A guest-post by Kate
Like many young girls, I spent a long-time convincing my mother to allow me to go on birth control, which largely involved lying to her about how I needed it for all the great things it does besides contraception (“But Sarah said it makes her periods lighter, mom! And it’s supposed to be great for my skin, and make my boobs b. . . uh. . . I mean, and it’s great for my skin!”).
So imagine how happy I was when a friend emailed me the text of a recent Washington Post article, that started like this:
When a Fairfax County mother got an urgent call from school last month reporting that her teenage daughter was caught popping a pill at lunchtime, she did not panic. “It was probably her birth-control pill,” she thought. She was right.
What a progressive, sex positive mom, right? Maybe this is going to be a happy feminist article! Think again:
Her heart dropped that afternoon in the assistant principal’s office at Oakton High School when she and her daughter heard the mandatory punishment: A two-week suspension and recommendation for expulsion.
According to the article, the punishment is part of a zero-tolerance drug policy in the school district, one that extends to over-the-counter medications like Tylenol or cough medicine. The girl’s punishment is comparable to what it would be if she had carried a hand gun into the school.
While this whole thing seems ludicrous, the thing that bothers me most about this situation is that this girl wasn’t busted taking Sudafed or ibuprofen, (though that would be overzealous, too, I won’t take on the stupidity of this whole policy for the moment) but taking a preventative medicine. As a health advocate in the piece points out, this comes dangerously close to “[stigmatizing] responsible behavior.”
Last June, people around the country were panicked, baffled and desperate over what to do about the supposed Gloucester pregnancy pact. Less than a year later, a teenage girl makes a responsible decision about her reproduction, but at the wrong time of day, and is forced out of school for two weeks with the possibility of expulsion.
And we wonder where we went wrong.
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Kate is a political blogger and reporter who works and lives in Brooklyn. She has written for Talking Points Memo, The Washington Independent, Columbia Journalism Review and The Guardian, among other outlets. Follow her @itscompliKATEd on Twitter.
[...] As originally published on Feminste [...]
And how much you wanna bet that the kids who get caught with Tylenol or cough medicine don’t get anywhere near this same level of punishment?
Why do we focus so much on stupid things in the country ? Guns. Birth control. Swimming pool drains. We don’t rationally assess problems. There are 75,000 alcohol related deaths per year in this country (many more than just from drunk driving – lots of falls, etc.). This is far more than all the murders in the country, far more than drownings, etc. If we got rid of alcohol we could have a bunch of 9/11s in a given year and still come out ahead.
Yet we turn a blind eye to alcohol and cars – or obesity, all of which are far more pernicious. We love to get riled about marijuana, guns, pools, tainted spinach. We sensationalize things which are scary and unknown.
Schools freaking out irrationally about birth control or tylenol? No surprise to me, welcome to America.
Just my 2 cents.
I don’t think it was at this same school, but within the past few weeks I was alerted to another case in the States of a girl at school getting in trouble for rather innocuous medication. Specifically, she was strip-searched because some other student told the teachers/administrators that the girl might have ibuprofen. Yes, she wasn’t seen with the medication (against the rules of her school, a set-up rather similar to the school being discussed in the OP here,) she was strip-searched based on the word of some other student. For possible Advil.
The only argument I have seen that I can possibly agree with over keeping simple painkillers such as Tylenol and Advil in the nurse’s office has to do with fears of a student, say, taking a whole bunch at once to harm themselves. Except in that case I firmly believe that if said student is very determined, they can access a bottle at home/purchase one from the store/steal one from somewhere/etc. (that is, preventing students from having Advil at school for fear of them harming themselves doesn’t actually solve the problem, it just means the student is slightly less likely to do it on school property during school time.)
I think such an iron-fisted anti-drug policy completely crazy really. All of my high schools (all three) went the complete opposite direction with liability concerns. The school couldn’t dispense medication to the students at -all-, couldn’t even keep some ibuprofen in the office to hand out to girls with cramps or something. Because a person might be, say, allergic to ibuprofen without the school’s knowledge, and then the school would be liable. Or the student was drinking that day, or something along those lines. Not sure if it has swung the other way in public schools around here (Calgary, Canada) in the 5+ years since then, though it is possible I suppose.
Since this young woman seems to only be trying to protect herself, the punishment seems harsh; HOWEVER schools have rules for a reason. If she isn’t supposed to have any type of medication in school then she broke the rules. It’s that simple. The school (by their statement) is only trying to keep kids from self medicating under their care. That said the second they start squashing her rights as a woman I’ll stop sticking up for them.
Props to the girl for protecting herself—she should just take the pill with her breakfast before she heads to school.
That policy makes no sense, but I will say that I imagine that there is a way to allow the taking of medicine and it involves a note taking the meds in the nurse’s office. I didn’t read the full article and it may mention that. Again, I agree with you that it’s ludicrous to insist on the same punishment whether it was truly a ‘drug’ violation or just a deviation from the school policy but I do sort of understand the reasoning behind it. School personnel can’t be expected to make the call on when the meds are/aren’t okay.
It IS stigmatizing socially responsible behavior, with a healthy dose of slut-shaming and idiotic and paranoid public policy thrown in for good measure.
so i’m a little confused at this point how anybody can defend public (or private, or parochial) school as somehow superior to home-schooling?
it’s been pretty clear to me since my own pretty awful experience being a gender-variant kid in public school in the 1970′s, that the primary purpose of organized schools, with rare exception, is to crush individuality and self-expression in every student, so that they will be more pliable and willing to accept a police state. any “education” is incidental.
i’m not holding out home-schooling as some kind of paradise, just asking why so much energy is expended on defending public schools as some kind of liberal / progressive goal when this is the result. tweaking a few ridiculous rules here and there is not going to change the end result very much, and i don’t see very many people talking about the fundamental, root issues of how schools enforce social conformance to a white christian owning-class cis het neurotypical middle-of-the-road don’t-rock-the-boat norm and demonize and seek to destroy difference from that norm.
the incident described in the OP is a symptom of a much larger problem.
