falling into fires. People self-reported if they accidentally went over the
time limit on a test. Perhaps most importantly, the students had very good
relationships with the faculty and administrators. Being able to walk into a
professor's office and ask them for help (whether academic or otherwise) is
invaluable, both as a resource and as a habit to develop.

The escalation of security in schools is a Chinese Finger Trap. Kids are
acting juvenile, sound the alarm, we must stop them! Now they're acting even
more juvenile, sound the alarm louder and try even harder to stop them! Et
cetera. Treat kids like criminals-in-waiting and you'll get criminals. Treat
them like responsible adults and you'll get adults.

[1] Actually, there were some additional restrictions on fires, but that
wasn't our fault. One time the women's college across the street thought a
dorm was burning down and called the fire department, so now bonfires are not
allowed to exceed the height of a dorm building.

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ErrantX
This link from the article disgusted me:
<http://boingboing.net/2009/05/24/kid-keeping-a-lendin.html>

All those books banned? Sick. :(

~~~
anamax
> All those books banned?

Actually, none of those books are banned. Americans are perfectly free to buy
them.

There is a difference between "a govt won't buy for you" and "banned".

You wouldn't write "vanilla ice cream is banned" if a govt didn't buy it for
you so why do you think that a book is banned just because a govt didn't buy
it for someone?

~~~
ErrantX
> Actually, none of those books are banned. Americans are perfectly free to
> buy them.

Of course, I realise that - if you read the article it is about them being
banned _at a school_ (I never clarified that because I assumed it was obvious
;))

I consider that awful: books like catcher in the rye (and similar) are great
reads when your growing up/developing. And some of the other books (His Dark
Materials for example) are just great yarns! Banning them from kids is bad.

~~~
anamax
> I never clarified that because I assumed it was obvious

Thanks for confirming that your title was purposefully deceptive.

And, yes, I read the article and noticed what you did.

> it is about them being banned at a school

No. What was banned was a private lending library. Sort of like they "ban"
candy sales. However, you wouldn't put it that way for candy.

There are lots of great reads, and none of them are banned. They're just not
provided by public schools.

~~~
ErrantX
It was a private school.

My point is simply that someone at the school decided, apparently, that these
books were in some way bad for he kids. They weren't being exposed to great
and sometimes important literature.

I find it disgusting that anyone could try to "ban" those books and still call
themselves educators.... (and yes if a school canteen banned candy I'd
consider that pretty silly - but at least they could have a sound scientific
or health basis for such a decision)

if it were a public school I would be even more sad. Such a school should not
actively ban books for shaky moral reasons...

(I'm not sure what you felt was intentionally deceptive. Sorry I guess.. I
think you potentially scanned thr article and missed some of the data. No
worries)

~~~
anamax
> My point is simply that someone at the school decided, apparently, that
> these books were in some way bad for he kids.

You're assuming facts not in evidence. A more likely conclusion is that they
simply decided to teach something else. And, even if your "facts" were true,
they don't support your conclusion.

There is lots of great stuff that doesn't get taught. It's absurd to call that
"banned".

> Such a school should not actively ban books for shaky moral reasons...

Once again - refusing to provide is not banning. No one is stopping those kids
from getting those books.

This matters because when the banners actually come, and they do occasionaly,
folks who cry wolf will have helped them.

~~~
ErrantX
> There is lots of great stuff that doesn't get taught. It's absurd to call
> that "banned"

There is implication in the story (and I realise there is no further evidence
than what is presented there) that it's not a case of it simply not being
taught - but that they are actively put on a list of "material not allowed".
_that_ is the distinction.

You need to read what was written:

 _Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long)
list of books we're not allowed to read_

 _I would be in so much trouble if I got caught_

 _But is what I'm doing wrong because parents and teachers don't know about it
and might not like it, or is it a good thing because I am starting
appreciation of the classics and truly good novels_

I find it sad that, if true, a kid is having to provide this material - and is
worried that lending books to people is somehow _wrong_!

> No one is stopping those kids from getting those books.

That's a little naive. If a kid requested or suggested the book for the school
library and it was refused on the grounds it had been banned; how is that a
_good_ thing? If the story is true (and again I realise it can't be fully
verified) then it appears the service was popular.. indicating that the non-
provision of that material was actually stopping kids from getting the books
as part of their normal routine.

