What are you thinking right now?

[wellAlbidarned]

Principals call for the right to read through students' phones and laptops

Seriously, what the ****? Plain case of trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

[Flem274*]

Lol, considering how inept the average school is at tackling traditional bullying, giving them powers to search through personal items will end in tears.

[wellAlbidarned]

That's because real life bullying is a bloody hard thing to deal to, there's so many factors which have to be finely balanced.

With cyber bullying, though, it's pretty easy to get the phone company to block certain numbers from contacting you, and obviously you can delete ****s from Facebook in a matter of seconds. Am I missing something here?

[Hurricane]

At my local dairy they are selling ice cream

1 scoop $3
2 scoops $3.50
3 scoops $4.50

Why the major jump from 2 scoops to 3 scoops.

[Adamc]

Market segmentation.

1 scoop - hungry people with only $3
2 scoops - normal people
3 scoops - fat people

[Hurricane]

Market segmentation.

1 scoop - hungry people with only $3
2 scoops - normal people
3 scoops - fat people

So what are you saying that they want to discourage fat people from being able to afford 3 scoops for their own good? ITSTL

[uvelocity]

Why the major jump from 2 scoops to 3 scoops.

bigger cone itbt

[flibbertyjibber]

That life sucks worse than getting a gobble off a granny who takes her teeth out first*.


* Not happened to me just presuming.

[fredfertang]

Having been on the wagon for the best part of twenty years I have recently re-acquired a taste for the demon drink and tonight I am on a collision course with intoxication - I'm hoping hangovers aren't as bad as they were back in the day

[flibbertyjibber]

Well FF I am suffering my first hangover this year after really going for it last night, they suck as bad as they always did. Trouble is as you get older they seem to last longer.

[fredfertang]

Well FF I am suffering my first hangover this year after really going for it last night, they suck as bad as they always did. Trouble is as you get older they seem to last longer.

That's disappointing - was hoping that, like hay fever, I might have grown out of the bloody things

[Spark]

Like some dreadful joke, Euro will survive only via French reform, German extravagance and Italian political maturity

Didn't know The Economist had a sense of humour.

[Son Of Coco]

Lol, considering how inept the average school is at tackling traditional bullying, giving them powers to search through personal items will end in tears.

"But Massey University researcher Anne Ryan, who has studied bullying, said neither the restorative justice nor punitive approach would eliminate the problem."

This this statement from an expert gives you some indication of why. I might be reading it wrong, but she seems to basically be saying do nothing. Meanwhile she's got some bleeding heart rhetoric going about power struggles within schools and how the school's reinforcing that...couldn't possibly be the student doing the bullying's fault. There are always power struggles within schools when it comes to students, it's called being a teenager.

Students who bully other students do it because they can get away with it. And they do it at times when they're most likely to come out on top (i.e surrounded by a group of mates). The internet just means they can bully without any physical repercussions.

As far as laptops and phones in school go, I reckon the former are only slightly necessary and the latter totally unnecessary. Students should be made to hand in their phones in the morning and get them back in the afternoon. You don't need a phone at school. Here in Australia some students, who already had a laptop, got another one apparently when the government started handing them out...what the **** are you going to do with two laptops?

And don't get me started on giving out iPads...they're a luxury, not something every student needs to complete their education. If you have a laptop you don't need an iPad.

Technology is obviously something that's important to younger people's skills development, but it creates a ****ing nightmare in the classroom. Although it's possible it decreases the likelihood of a kid getting bored in class and making a ****wit out of themselves, it means teachers spend more time making sure students are doing what they're actually supposed to be doing and not ****ing around on the internet.

I have this problem in my classes, and apparently I teach adults. I teach a classes filled with Pavlovian dogs - every time they hear a tone they madly fumble for their phone as they simply must answer any message they get immediately.

(Probably should have taken this to 'What Grinds Your Gears' halfway through...)

[Flem274*]

"But Massey University researcher Anne Ryan, who has studied bullying, said neither the restorative justice nor punitive approach would eliminate the problem."

This this statement from an expert gives you some indication of why. I might be reading it wrong, but she seems to basically be saying do nothing. Meanwhile she's got some bleeding heart rhetoric going about power struggles within schools and how the school's reinforcing that...couldn't possibly be the student doing the bullying's fault. There are always power struggles within schools when it comes to students, it's called being a teenager.

Students who bully other students do it because they can get away with it. And they do it at times when they're most likely to come out on top (i.e surrounded by a group of mates). The internet just means they can bully without any physical repercussions.

As far as laptops and phones in school go, I reckon the former are only slightly necessary and the latter totally unnecessary. Students should be made to hand in their phones in the morning and get them back in the afternoon. You don't need a phone at school. Here in Australia some students, who already had a laptop, got another one apparently when the government started handing them out...what the **** are you going to do with two laptops?

And don't get me started on giving out iPads...they're a luxury, not something every student needs to complete their education. If you have a laptop you don't need an iPad.

Technology is obviously something that's important to younger people's skills development, but it creates a ****ing nightmare in the classroom. Although it's possible it decreases the likelihood of a kid getting bored in class and making a ****wit out of themselves, it means teachers spend more time making sure students are doing what they're actually supposed to be doing and not ****ing around on the internet.