I agree with both Amanda and Kathy. I was also confused with why she took it while at school when she could have at home. However, the school should realize the effect that this amount of negative attention has on the student, the school, and on responsible behavior. They could have issued a warning to the student to comply by the rules instead of interrupting her education for 2 weeks.
whoa, là. this is so intensely out of control – i definitely depended on ibuprofen as a high school student to get through days of cramps, rugby injuries, chronic headaches, etc.
besides which, birth control is usually prescribed, no? it seems like this kind of rule would make it that much more difficult for people who depend on painkillers (and other types of medication) to deal with chronic or short-term disabilities &/or injuries.
GallingGalla, the alternative is to give parents absolute power over their children. At least in school there is some variety. There is more than oe clique you can conform to. There is more than one acceptable set of opinions.
Plus, what would abolishing schools do to single parents who NEED to work?
Also, this:
http://www.bigfatwhale.com/archives/bfw_402.htm
I can see the liability concern if the school is dispensing medications without, for example, verifying a student’s prescription. But I think the claim of potential for liability in cases like the one under discussion are pure fiction. If the school has no awareness that the drug is at school, or is being ingested by a student on school property, what’s the theory of liability? Students buy, sell, and use illegal drugs at school – how many lawsuits have you seen?
Also, even if we assume a fear of liability, that might justify punishing all students who bring medications to school without going through proper procedures, but it wouldn’t require treating all students and all mediations the same – with a one-size-fits-all penalty of expulsion.
No, it really isn’t. Or at least it isn’t if you’re interested in teaching students concepts like fairness, justice, common sense, etc., as opposed to simply enforcing an authoritarian, manichean worldview.
Just to name a couple of reasons education outside of the home is often advantageous: socialization, and professional teachers, many of whom have subject matter expertise.
Sure. The TSA makes you take off your shoes for a reason, too. It’s just a shitty reason. Are you willing to argue the case that “preventing drug abuse” a good reason to suspend and possibly expel this young woman?
I grew up in Fairfax, and opted to go to South Lakes instead of Oakton (for reference: Oakton is the nearly all-white, upper-class preppie school, South Lakes is the one with a “gang problem”. By gang problem, we mean that there’s no greater incidence of drug or gang related violence, or violence at all, we mean that there are more coloured peoples there. Oh noes!) I used to miss days of school because my cramps were so devastatingly bad I couldn’t sit upright, but we were not allowed to have/take ibuprofen in school. I’m glad I never had the chutzpah to bring my BC to school, or I guess I would’ve really been in trouble!
For reference:
-Oakton doesn’t allow their students to carry backpacks. At all.
-Oakton seniors don’t get lockers.
-Fairfax (FFX) county students (in general) aren’t allowed to bring pills of any kind to school, and even breathmints are confiscated.
-FFX students aren’t allowed to have water bottles in class, even if they are ill, it is very hot out, or they have a medical condition that requires systematic hydration. This is because they could have drugs or vodka in their water bottles.
-Leaving schools grounds during lunch without a note from a parent, for any reason, would get you suspended.
-”School grounds”, after 9/11, were delineated (at our school, anyway) by a thick neon-blue line. There were places where this line passed within two feet of the outside walls.
-Even with the librarians’ consent, you were not allowed in the library during lunch. If you wanted to be anywhere other than the noisy, crowded, smelly cafeterias–tough luck.
-Anecdote: One of my brother’s friends (a large Korean kid) brought a butter knife to school in order to peel a lemon. Some kid who didn’t like him reported that he had a “knife” with him and was “brandishing” it, and he was suspended with recommendation for expulsion. Even though they give out sharper plastic butter knives in the cafeteria.
-Another kid got expelled the year before. He worked at a warehouse, and had accidentally left a box-cutter in his backpack. He hadn’t even known it was there, but when it was discovered he wasn’t even allowed to appeal his case.
It was sort of like being in a police state.
Since this young woman seems to only be trying to protect herself, the punishment seems harsh; HOWEVER schools have rules for a reason. If she isn’t supposed to have any type of medication in school then she broke the rules. It’s that simple. The school (by their statement) is only trying to keep kids from self medicating under their care. That said the second they start squashing her rights as a woman I’ll stop sticking up for them.
She wasn’t only “trying to protect herself”–she was taking a perfectly legal, safe, prescribed medication according to her doctor’s orders. She was not “self medicating,” and the school had no reason to believe that she was. In fact, it’s clear that their policy recognizes no such phenomenon. The Pill is not a high-diversion drug. It is not the same as a controlled or addictive substance.
She may have taken it because she didn’t want to forget later. She may not have been aware that her school prohibited birth control on school grounds–it’s clear that her mother had no idea.
Authority isn’t a justification in itself. School administrators only have the right to implement these policies if they can show that they protect students. This policy has ruined at least a few young lives, and it is a pretty significant inconvenience to students who need medication. It also doesn’t seem to have much benefit: a policy requiring documentation offers the same controls without the overkill.
That policy makes no sense, but I will say that I imagine that there is a way to allow the taking of medicine and it involves a note taking the meds in the nurse’s office
I’m not sure this is fair, either–students may not be able to get to the nurse at the right time, and the nurse may not have time to administer meds to the student population, and the school staff (like the ones at my HS) may be obstructionist assholes about allowing students to leave class to get their medication. More importantly, students with disabilities have the right to accomodation that preserves their privacy and autonomy. I can think of a few health conditions I wouldn’t want anyone at the front desk to know about or understand specifically.
at my school, students need signed notes from a doctor for any drugs, including cough drops. i understand the need for drug safety related rules, but if seems rather ridiculous to have to get a signed note from a doctor once a moth for cramps. drifting from the topic a bit, but my school also prohibits open bottles because we could have alcohol in them. do others schools do that? or is my principal just paranoid?