The implicit suggestion by a school that actively bans a book is that there is
something wrong with it. I can't see how you can legitimately say that about,
say, His Dark Materials....

~~~
anamax
> Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long)
> list of books we're not allowed to read

Frankly, that sounds like an excitable kid making up stuff. (I've known kids
who made up the same thing.)

However, it doesn't matter if it's true because schools can't stop kids from
reading what they want. And, as you've pointed out, that school is a voluntary
choice.

> > No one is stopping those kids from getting those books.

> That's a little naive. If a kid requested or suggested the book for the
> school library and it was refused on the grounds it had been banned; how is
> that a good thing?

It's no worse or different than any other reason for not carrying something.
Why are you so hung up on why the school doesn't carry something?

The amount that schools can carry is in the noise compard to what's available.
Compare Amazon's book list to any school's library, and Amazon misses a lot of
things.

> it appears the service was popular.. indicating that the non-provision of
> that material was actually stopping kids from getting the books as part of
> their normal routine.

I knew a kid who ran a Playboy/Hustler lending library. Please distinguish.
(School refused to carry/discouraged and kids wanted.)

> The implicit suggestion by a school that actively bans a book is that there
> is something wrong with it.

Except that they don't ban, they merely say "we won't get these things for
you, just like we won't get the vast majority of things".

And, if you think that kids pay attention to that stuff, you clearly don't
have much experience with kids.

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vishaldpatel
Perhaps the cameras are a teaching tool. You learn in school how to do
mischief despite the cameras so you can get away with it in real life! :P

~~~
scotty79
Swapping forbidden data, library of forbidden books, underground leaflet
campaign, clean samples for urine test. They are just preparing kids to get by
in future America. That's a good thing.

~~~
JBiserkov
Gattaca

------
Confusion
Despite having heard such stories many times now, they keep amazing me. From a
European perspective, the whole thing is insane. I doubt there is a single
school in the whole of Western Europe with camera's and security guards. The
first time I heard about these things, I thought they were excesses that would
surely lead to outrage and would be overturned. Instead, these measures gain
ground. How can there not be a significant movement to restore the sanity of
the USA?

~~~
natrius
I thought cameras where everywhere in the UK? That's what the internet tells
me, at least.

~~~
jdietrich
There's a substantial cultural gap between the UK and the rest of Europe.
We've been described as "in Europe, but not of it" which I think is quite apt.

The UK has more security cameras per capita than anywhere else in the world.
We have more security cameras than the whole of China. This is in stark
contrast to our low-surveillance neighbours on the continent who are used to
seeing only a few cameras used to oversee a specific high-risk area.

Many inner-city British schools now have security guards and a permanent
police presence. In London (where the panic over knife crime is at it's worst)
it's not uncommon to find secondary schools with airport-style screening at
the front doors.

~~~
joe_fishfish
It seems that here in the UK we trust our government a lot more than we trust
our fellow citizens.

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plesn
It reminds us the hard way that school is an ambiguous beast: it has an
educational side, but it has also a disciplinary side, as people like Foucault
where pointing. It is made to prepare children to obey to their superiors, to
follow strict schedules imposed from outside, and soon, it prepares them to
always be watched. Our future ?

------
nazgulnarsil
rationality fails the instant a child is involved. "for the children" has thus
been the cry of those who seek to circumvent our analytical faculties since at
least ancient greece.

~~~
jcmhn
You can't get much more direct access to human motivation than with child
safety issues. A reasonable argument can be made that child health and safety
is pretty much the point of human civilization in the first place.

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chanux
It's not as bad as this in my experience. But The students are given some
pressure. I've seen teachers who think School is some military training place
and treat students like they were criminals. And they only receive similar
treatments. The teachers who were kind and gentle received love, even from the
toughest kids.

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j_baker
It sounds like technology's the only thing that's changed since I was in
school. The adults are still paranoid as hell.

------
ilkhd2
Tomorrow they'll prohibit 1984, Animal Farm and will remove Hitler from
history course. A day after that they'll put cameras in you apartment, as a
required part of lease.

Welcome to brave new USA.

~~~
redcap
Wasn't the insidious thing about Hitler that people actually loved him out of
ignorance? My impression is that there was far more surveillance of citizens
in Communist East Germany than Nazi Germany.

If you can get people to actually love you rather than fear you, you don't
need a surveillance system in every house (or every neighbourhood as the Stasi
system was set up).

~~~
ErrantX
It's way more complicated than that - but in essence yet.

The problem with Hitler was that the propaganda was rock solid (so, yeh,
ignorance in the sense of misdirection I guess) and initially he fixed some
stuff, or appeared too, that was important to the populace.

Of course he then turned out to be insane but by that point (and more
precisely the point when the populace started to realize) it was kinda too
late.

