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Post by
MyTie
Amen, Elhonna. Amen.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
MyTie
And I don't think that parenting skills is something you can legislate, or educate many adults out of, or throw money at. Other than protecting kids from actually dangerous parents, I don't think society can do much to change the morals and values that they teach their kids, even when those morals encourage laziness, lack of personal responsibility, disrespect for other people, disregarding education, lack of work ethic, etc.
You cannot legislate that directly, but you can try indirectly. For example, you can fine parents instead of suspensions/detentions. This will give parents motivation to discipline their kids and will provide school with extra funding to spend on equipment. Thoughts? Of course, you cannot fine for bad test scores, but this might be enough.
The enforcement and application of this would be more costly than any money gained. Also, it would open opportunity for schools with budget problems to abuse it, enacting harsher rules and hoping the kids would cause infractions, driving up stress for students.
I think something needs to be done with parents, directly, without using kids as the medium.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
You can't fine the parents for kids bad grades, because there are a lot of factors that can go into it. Was the teacher incompetent (gotta love tenure, after all), was the kid sick when the material was taught, is the kid trying but struggling to keep up, are the tests intentionally hard to raise money for the budget, are the kids in advanced classes vs. regular classes, is the parent trying but having dealing with emotional issues the child is having (mental illness and personality disorders can have effects before they fully manifest).
Post by
MyTie
How it will be more costly? If you catch someone performing something bad, you write note to their parents putting fine on them and not allowing kid to graduate until fines are paid. But, to avoid abuse of the system, all punishments that will be fined must be strictly defined ( I can come up with several atm: intentional harm to other students, intentional destruction/damage to school property, insulting teachers)
They aren't allowed to graduate? Some teachers find it insulting when kids question them. Some teachers thing words are "harming". You are looking at turning the schools into a courtroom/prison. I want to change the way that parents treat their kids, but not use kids to do it. What you are proposing is to put the kids in the middle of the parents and the schools, due to the bad parenting of the parents. The kids will suffer.
Post by
MyTie
Edit: But, how can you change the way people think? People never thought smoking was bad, until we linked it to cancer. So, to show parents how wrong their ways of parenting are, we need to link them to certain punishment that parent feels not the kids.
This is the big question, here. You can't change the way society thinks. That isn't something you can force. We live in a culture that is poor in parenting and lousy for school environment. How do we change our culture? Individually, slowly, painstakingly. At the moment, I feel things are getting worse. What I am describing is nearly impossible.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
MyTie
Clearly defined rules are your friend. The once I listed are vague, but you can specify to an extent that will avoid abuse of the system. If you have any ideas on how to fix it without involving kids, please share. Problem is that parents face no repercussion for being bad parents and my idea might work if done right. Of course, first generation might have it harsh, but when their kids will go to school, their parents who grew up with the system will be better in dealing/using system properly.
Meh... I don't know. If you defined the rules THAT close, then kids would just abuse the rules to the letter of the law. If you made the rules overly harsh, kids would be more focused on that than learning. You need to change parents minds directly, which you can't do. The problem is not realistically fixable.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
MyTie
Well, better to try, than say "Oh no, this is impossible"
Not necessarily. I think that your proposal will make things worse. In fact, I'm pretty sure it will. I don't believe in changing things for the sake of changing things. I'm open to changing the way things are, but I don't know how to do it in a productive way, and no one here is coming up with something that looks good.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I don't think that everything can be fixed by outside intervention, or by harsher consequences.
Cigarettes will kill you- it's common knowledge, it's all over TV and in other forms of media, and it says it on the package. Also, taxes on cigarettes have been raised to $6-$7 per pack in New York State, in an effort to stop smoking, and yet people still smoke.
Overeating and not exercising will kill you, and will land you with a number of non-lethal health problems as well. It will make clothes shopping more expensive, cost more in medical care, will subject you to social ridicule and will make finding a romantic partner more challenging. And yet, people are still doing it.