Gallinggalla, I by and large agree with you in that there is a deep and fundamental problem with our school structure.
That said, free daycare and education are wonderful things that are taken care of by the public schooling system, and are laudable goals.
I’m one of those unheard of liberal homeschoolers (well, to be, but it’s very strongly definitely planned for), and i don’t want to abolish the public school system so much as fix its fundamentals.
SA, that comic is such a line of bullshit that it’s utterly ridiculous. Have you ever met a homeschool family? Do you have ANY idea what it’s really like?
Just because public schooling literally locks kids up, denies them any socialization during most hours and severely limits it during the rest (no talking in class, limited recess often with only your grade), and spends too much time teaching to the lowest common denominator DOES NOT mean that homeschoolers do the same thing, only with fewer kids.
Most homeschoolers I know are in several activities, often not church related. Things like martial arts, music lessons, 4H, scouting, the totally secular homeschool co-op, etc. They make friends with people from a wide range of ages, and have more time for things like travel. I live 3 hours away from a very major city, and the fact that my kids will be homeschooled means that I can take them to the museums, shows, etc. WHENEVER I damn well feel like, and not just when it’s convenient for the school. Hell, my husband was homeschooled through middle school (he then went on to a magnet high school) and because he had the freer experience of homeschooling is far more independent and self-assured than I am, a product of the public schools. One example, I expect and accept abuse from authority that he doesn’t because he wasn’t raised to do so, whereas I was.
Slightly O/T, but I’ve recommended my teenager does NOT go on the CP.
THe reason is STDs – they’re much more prevalent and relatively harmless STDs like HPV can lead to cancer later. Not to mention the scarier HIV – no, it’s not just “those other people” who get it.
Well, the actual words I used to her were, “Barrier methods! Barrier methods! Barrier methods!!!!!!!!!!” Which pretty much, yeah, means condoms.
The Pill is pretty much designed to improve the boys experience while leaving the girl (and subsequent boys) vulnerable to STDs.
The school is braindead, though.
And thats the problem. The school decided to inflict a serious punishment upon an individual engaged in a legal act for no reason other than the fact that they could. The only possible reason for such a policy is that you are trying to train the population subjected to it to reflexively obey rules simply because they are there. That, to my mind, is the crux of the problem with public schools: they aren’t about education but indoctrination and discipline. Here you have a girl who decided to take a medication, got a prescription for said medication from her doctor, and whose parents are aware of the fact that she’s taking it. Thats three levels of oversight which you believe ought to be overturned by a simple policy enacted by what are likely unelected bureaucrats. What is the possible reason for such a rule other than to exercise power over someone? Perhaps more importantly, how can that rule possibly stand up to the constitutional standard of a restriction upon rights being the least restrictive measure possible?
Put another way: say a local court decided to ban anyone from carrying and taking medication, even if they had a prescription, while inside the court house. Would you be comfortable with that? What if it was the DMV? An airport? Public parks? Or are the rules somehow different because children do not have rights?
And how, exactly, is that their responsibility? Where do they derive the authority to do that for students over the age of majority? For emancipated minors? Why is it that the school gets to contradict the will of the student, her legal guardians, and her doctor?
So bodily autonomy stops being a right at the schoolhouse door?
With due respect to you, who the fuck is the school to tell any student at what time they are or are not allowed to take what medication for any reason? I doubt you could commit suicide with a birth control pill, I’m fairly certain you couldn’t use it to get high, I’m willing to guess that it doesn’t put you in danger of cutting off a limb in shop class. There is zero potential liability and zero potential for abuse and the student has already submitted to government oversight in the form of a prescription yet the policy still stands. Somehow the regular rules of human rights are altered by the will of poorly trained officials because those officials happen to exercise their power in a school. Its indefensible.
SA@11 – i’m not calling for abolishing schools, nor am i claiming that homeschooling does not have its own very serious issues. what i am saying is that we really need to look at how broken the current system is, and what the root of the problem is – schools being a major site of indoctronation into very narrow and destructive cultural norms – rather than tweaking this rule and that rule, often only after expensive and lengthy court battles.
i’m just asking that we look at the deeper problems and address those, that’s all.
amanda@5 – i have a question. suppose a student has an infection and needs to take antibiotics 3 or 4 times a day, meaning that at least one dose HAS to be taken during the school day? what would you have hir do? be expelled? miss a week of school? have their infection get worse?
the issue is, the rules are being made as a means of controlling and dominating students, so that they know that they do not own or control their bodies and minds, the state does.
(and no, people, i am not a libertarian. very much left-leaning, with a bit of an anarchist streak that leads me to not take goverment structures for granted.)
Schools have gone over the deep end on these issues. Someone (security specialist or something) in the Post article was quoted as saying that school personnel can’t be expected to tell the difference between birth control, tylenol, and prescription painkillers/drugs that are used recreationally. And my question is – why the hell not? Don’t we teach that to 5th graders in DARE? If you can’t tell the difference between birth control (which comes in a PACK of 28 pills created by a manufacturer in which each pill has to be individually released one at a time) and a bottle of oxycontin you should not be employed by a school. Tylenol pills mostly say “Tylenol” right on them. If you can’t tell what someone just popped into their mouth, it could just as easily be a tic tac or spree or skittles or any other small candy. Are all of those banned too?
Seriously, I am moving out of VA before my children start school.
