Yet another notch against the US school system

[Slayer 0]

Source

 

Student suspended for handstands, cartwheels

 

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Cartwheels and handstands have gotten an 11-year-old girl temporarily bounced out of her Los Angeles-area school.

 

Deirdre Faegre was suspended for a week after repeatedly disobeying school officials who told her not to perform gymnastic stunts during lunchtime.

 

"Our first concern is the safety of all children," San Jose-Edison Academy Principal Denise Patton told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

 

Patton said Deirdre could accidentally strike another student, or injure herself, and other children could get hurt trying to imitate Deirdre, who has been doing gymnastics for five years.

 

Deirdre's father, Leland Faegre, said it was absurd to suspend his daughter for doing gymnastics when students were allowed to play basketball and other sports.

 

"Contact sports, apparently, are fine. But this one is so dangerous it requires the cartwheel cops," Faegre said.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Such insolence. I'd beat her if she were my daughter.

[justsoyouknow 0]

That little slut.

[Guest Nanks]

I think she's been punished enough by her name.

 

Dierdre Faegre.

 

That's a shocker.

[Guest Chris2005]

I hope you know you can break your neck by doing handstands and cartwheels.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I hope you break YOUR neck doing handstands and cartwheels. Yeah. I went there.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

You can break your neck walking down a flight of stairs.

 

Why not just cancel playtime for all kids, and tie them in their chairs for the entire school day? No one will get hurt that way.

[Red Baron 0]

I'm sure video games and metal music will get blamed for this when this girl goes on a killing spree in about four years.

 

Mainly cause of her name.

[Slayer 0]

You can break your neck walking down a flight of stairs.

 

Why not just cancel playtime for all kids, and tie them in their chairs for the entire school day? No one will get hurt that way.

I don't even want to get into the difference between my elementary school playground when I was a child versus today (I drive by it everyday en route to my college, and it still gets me...)

[snuffbox 0]

Why not just cancel playtime for all kids, and tie them in their chairs for the entire school day? No one will get hurt that way.

What Would Mr. Blond Do?

[Nighthawk 0]

Spell his name correctly.

[The Czech Republic 0]

You can break your neck walking down a flight of stairs.

 

Why not just cancel playtime for all kids, and tie them in their chairs for the entire school day? No one will get hurt that way.

I don't even want to get into the difference between my elementary school playground when I was a child versus today (I drive by it everyday en route to my college, and it still gets me...)

We could do lots of things, but playing Power Rangers was not one of them. This was 2nd grade, 1993-1994, back in Prospect Heights, Illinois. If you played Power Rangers, you were on the wall. You had to stand with you back against the side of the school for the duration of recess. The recess monitor was a real joker, always coming up with new ways to tell the kids to get on the wall.

 

"Hey Peter! Get on the wall."

 

"You like playing Power Rangers?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you like getting on the wall?"

 

"Who's your favorite Power Ranger?"

"The Red Ranger."

"Mine is the one that has to get on the wall."

 

"It's awfully hard to be in a robot when you're on the wall."

 

It's weird though, because she was the librarian, and was nice to me and others outside of recess.

[The Mandarin 0]

Spell his name correctly.

I bought a Reservoir Dogs poster recently without noticing that said "Mr. Blond" on it.

 

Blond is a variant of blonde, but it still pissed me off.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I thought males were blonds and females were blondes.

[The Mandarin 0]

I thought males were blonds and females were blondes.

Incredible!

[The Mandarin 0]

You can break your neck walking down a flight of stairs.

 

Why not just cancel playtime for all kids, and tie them in their chairs for the entire school day? No one will get hurt that way.

I don't even want to get into the difference between my elementary school playground when I was a child versus today (I drive by it everyday en route to my college, and it still gets me...)

We could do lots of things, but playing Power Rangers was not one of them. This was 2nd grade, 1993-1994, back in Prospect Heights, Illinois. If you played Power Rangers, you were on the wall. You had to stand with you back against the side of the school for the duration of recess. The recess monitor was a real joker, always coming up with new ways to tell the kids to get on the wall.

 

"Hey Peter! Get on the wall."

 

"You like playing Power Rangers?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you like getting on the wall?"

 

"Who's your favorite Power Ranger?"

"The Red Ranger."

"Mine is the one that has to get on the wall."

 

"It's awfully hard to be in a robot when you're on the wall."

 

It's weird though, because she was the librarian, and was nice to me and others outside of recess.

I had that as well. Mine was a little more harsh though.

 

"You're not a Transformer."

 

"You're not a Transformer. Don't hit Tony."

 

"Are you deaf? What did I ask you not to do?"

 

I wasn't even trying to be a Transformer. I was just hitting Tony.

[Slayer 0]

The recess monitor was a real joker, always coming up with new ways to tell the kids to get on the wall.

Oh yeah, I hated the f'king lunch recess monitors. Since the teachers were eating lunch, most of them were volunteer moms and it seemed like whenever something bad was happening to me, they'd drag their asses, but when I was causing trouble, they couldn't get on my ass fast enough.