When I went to school, regardless of what my parents said, every teacher told us that we needed college to get a good job, and we needed to get good grades to go to college. They were able to give us detention for not doing homework, cutting into our free time. They would call our parents and tell them the same things they told us. Every television show for kids and young adults was filled to the brim with messages about staying in school and doing well on tests, doing your homework, etc. We have seen the information. Our parents saw the information. You can't force them to internalize it or act accordingly.
At some point, you have to acknowledge that people are in charge of their own minds and while you can try to educate them as to the consequences of a decision, you can't make their decisions for them. While parents have the most direct role in shaping a kid's mentality, you can't force them to tell their kids what you think they should hear rather than what they really believe. You can try to educate them, but you can't force your opinions or values into their minds.
Boron- I wonder, since you were so concerned with "mind control" in the previous article- why do you feel that it's ok for the government to force you into making certain decisions with harsher and harsher punishments, but not ok for them to do it with wires? What's the difference? If the difference is that you still have a choice, doesn't that acknowledge that you have to let people have a choice?
Post by
Dragalthor
Whilst I realise that things here in the UK are a lot different to the US,
here
is one suggestion that a government advisor has recomended for trying to cut down the soaring rate of truancy in UK schools.
Also tying into the bad parenting/parents need to discipline their children properly is
this
little news story.
My knowledge about the current schooling system is very vague but from what I have heard from friends who are teachers and from the news stations, discipline in UK schools is also on the decrease. Obviously this varies from school to school with some being a lot better than others on the discipline stakes. I have heard lots of theories about why this is so but the main one that always springs up is poor parenting skills and lack of discipline in the home is one of the major causes.
I don't profess to know what can be done to reverse this decline but it appears obvious that either there is no social pressure on the parents or if there is it isn't working.
I agree with Elhonna as harsher consequences will be self defeating, the harshest consequence we have at the pupil level in the UK is permanent exclusion which turns into a vicious cycle, and I cannot see how government intervention would make any difference (it seems that every time the government tries to interfere further with the schools system it all goes badly i.e. comprehensive system, national curriculum etc.).
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Ok- but in the meantime in your scenario we are giving the government more power, and we can't take that back from them very easily. We are putting parents in jail, or damaging their ability to feed their kids, in the hopes that it will make them better parents. We are setting a precedent that if you don't agree with the values or methods of the government in your personal life, we can legally punish you for it, which is very dangerous. There are a lot of things that we'd have to give up or do to people in order to try your idea and see if it works, and I don't think that those things are worth price, even if it is successful.
The best case scenario for your idea is that parents are forced to push their kids harder, and crack down on them more. Kids behavior and test score improves. And now we have a legal precedent that says that if we think it will improve things, we can punish people for not teaching their kids what the government thinks is important. Next up on the block will be kids whose parents religious views contradict generally accepted secular scientific views. If the government thinks it's important that the kids learn the scientific view, they can fine parents for teaching their kids creationism, if they feel that impacts the kids performance in a science class. If the Literature class has a book choice that a parent deems unacceptable, then the parent can be fined for telling the student that he doesn't agree with the book, if that kid then writes a paper about how wrong and terrible the book is. If we allow the school to punish parents financially for having different views of them, we make the government responsible for legislating what is and is not a valid opinion.
I'm not saying your idea would or would not work. I'm saying your idea is wrong to even try on the level that it infringes on personal freedom and tries to legislate opinion.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Lets pretend that there is more than one problem in the world that needs solving, and that no decision exists in a vacuum.
Your argument says that if this will fix one problem, and I don't have a better way to fix that specific problem, then I have no right to say not to try it.
I am saying that if you present a course of action that causes 3-4 problems, or even one problem that I perceive as worse than the original problem, then it's not a great idea to cause more problems or worse problems in an attempt to solve the first issue.
If a specific action could only affect one aspect of society at a time, then it would be a fair statement to say that I have no right to not try it, because even if it doesn't work, it can't make things worse. If, however, we accept the reality that any action will impact multiple things- economics, legal structure, other policies that are similar, etc- then it is irresponsible to say that you shouldn't evaluate the negative effects of this action against the positive effects and the negative effects of no action at all. It's dumb, really.