Woah, that sounds too extreme! My high school was not allowed to give any kind of medication, and in my last few years was prohibited from giving band-aids (though some might show up on a paper cut student’s desk if they at least let the teacher know). I’m surprised at the ban on water bottles that I’ve read in the comments… doesn’t that border on maltreatment? In all my years of experience, I’ve found that it was none of the teacher’s damned business what pills I chose to pop – usually an advil for colds or cramps. What if a student is on antibiotics?
Fear about alcohol and so on will only make it more likely that children will consume it! Are these people really educators? Seems like they live in a dream world, content with controlling the lives of students who have no real choice but to comply.
You’d hate to have to take time-dependant medication, like insulin, epilepsy meds, or, you know, the pill, in a place like that.
There are hundreds of meds that have to be taken at specific time intervals, or at a particular time of the day. What a completely unworkable system.
I’m not surprised. Me and my older brother both ran into problems like this with our high school. My brother has ADD, and took medication to help him focus. He wasn’t allowed to carry it on him, and had to go down to the school nurse to get it. But if he forgot to go take it- because he hadn’t already taken the medicine he needed to focus- they wouldn’t go and get him.
The school systems’ rules about medicine use are absolutely insane. Most of the rules seem like they’re based on the bullshit believe that all students don’t and shouldn’t need medication for any reason.
I don’t think this is saying that birth control is worse than tylenol, and I don’t think that the fact that birth control is preventative rather than restorative matters. This is a stupid drug policy, yes. and should be criticized as such. however, it doesn’t sound like birth control is an exception here-I don’t see slut shaming if tylenol is equally banned.
Whoa… they have a rule that someone must be recommended for expulsion if they take prescription medication at school? That’s some ableist shit right there. I was on prescription medication during high school (two years of which I spent at boarding school) which I needed to take during the school day.
I wonder how they deal with kids who have to inject insulin.
Or, hell, kids with allergies who carry epipens! I’m sure the parents of peanut-allergic kids would have something to say about the “no drugs at all” policy when their kid died because they weren’t allowed to carry injectable adrenalin.
KB:
if you pop over to feministing.com, there is an interesting PS to this whole thing: this particular student discovered that, while she had been suspended for two weeks for taking the Pill, if she had been taking heroin she would only have been suspended for *5 DAYS*
catch that, everyone? taking an extremely deadly, veryvery illegal, incredibly potent and addictive drug that requires INJECTION gets one suspended for 5 days, but taking a drug that is PRESCRIBED TO YOU, and that is barely dangerous and is not addictive illegal or causes any mood changing gets you suspended for 10 days.
if this had been me, 14 or 15 years ago when i was still in high school, i would have been fucked. i have been on medication (needed to function) since i was 9, and some of them i have to take every 4 hours, some every 6, some were “as needed”. i would have had to leave class at least 3 times a day to get my medication, interupting those classes *every day*.
but at least if i didn’t take my medication, i wouldn’t *DIE*, like if i had diabetes, or epilepsy, or a whole fucking HOST of other medical issues.
these rules are beyond ridiculous. they (claim) they are trying to stop illegal use. what they are ACTUALLY doing is discriminating. this girl is being discriminated against because she was taking birth control, people with diseases that need medication are being discriminated against because they are disabled, or differently-abled. i really wish people would start suing over this bullshit. i don’t even believe that the policy makers believe that they are really trying to stop illegal use. i think that they are just flexing their muscles and bullying where they can. because a rule prohibiting OTC meds (that a CHILD can legally buy) are riduculous on the face, and the more you look, the more stupid the rules are.
i am VERY glad i am 32, and i don’t have to go to high school. if we ever adopt kids and the school they go to attempts bullshit like this, you bet i’ll fight. insane.
hexy –
another good point! if a kid who is allergic is stung by a bee, they don’t have TIME to wait for someone to be told to go get the nurse and the wait while the nurse looks up the students file, get acknowledgement of the need and permission for the epipen, finds the epipen and THEN take it to the student. that could take, at best, at least ten minutes. if a kid is violently allergeic, s/he may be DEAD before the nurse even gets done looking for the file!
Or, hell, kids with allergies who carry epipens! I’m sure the parents of peanut-allergic kids would have something to say about the “no drugs at all” policy when their kid died because they weren’t allowed to carry injectable adrenalin.
Well, but it could have heroin in it! Or malt liquor!
I kind of doubt that a school would try to enforce the policy in that instance. I don’t think a school would be able to keep a student from carrying an inhaler, either, and I don’t think they try. But it’s a good point: lots of medications are taken on complicated schedules or urgently. Painkillers are often as-needed, too; a student with chronic pain shouldn’t have to request painkillers from a school administrator.
The claim the schools are making is that pills are difficult to distinguish from pills. A student claiming to need allergy meds or ibuprofen could actually be popping vicodin. This is true, but…the solution isn’t to forbid pills.
I think a lot of this is simple ableism–it’s difficult for administrators to understand the mechanics of accomodation, and there’s an incentive not to. We don’t really understand that some people function fine in the mainstream with the help of longterm medication; “disabled” means “apart.”
But some of it probably has to do with beliefs about children. Kids aren’t supposed to deal with chronic pain or illness. They aren’t supposed to be HIV+ (imagine getting those meds from the school nurse). They aren’t supposed to be managing their own treatment. They aren’t supposed to need medication at all.
This is just ridiculous. Regardless of the “rules”, her mother said it was okay, so that should be the end of it. PERIOD. Since when is the school allowed to tell you what pills you should be taking. She should not have been suspended, her mother should have been told to have a note on file for future reference and that should be the end of it.
American school are out of control.
This is just ridiculous. Regardless of the “rules”, her mother said it was okay, so that should be the end of it. PERIOD. Since when is the school allowed to tell you what pills you should be taking. She should not have been suspended, her mother should have been told to have a note on file for future reference and that should be the end of it.
American schools are out of control.