I have this problem in my classes, and apparently I teach adults. I teach a classes filled with Pavlovian dogs - every time they hear a tone they madly fumble for their phone as they simply must answer any message they get immediately.

(Probably should have taken this to 'What Grinds Your Gears' halfway through...)

I guarantee you if you tried to enforce those cellphone restrictions there would be revolution before morning tea. That and they'll move on to smashing each others heads in.

Aside from the fact making students hand in their cellphones is an incredibly dire idea (even a blanket ban on them being at school in the first place would be more agreeable, but still unrealistic and dire) and another great way to not teach kids personal responsibility, the main difference with cyber bullying compared to normal bullying is it makes bullying outside the school grounds so much easier. Kids will still get verbally abused at school, it just won't be conveyed via the small screen.

The New Zealand education system and the standard of teaching is already terrible without giving teachers the wrong powers. Tuck in your shirt, have a shave, pass your dumbed down NCEA unit standards which will be heavily scaled by telling the marker what they want to hear, and most importantly, don't think. I'd hate to see them reading cellphones on top of it.

I think teachers have a terrible time of it because quite honestly, some 15-17 year olds shouldn't be at school yet still are, and some poor overworked and vastly underpaid sod has to try and force something through their skulls. Now I hear we're cutting teacher numbers, which will increase class sizes, which will make the jobs of teachers even more impossible, but there is no way blurring the line between the education and prison systems is the way to go about improving things. That will just ensure more kids will stop turning up.

From what I remember of school, any poor kid who felt for whatever reason that smacking the bullies was not a viable option (and it often wasn't), going to authorities like teachers was entirely ineffective, both because they either didn't do anything or simply because most bullies don't care about detentions and suspensions, and everyone knew the bully would just come down like hell on the poor kid.

As for giving out iPads and laptops though, um, wtf? That's a lot of money to throw towards Facebook.

[Son Of Coco]

I guarantee you if you tried to enforce those cellphone restrictions there would be revolution before morning tea. That and they'll move on to smashing each others heads in.

Aside from the fact making students hand in their cellphones is an incredibly dire idea (even a blanket ban on them being at school in the first place would be more agreeable, but still unrealistic and dire) and another great way to not teach kids personal responsibility, the main difference with cyber bullying compared to normal bullying is it makes bullying outside the school grounds so much easier. Kids will still get verbally abused at school, it just won't be conveyed via the small screen.

The New Zealand education system and the standard of teaching is already terrible without giving teachers the wrong powers. Tuck in your shirt, have a shave, pass your dumbed down NCEA unit standards which will be heavily scaled by telling the marker what they want to hear, and most importantly, don't think. I'd hate to see them reading cellphones on top of it.

I think teachers have a terrible time of it because quite honestly, some 15-17 year olds shouldn't be at school yet still are, and some poor overworked and vastly underpaid sod has to try and force something through their skulls. Now I hear we're cutting teacher numbers, which will increase class sizes, which will make the jobs of teachers even more impossible, but there is no way blurring the line between the education and prison systems is the way to go about improving things. That will just ensure more kids will stop turning up.

From what I remember of school, any poor kid who felt for whatever reason that smacking the bullies was not a viable option (and it often wasn't), going to authorities like teachers was entirely ineffective, both because they either didn't do anything or simply because most bullies don't care about detentions and suspensions, and everyone knew the bully would just come down like hell on the poor kid.

As for giving out iPads and laptops though, um, wtf? That's a lot of money to throw towards Facebook.

Do you think your predicted reaction to making students hand in cellphones is a result of 'prison style' enforcement though, or would it be due to the lack of ability to enforce any rules that has been pretty prevalent at our schools for a long, long time? The fact people today equate the enforcement of any rules with a prison system-style governance is pretty funny. I think that's partly what got us to where we are.

It's a nice assumption that kids would be taught personal responsibility by allowing them to have their phones in class and acting accordingly, but I'll bet every single class that has students in them with phones has issues with texting and connecting to Facebook. As I said before, I teach adults who can't leave their ****ing phones alone, and some of them have been teachers before, it's incredible. Phones are simply not a necessary part of being a student, but now they're in class it'll be very hard to get them out. They make the teacher's job so much harder.

I won't use Korea as an example, as it's pretty unrealistic to expect students here to behave in a similar way now the horse has bolted (and there are other punishments there which I don't agree with), but i know there are some schools here in Brisbane that enforce similar rules.

I think you'll find a lot of teachers struggle with the motivation to keep doing their job because they've been totally dis-empowered by the people at the top making the (lack of) rules and parents who can't be ****ed teaching their kids manners or appropriate behaviour. Where I work, which is much, much more preferable to being a teacher at a high school (except for the pay), we get half-arsed rule making because they try to balance the fact that certain rules should be enforced with the fact the students pay money. Guess what usually wins?

Yes, people should be responsible, but some aren't. The one's that aren't don't learn responsibility by being allowed to do whatever they want and, in my experience, the one's that are don't mind seeing rules introduced that stop the idiots in the class from being a distraction. Although, given the teachers can't do anything to the students when they're disruptive, I'd assume taking away the phones would just lead the disruptive students to be annoying in another way

If I had Australian students in my class then I might have another opinion on rule-making too...