Let’s Try A “Thought” Experiment
By Mitch Berg
Find one of your children.
Wait for when it’s super cold out – like, below zero.
Soak them with a super-soaker. Then force them outside, and don’t let them back in the house, or any cars, or into the neighbors’ houses.
When (hopefully) someone calls the cops, you’ll be thrown into jail for child endangerment. And you should be.
Because “idiot” wouldn’t describe it – but “evil” pretty much would.
Most of you have no doubt seen this story; a Saint Paul middle school forced a junior high kid to wait outside, in a swimsuit and towel, in -2 weather and -25 wind chill. There’d been a fire drill while she was in the pool, and the teachers didn’t let her go to her locker, grab a coat, or anything but a towel (emphasis added):
[The girl] asked to wait inside an employee’s car, or at the elementary school across the street. But administrators believed that this would violate official policy, and could get the school in trouble, so they opted to simply let the girl freeze.
Let’s try to go through the “minds” of these hamsters: Given a choice to “violate policy” and “endanger a child’s health and safety”, the kid got chucked under a bus.
What does it say that a bunch of junior high kids are smarter, and have more moral clarity, than their administrators?
Her fellow classmates, at least, huddled around her to try to keep her warm. And one teacher did eventually lend her a coat.
There should be arrests. Idiot school administrators should be frog-walked out of their building in handcuffs. Their mug shots should be splashed all over the TV, so parents can keep their children away. Licenses should be slowly torn into long, thin strips.
But that’ll never happen.
March 6th, 2014 at 12:12 pm
Thanks for the clarification. I heard the same thing on the news when it first happened, but thought I misheard the part of not allowing her into a car due to a “rule.”
See what happens when we do not adequately fund our children’s educational system?
March 6th, 2014 at 12:26 pm
Let’s set up a dunk tank in the parking lot for the administrators. Tomorrow.
March 6th, 2014 at 12:30 pm
Well, in defense of the teachers/adiminstrators, and to attack public school rules……often they are scared silly about getting sued, so they follow rules to the letter, no matter how stupid the rule is.
And being related to a number of teachers, one thing I’ve noticed is that no matter how good a teacher you are, how well they do their job, often they don’t have the best critical thinking skills. “Well, the rule says I cannot do this even if it doesn’t make sense, so I better not do it”.
March 6th, 2014 at 1:25 pm
More and more, Instapundit’s saying that sending your child to public school should be considered child abuse rings true.
And St. Paul just agreed to spend 33 million more on teachers over the next two years.
March 6th, 2014 at 1:38 pm
Understand, I’m not bagging on teachers. Leaving aside that it’d be against interest (two grandparents, my father and my sister taught or teach, as do many of my friends), and acknowledging that the system that produces them is a joke, most of them do their best.
No, this is Administration’s fault.
March 6th, 2014 at 2:23 pm
Mitch:
Just think they were being given a 4% pay raise because they know what they are doing in caring for the children.
Even though I’m an union steward I think every person who told that girl she couldn’t dress or did something to get here some place nice and warm should be fired. Mind you I will show and try to defend them if ordered but I see no defense!
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
March 6th, 2014 at 2:49 pm
When I was teaching at university, they told us that the school was acting in loco parentis and that I had to be particularly careful when giving advice, telling students what to do, etc.
Given that, and that secondary schools often claim the right to do things since they have also had to act in loco parentis, how would a parent who forced their child into this situation be treated by the legal system? Are you seriously telling me that the DA wouldn’t be in front of a judge seeking a complete loss of parental rights yesterday? Seriously, being fired is the least that everyone involved in the treatment of the girl deserves.
March 6th, 2014 at 2:51 pm
My father was a teacher as well. I think he would have either had the girl stand with him, just inside the door, to stay warm until there was smoke or other danger, or had his own coat off instantly and wrapped around her, or into a car, started, with the heater on high. A rule that results in someone suffering frostbite, and possible hypothermia, when it could be avoided, is a rule that needs to be violated. And if some knot head administrator tried to punish for violating the rule afterwards, he would have pointed it out to the world for ridicule.
Sadly I can’t confirm this any longer, since he has gone onto the Happy Hunting Grounds, but I understood this about his character.
March 6th, 2014 at 2:51 pm
Lucky this didn’t happen at a charter school.
March 6th, 2014 at 3:18 pm
Joe, I doubt it ever would.
March 6th, 2014 at 4:52 pm
Conformity has precluded common sense, at the risk of a child’s health, the idiot school administrators should be made to suffer the same experience!
March 6th, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Further evidence, were any needed, that having your kid in a publik skul should constitute felony child endangerment.
March 7th, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Why am I homeschooling my children again? :^)
Seriously, I would have hoped that even public skool teachers could figure this one out. OK, girl is going to get hurt. Do you (a) break the rules or (b) let her get frostbite and hypothermia? Tough call…..
March 8th, 2014 at 1:35 pm
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