I can’t actually believe that this thread is turning into some sort of referendum on the joys of homeschooling versus the oppression of public education. Wherever one falls on the spectrum of that debate, I would think we should have some real consensus that it is absurd to the point of farce that the hysteria over drugs, general panic about adolescent behavior, and the stupidity of “zero tolerance” have combined to create an situation where a student is shamed and punished for responsibly taking medication.
This case (and the pending Supreme Court case involving a strip search for Advil) aren’t about stifling creativity and forcing conformity on students: it’s about controlling them in ways that can accurately be described as abusive.
Hexy, schools have specific exceptions for epipens. I think the idea of a student dying of anaphylactic shock is actually enough to make school administrators think (at least a little bit) straight.
I think the bottom line is that the right would like to see public schooling abolished, and so we liberals have to fight defensively just to keep any option available so that the wider public can have access to education at all.
This is especially true if we focus on homeschooling as an ideal option, because the vast majority of Americans would not be able to educate their children that way, period, hands down. Even the families with the means for one parent to stay home don’t necessarily have the training, talent, or even the basic desire to educate their children to a college prep standard. If my education had been left to my mother (as much as I adore her), I’d be bagging groceries or flipping burgers right now.
I agree with you that I’d like to see a return to fighting for severe reforms (or maybe radical change) for the educational system. But it seems like a classic case of liberals having to play defense against the right for the time being.
Actually, that kind of makes sense, given that we’ve gotten to a generation where some of the younger staff members are probably DARE graduates themselves. It is important to remember that DARE isn’t education so much as indoctrination. Think of it like abstinence only education but swap out sexual activity for drug use and you get a good idea of what kinds of information is presented. For years the high-school level DARE module described marijuana as having an addiction potential similar to cocaine and heroin, claimed that psilocybin commonly killed first time users, and warned that up to a fifth of LSD users would end up in a psychiatric hospital.
One might almost suspect that the goal was to raise an entire generation to be ignorant so you could have an excuse to be even more restrictive to the next…
My high school had a similar no-drugs policy. For the antibiotics question: when I needed to take something like that during the school day, I would bring the pills, in the original prescription bottle, to the nurse, with a note from my mother, and I’d go to the nurse’s office at lunch time to get the medicine, which was kept in a locked cabinet. Pharmacists are used to this, and have no problem with giving out two labeled bottles, one to keep at home and one for school.
Inhalers and epipens were the exception to the rule. Kids were allowed to carry those around.
I sometimes needed Advil. For that, my mom bought a bottle of Advil and wrote a note saying that I was allowed to take it, and brought it to the nurse, and I could go and take some from that bottle when I needed it.
At schools where there wasn’t always a nurse on duty, the pill-dispensing was done by someone in the main school office.
How hard is it to take the pill before or after school?
Helen, keep in mind it’s not an either/or situation. If your daughter wants birth control pills, let her have them while continuing to encourage condom use. I’m on the pill right now (at least until my essure kicks in), but I still demand condom use in any new sexual relationship until we’re in a commited relationship… which means until this current boyfriend, I still used condoms every time. If a guy implies he doesn’t need or want a condom because he finds out I’m on birth control, we don’t sleep together.
evil_fizz @36: check out comments @31-@33. when i am talking about “stifling creativity and forcing conformity on students”, this is *exactly* what i am talking about. students who are young women, especially those using birth control; students with serious allergies (which are disabilities under the law); queer students; trans students, etc do not fit the kyriarchal norm, and when i say “forcing conformity” on these students, i mean, with literallly deadly consequences.
That’s the long and short of it. If she’d come in with methamphetamine in her bloodstream, it’s a five-day suspension. Since she came in with birth-control pills in her backpack, it’s two weeks and recommendation for expulsion. The eternal wisdom of zero-tolerance policies.
And Helen, (not to derail, but) I’m with Ali. There’s no reason she can’t be on BCP and use condoms. In fact, assuming she doesn’t suffer serious side effects from hormonal birth control, doing both is a great idea: added protection from pregnancy, protection from STDs, clearer skin, easier and more predictable periods, bigger boobs (did I say that out loud?)… The idea that going condom-less only improves the experience for boys and endangers girls, however, is just silly. It almost leans into boys-enjoy-sex-and-girls-tolerate-it territory, and that’s simply not the case.
Would that that were the case:
To the few people who asked why she’d take it during school hours rather than before: Maybe she likes to sleep in on saturdays without messing up her bc schedule? A lot women take bc at noon because some days you might sleep in, some days you might eat dinner at a different time, some days you might go out in the evening, etc, but lunch at noon is the most consistent thing *every day* for most people, and that’s the easiest way to remember.
This is so fucking insane. And what’s with the bullshit about *heroin* only being a 5-day suspension, but she got 2 weeks? That school’s going to kill someone one of these days with that crazy fucking policy. And I wish that was just hyperbole.
That, to my mind, is the crux of the problem with public schools:
and
evil_fizz @36: check out comments @31-@33. when i am talking about “stifling creativity and forcing conformity on students”, this is *exactly* what i am talking about.
None of that is inherent to public school (or even private schools, almost all of which have the same policies). This wasn’t a problem when I went to school; it was common practice to carry one’s medicine to school and take it yourself—only grade school kids went to the school nurse.No one was suspended or expelled or had any other form of discipline for carrying or using an inhaler, painkillers, BC, an epi-pen, antibiotics, or anything else that was legal, whether it was prescription or nonprescription. This particular odious bullshit can be laid straight at the feet of the “war on drugs”.
I’m right up there with the Opoponax though—I get skittish when I hear my fellow progressives talk about how wrong it is to defend public schools, as if the current policies and practices have always existed and are unchangeable. When I started grade school, it was perfectly legal to bar girls from Shop Class; we managed to change that, and we can change policies like this too. When it comes down to it, the public schools are a part of the Commons, and I get nervous when progressives are willing to abandon the Commons rather than fight for it. It’s ceding a hell of a lot of power to one’s enemies, for no real good reason other than, well, one’s individual privilege to do so.