For example- lets look at the issues of Global Warming. The main contributing factors (and we're assuming you believe in it and you believe we're causing it) are industrial pollution and livestock methane. So I come out with a solution to it- kill all the livestock, shut down all the factories- boom- problem solved.
Then you tell me that will lead to other problems- you'd be worried about people starving to death, about our ability to create shelter, clothing, basic amenities and other things that contribute to quality of life. I tell you that I don't hear you having a better idea about how to solve the problem, so clearly you have to accept my solution. I don't even acknowledge that there could be other effects besides the effect on global warming, and don't seem to think it's valid to consider whether you will cause more problems with an action before doing it.
That's you in this debate. You say this will help. I say it might, but it would set XYZ legal precedents which I think are dangerous. You ignore that part of my argument, and just tell me I should endorse it if I don't have a better idea on how to fix it, and not worry about whether or not it's wrong or will lead to more issues.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
@ BORON- YOU ARE PUNISHING SOMEONE FOR SOMETHING SOMEONE ELSE DID, BECAUSE YOU THINK THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT THEM A BETTER WAY.
It is 100% outside of the current legal code to let you punish people for someone else's crime. The only way they could allow it is to criminalize the way in which parents discipline their kids, thus making an action of the parent a crime. And THAT is what I am talking about with regulation of ideas- they are making it illegal to teach your kids what you want to teach them, and set the personal guidelines that you want to set for them.
I think it's important that your kids have limits on who they can hang out with, what television they can watch, what language they can use, how they speak to adults, etc. But I don't think it should be illegal for someone to have different ideas on that- as long as they're not harming the child. If we tried your method, the government would either have to:
1) Set a legal precedent that a parent can be criminally liable for the non-criminal action of their child, and without having to establish that they directly contributed through a burden of proof in court. That has HUGE implications. Currently, parents are liable for the criminal acts or civilly responsible for damage the kids cause- IF they can establish it happened through the lack of supervision, or negligence, of the parent. If your kid does something wrong that's criminal, or they break something, the court has to establish on a case by cases basis that you directly left the kid unsupervised, or knew that the kid had violent or destructive tendencies from past encounters and didn't get them treatment.
They do this because every case is different, and if a parent has a problem child that they are trying to get help for, the court doesn't punish them if they're already doing everything they can to fix the situation. If the child was in school or was left in the care of another adult, they don't expect the parent to be able to directly supervise them at those times. It this is a child's first offense, it's hard to say the parent should have seen it coming, because there was no prior warning.
What you are suggesting is that the parent can be held criminally liable for non criminal acts (which means that the schools would basically passing laws about what could get you fined every time they changed a policy, and it would be a law passed without elected representation or due process), and that the law would automatically assume guilt without a trial of a parent based on the actions of the child, without an investigation.
2) If they wanted to make the actions of the parent the direct crime, so as to avoid the stickiness of trying someone for someone else's crime (or non-crime, in this case), they would have to have a set list of what a parent is required to do in order to raise their child correctly, or else there is no standard by which the person's actions can be judged as a crime. That would require the government to set rules about what is socially acceptable behavior for children of each age, what punishments of violating those behaviors would entail, etc. It would define the "correct" moral code that needs to be enforced by parents. Hence, my legislating of ideas argument.
In either case, the fines would have to be able to be challenged in a court of law, so every time a child talks back to a teacher, refuses to cooperate with a class assignment, swears in school, etc. you would be creating another criminal case for the legal system to handle, because you can't legally fine someone without giving them the opportunity to answer the charges in court. That means that the already overburdened legal system, you would add cases about violating school dress codes, about one 8 year old calling another a dumb*** and whether it's appropriate to pick your nose and wipe it on your arts and crafts partner. I imagine that will have an effect on the way real crimes are handled. and the resourced we have to devote to putting murderers and rapists away.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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