 

But enough about my childhood

[The Metal Maniac 0]

Man, I would have refused to go to school if they tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to play TMNT.

[Guest Shutterspeed]

We never had anything like the wall, if we did something wrong during the lunch break, we'd just be made to walk around with the teacher for the duration of it, possibly picking up a bit of rubbish for them when they directed us to.

 

We did play Power Rangers though. You know the token kid with ADHD that can't stop blinking? Well, we had one in the first grade called Kodi Anderson, and he'd walk around picking fights with other kids and telling them that he was Jason (the red one). His actions were flat-out memorable, and he'd take battles a little too seriously. In fact, he acted that way through to grade 7 with the subject (in this case, the Power Rangers) changing.

 

I occasionally wonder how he is today.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Slayer, I know how you feel about the playgrounds, man. Fletcher's Field is a park down the street from my house, and 4 years ago, it was made of steel and wood. The ground was made of pebbles blocked off by the concrete walkway by old pieces of wood nailed together, and there was even two merry-go-round's: one that was designed like a color wheel on a completely even surface, and another that was rusty and brown and on a slant with only three bars to hang onto. Guess which one was more fun?

 

We'd play on that playground for hours on end. When we were little, it was just running around. When we developed the means to convey our imaginations, it was playing Aliens, Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, war, and even Exo-Squad or Night of the Living Dead (yes, we played zombie-based games down there). Now? It's all made of foam and plastic, the pebbles replaced with wood chips, the monkey bars only a foot wide and 5 feet from the ground (it used to be about 7 feet high, and 2 1/2 feet wide), and the merry-go-round's have long since disappeared. Hell, the only thing remotely similar about how it once was is the bleachers for the baseball games, and the dugouts. That's it. Everything else was renovated "for the safety of children."

 

Bullshit. You want your kids to be safe? Let them break their arm when they hit the ground after falling off of the top of the monkey bars that they were standing on. Have them learn at a young age that consequences come from every action. And please, for fuck's sake, BRING BACK MERRY-GO-ROUND'S.

 

Oh...and this bitch? Give her a detention, and then a week's detention. If she don't wise up? THEN suspend her. It's almost as much bullshit as my gym teacher telling us that dodgeball - fucking DODGEBALL, where you throw air-filled spheres of rubber at one another - was too dangerous to play, so instead we're playing street hockey.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

You can break your neck walking down a flight of stairs.

 

Why not just cancel playtime for all kids, and tie them in their chairs for the entire school day? No one will get hurt that way.

They might break their necks should they tip the chair over, so we can't have any of that.

[Guest T®ITEC]

Just kill the children. There. That was a time saver.

[Red Baron 0]

Power Rangers? Ninja Turtles?

 

At that time period, it was foot hockey and football we played.

 

And if you tackled somebody, yep...the wall.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

They might break their necks should they tip the chair over, so we can't have any of that.

 

Ooooh, good call. Just strap them to the floor, and get a projector that can put whatever they need to see on the ceiling.

[Guest Nanks]

Fuck, America's soft. We played full contact Aussie Rules & British Bulldogs at school. They discouraged the playing of Mugby (Rugby with no rules) but there was none of this 'Wall' shit.

[The Amazing Rando 0]

It's almost as much bullshit as my gym teacher telling us that dodgeball - fucking DODGEBALL, where you throw air-filled spheres of rubber at one another - was too dangerous to play, so instead we're playing street hockey.

I'd definitely rather get hit by the dodgeball.

 

As for bad recess stories, I was suspended for 3 days back in fifth grade for punching a 6th grader in the face. The punch did not faze the kid at all, and had the teacher not stepped in I probably would have gotten ripped apart by him and his friends, who were fucking with me in the first place.

 

It was, looking back on it, that harmless kind of put down bullshit that every school bully does...name-calling, some shoving, all that shit... but I have a short ass fuse, and I let the kid fucking have it. DIDN'T EVEN FLINCH.

 

Before the punch, I probably might have walked away after a few punches in the arm or something, but this got me pinned down in the grass with him standing over me and his friends playing gaurd.

 

 

In the end, I got the 3 days.... they got NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING.

 

To this day, I see that kid sometimes around and I get really pissed off.

[Damaramu 0]

My elementary school sat on top of a hill. Our playground was covered with trees and bushes so their were places to hide. But I remember teachers stood on top of the hill with whistles and tried to see the whole playground. If you did something wrong they blew it at you. GOD DAMN THAT INFERNAL WHISTLE!

[Guest Shutterspeed]

Fuck, America's soft. We played full contact Aussie Rules & British Bulldogs at school. They discouraged the playing of Mugby (Rugby with no rules) but there was none of this 'Wall' shit.

We were only allowed to do it in class with the teacher's permission.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I wasn't even trying to be a Transformer. I was just hitting Tony.

This is a sig.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Yeah if you want to use it, you can, by the way.