It has consequences. There’s an open thread over at Alas that is discussing education and the relative value of working to make public school districts a good place to get an education, versus jumping ship (whether by moving to a better public school district, private school or homeschooling) because it’s less work and one’s real obligation is to one’s own children rather than to the rest of the children in a community.
@ ACG,
Ha! That’s actually one of the (many) reasons I did/got (?) essure and am dropping birth control. My boobs were already big enough thankyouverymuch. In fact my reduction is scheduled for next thursday!
/derail
@ Marle,
Yes, exactly! The 1st time I was on the pill I was up early almost every day so it wasn’t a problem for me to take it 1st thing in the morning. Now I’m up early only on weekdays, work until different times every night, have different things to do after work, and noon is just the easiest time for me to take the pill everyday.
I’m sick of people defending these rules. Schools that require students to go to the nurse’s office for OTC meds like Ibuprofen, or who ban them entirely, are causing harm. Schools should not be in the business of regulating *when* students take their medication.
I went to an all-female Catholic school with about 500 students. Assume that at any given time there’s a good chance at least 100 students are menstruating. Let’s say 50 of them have cramps.
We had one nurse’s office. Is sending 50 girls there every 3-4 hours to have their Ibuprofen doled out reasonable? Is it better for those with terrible cramps (I used to pass out and throw up, including on a drama field trip once, and fortunately my school was sensible enough not to forbid me OTC pain meds) to suffer at school, potentially fainting, or stay home and miss class several days a month? For a while I was taking prescription Naproxen, the equivalent of a triple dose of OTC, until we realized the OTC dose was cheaper. I doubt a school nurse would have been okay with that, even with a doctor’s recommendation.
OTC medication is OTC for a reason. High school students should be viewed as responsible enough to take it unsupervised (they’re allowed to buy it, after all), and schools should not be liable if they’re irresponsible. It’s not like peanut allergies.
And if kids are taking Vicodin at school, it’s probably a prescription (I remember one girl broke her collarbone skiing and jittered all through our physics final because she’d drunk coffee to counteract the dopiness–who wants to be groggy and walk into walls at school if they don’t have to?).
Schools have rules for a reason? Sometimes. Sometimes they just have rules because they can. Mine had a dress code, because it was Catholic, but there was very little reason behind the dress code–it was just there (and sporadically enforced, and lacrosse uniforms were allowed to violate it regularly). Is there a good reason to ban tanktops with straps narrower than four fingers at an all-girls school (even assuming you think tanktops are super-distracting to the educational environment when those impressionable boyz are around)? Not really. But that rule didn’t hurt anyone. Medication bans do.
Teenagers, especially those with chronic health conditions, absolutely SHOULD be learning to manage their conditions and self-medicate appropriately. High schools that treat teenagers like toddlers contribute to teenagers acting like toddlers. Don’t get me started on forbidding bathroom breaks (one girl I knew got her period in class and had to threaten publicly to bleed on the theatre seats before the male teacher would let her leave. Yeah, that’s really respecting the dignity of students).
Please send this letter to the VA school board members telling them that birth control is NOT a lethal weapon, and shouldn’t be treated as such.
Inhalers and epipens were the exception to the rule. Kids were allowed to carry those around.
Someone already posted about an actual case where a student died. But just to add to that, students weren’t allowed to have time-sensitive medication on them such as inhalers at the school I attended. Unfortunately, the school was rather small considering the amount of students that attended and all (I do mean ALL) the classes changed at the same time. So if a student had an asthma attack during a class change and unless they were in the class room right beside the nurse’s room, they weren’t getting there in time. Want to know the real kicker to this? The closest hospital is well over 20 minutes away.
I think these kinds of rules come down to one thing in my opinion: an extremely small percentage of students do something stupid like take meds not prescribed for them or deliberately take meds to get a high. Rather than actually pinpoint which students are a problem and restrict their privileges, school staff restricts the privileges of all students thus punishing students whose life might depend on that inhaler or epipen.
I think if you have the proper notes and documentation, you should be able to carry medication at school.
@Zelie Martin – if you had read the comments above, you’d see that a LOT of medications need to be taken on a specific schedule, or immediately upon need, and failure to do so can have serious consequences.
or would you prefer that a student who needs to inject insulin at 10 am be forced to wait 6 more hours to inject, by which time sie is likely to be unconscious and suffering brain damage from the resulting diabetic coma?
way to go, zelie.
1) Schools hand out their policy handbooks at the beginning of the year. The rules are made clear to parents and students. In our district, both parent and student have to sign a note saying they’ve read and are responsible for all the information.
2) Taking the pill before school or at bedtime is NOT an unreasonable expectation. My girls are on several meds, including BCP, and would not dream of hauling a prescription to school.
3) When they have meds that need to be given at specific times during the school day, a parent has to send a note and the allotted medication in the original container. The nurse administers as needed.
The War on Birth Control…
Most schools would probably smile upon a teenage girl making sure to take her birth control pill on time (except for abstinence-only schools, which would promptly tell the girl to ride her dinosaur home and not set foot on campus……
La Lubu @ 46: no…just no…i do not need another lecture.
i do not have an issue with the CONCEPT of public school. i have an issue with how public school is IMPLEMENTED.
i guess i am guilty of intellectualizing, so let me lay it out at the personal level. in the 1970′s, i spent 7 years of my childhood being brutalized EVERY DAY at public school, because i was a trans girl and because i had asperger’s. i don’t mean teasing. i was spit upon. i had books smashed over my head. i had rocks thrown at my head, hard enough to knock me out. i had garbage stuffed into my locker. i had a (female) gym teacher twist my arm until it almost came out of my socket, because i dared to resist being brutalized another day in gym. i was kicked in the solar plexus so hard that i could not breathe, with that same gym teacher screaming at me that i’m a sissy while i am struggling to breath. i had basketballs thrown at my face at high speed.
and all of these acts were done to me with the ACTIVE ENCOURAGEMENT AND SUPPORT of the school staff, from teachers on up the line to the school superintendent. i was told that this was my fault. i was told to “toughen up”, “be a man”. i was suspended. the school administration through roadblock after roadblock at my parents, who were utterly stonewalled in their attempts to find some relief for me. it got to the point that i was contemplating suicide every day, and i am here today only because my parents were finally able to find a small alternative school for me and get me out of that environment. the wounds are still deep and open.
but, yeah, you and the rest of the feministe crew just keep on throwing your cis het neurotypical privilege around, debating whether kids should be able to take ibuprofen or not and continuing to miss the bigger picture, while kids like me continue to be battered and broken in schools around the nation – public, parochial, private, it doesn’t matter.
i am done with this thread and this blog. enjoy your cis het neurotypical space just a little bit more, with one less meany uppity she-male aspie freak making you all uncomfortable. oh, make that two, since you did such a good job of stomping all over voz in that other thread.
but, yeah, you and the rest of the feministe crew just keep on throwing your cis het neurotypical privilege around, debating whether kids should be able to take ibuprofen or not and continuing to miss the bigger picture, while kids like me continue to be battered and broken in schools around the nation – public, parochial, private, it doesn’t matter.
I’m with you that the conventional school system (whether public or private, for the most part), is absolutely appallingly disgustingly horrendous. I experienced similar authority-sanctioned bullying (not as bad, and for different reasons, but your stories definitely hit home for me), as well as similar direct harassment by the authority figures themselves, also until I was able to find myself a place in an alternative school. Because my parents sure as hell didn’t give two shits what was going on (in fact in most ways they agreed with the bullies and the authority figures – I was only allowed to transfer schools because they were more apathetic than malicious, in the end).
I am alive today because of that alternative school. If schools were universally derided as horrid places which exist merely to indoctrinate and squash the humanity out of us, I wouldn’t have had even that tiny way out. Not everybody has awesome supportive parents who are willing to go to bat for their kids.
You’re right. I should have said that cases like this are the problem with the vast majority of institutions which claim to offer education at the pre-college level. I shouldn’t have dumped it on public schools because they are by no means the only (or even generally the worst) offenders. Its a problem that is endemic to the compulsory education system.
Well, different time periods mean different cultures and different cultures demand different kinds of cultural indoctrination. There is also something to be said for the incremental restriction of liberty through discipline, punishment, and surveillance.
I would argue that schools, by their very nature, serve to mold individuals into useful things. Its been that way since at least the 17th century. Right now, those with power in our society define useful as obedient, stupid, and productive. Without a major overhaul of not only how we think about education but how we build curricula and if (not how) we choose to judge success all schools, both public and private, will serve primarily as mechanisms to internalize the values of those with power. Schools teach students to expect, accept, and internalize oppression. Thats their job, thats what they do. Some are run by autocrats, some by theocrats, but the difference is primarily of ideology, not technique.
stomping all over voz in that other thread.
Wait a minute, are you confusing me with someone else? Was there someone named voz speaking against the Employee Free Choice Act?
GallingGalla, I am sorry for what happened to you. That’s despicable, and the people that did that were assholes. I’m cisgendered, but I also got the shit kicked out of me on a regular basis at all six of the grade schools I attended for what amounted to racism, because I didn’t appear white enough to most of my white classmates (got my ass kicked for being “Mexican”, even though I was Sicilian….go figure). And yeah, the school ignored it. No one gave a damn. It didn’t stop until I finally got enough size on me to fight back.
I appreciate knowing where you’re coming from, and further appreciate knowing that you aren’t in favor of abolishing public school. I also have issues with how public schools are implemented. I’m sorry I jumped to the conclusion that you were just asserting a class privilege by advocating homeschooling instead. I’ve just been tired of the anti-labor and anti-public school trends I’ve seen amongst otherwise progressive people.
My own experience in school taught me something else. Most people have never seen a “therapeutic day school,” and as a result most people don’t realize just how overt the institutional oppression can be. As a kid who was labeled as disabled and mentally ill (and really, those two are treated as if they’re synonyms half the time anyway) I got to see exactly what the school system had to offer for a “difficult case.” Have you ever been locked in a padded room for three hours for not going to the bathroom when you were told? Ever been restrained face down in a pool of someone else’s urine because you dared to go to a different bathroom than the one on your pass? Ever been in a school with a four point restraint table? Did you know what the 44 position was before you were ten? Those were experiences I had with good parents who cared because that was the best option available. Think about that for a second. On top of that the school had a very specific level system which made it clear that the only way out was complete submission.
Because I was very lucky, and because someone fucked up paperwork somewhere, my standardized test scores for 4th grade went to the wrong place in the Chicago Public School system. As a result I got to take a test for a pilot “gifted program.” I went from the absolute worst the school system could offer to the absolute best, and then I saw the difference. When I hit high school I went somewhere in the middle and I realized that the environment I’d suffered in during my first four years of primary school was closer to the “standard” experience than the what I’d seen in the gifted program. I barely made it out of high school, and even that was only because my parents happened to have enough resources for a special education attorney.
I also spent a year working at an inner city high school which used the pretense of a gang problem to strip students of every bit of dignity and independence they had, right down to mandatory random drug screening for all students. There I had the opportunity to work with their “Emotional and Behavioral Disorders” classroom, which had no chairs, desks, books, or sharp pens. On the walls were posters which explained success came from following the rules. Fuck that. Those students would be better off with a library card, a rifle, and a copy of Malcolm X’s autobiography than four years of pissing in cups, constant surveillance, and a history class which conveniently fails to mention that the founding fathers owned slaves and thought shooting government officials was a reasonable way to affect social change.
Hexy, schools have specific exceptions for epipens. I think the idea of a student dying of anaphylactic shock is actually enough to make school administrators think (at least a little bit) straight.
While I’m glad to hear that, epipens are hardly the only medication form that not having swift access to when needed can cause death or serious harm.
I think the entire rule is stupid, but it should at the very least have an exception for prescription drugs. Even if there are requirements for the child to carry proof of prescription.
I would bring the pills, in the original prescription bottle, to the nurse, with a note from my mother, and I’d go to the nurse’s office at lunch time to get the medicine, which was kept in a locked cabinet.
God knows my favorite part of being on medication as a teenager was broadcasting it to the population at large…I wasn’t keen on broadcasting it to the administration either, for that matter. I went to summer camp once (when I was 16) and they had all the kids on meds line up in the middle of the cafeteria during the *middle of each meal* to take whatever they had to take. I don’t think requiring this extra effort and publicity is a good solution either.
School is just a concentrated version of the bullshit that adults are expected to go through, without any of the power to change your circumstances that adults usually have (I can’t help but think that getting thrown in juvie must seem very familiar for a lot of kids…9.9). It’s absolutely indoctrination, but I don’t know if there are any feasible alternatives. No way I’d give up my career to stay home and tutor kids all day, for starters. Better to be tormented but still get an education, maybe, than remain ignorant and get tormented later anyways…
I don’t see this as a “war on birth control”, slut shaming or anything like that. The root cause of this is “Zero Tolerance” policies. By allowing this policy to remain “on the books”, we have taken every judgment call a person could rationally make and thrown it away.
Most people should be able to see that birth control is not a damaging drug (let’s say Heroin) but it is in fact a prescribed LEGAL drug. But since the zero tolerance policy remains in place, the school officials can’t make that judgment call. All they can do is say “Sorry, we have a zero tolerance policy, so we are forced to suspend you”.
This allows school officials to just recite a policy and not actually think and make the appropriate decision.
I’ve gone to several schools where this would get you suspended and in 2 of the 3 high schools I went to you couldn’t carry an inhaler or epipen.
So yeah. Public school sucks.
Angelia Sparrow says:
April 8th, 2009 at 4:42 pm – Edit
1) Schools hand out their policy handbooks at the beginning of the year. The rules are made clear to parents and students. In our district, both parent and student have to sign a note saying they’ve read and are responsible for all the information.
2) Taking the pill before school or at bedtime is NOT an unreasonable expectation. My girls are on several meds, including BCP, and would not dream of hauling a prescription to school.
3) When they have meds that need to be given at specific times during the school day, a parent has to send a note and the allotted medication in the original container. The nurse administers as needed.
1st, you are asuuming that they get a *complete* handbook – most only get a “bullet point” version. and you are assuming that the rules don’t change, that the rules are clearly stated, that the INTENT of the rul is the SAME as the rule. this last, at least, was NOT the case here – if school REALLY WERE trying to enforce this specific policy, why are they punishing her in a WORSE way than a greater offense of the same infraction?
2ns. SOME pills it is not unreasonable to take in the morning or at night. SOME. depending on the person, though, even once a day pills MAY HAVE TO BE TAKE DURING CLASS HOURS. various SSRIs, for instance, and depending on what flavor of BC this girl, there very well may have perfectly legitimate reasons for the timingl it could EVEN be WHEN THE DOCTOR TOLD HER TO TAKE IT.
3rd you are assuming a school nurse (not all schools hasve one), you are assuming that all the teachers and administrators will not deliverately impede the process (i have see this happen, often, there are a LOT of fucked up teachers who assume that any student on any medication is a hypochintriac and feel that if they stop the student from taking the drug it is a GOOD thing, and there are stupid teachers who fell any kids on ANY drug us *ONLY* doing it to get high, and that stopping them is a GOOD thing)
but even assuming that there is a nurce (a SINGLE nurse, if there is one at all). so, you have a medication you have to take every 4 hours. your first dose is at 5am, at home, no issue. the second does is at 9am, you have to interupt the teacher get a hall pass go to the nurse wait for the urse to look you and sometimes wait for the nurse to “veriy” by calling the doctor/pharmacy, then you wait for the nurse to find your meds and the pray to every deity ever that those are *your* meds. take, then go back to class, having missed about ahlf of it.\next dose due at 1pm. EXACT SAME PROCESS, same lost of class time, nd the same levelof disruptpm.
nexy dose is at 5, the school admin is almost definitly gone by now, but if the student has any after school activities, he needs his meds now they are locked p in the offide. this student has two options – gp home, or skp the dose. both are BAD options.
these are all BEST CASE SCENARIOS. i know that often i had to turn in meds to the nurse, and way too damned often teachers wouldn’t let me leave class, so i’d haveo wait til class cgange amd hope bpth made it to the office befoer the bell rang and that the nurse would give me a note. every single detention i got in HS was from this situation.
my pain meds, my glucose stuff, and my motrin i kepy with me. my mother and the principle and i had a meeting ; my mother explained that literally seconfd counted – if i took a pill the *second* i started hurting, i might be able to stay at shhool. but once we hit the higher level , i was DONE. having to wait for a teacher to “afree” to send me, then waring for the nurse… it was easiest and safest to just loet me do it myself, and that way i also did not interiuppt classes twice or thricce EVERY DAY.
did it eat my post? damn!
took my nights, not coherant enuff to rewrit right now look for me tomorrow
William, I generally lurk here but I just want to say that I’ve been loving your comments at Feministe for some time now, and in this thread especially. Thank you.
Thanks, piny.
I almost failed out of high school, January of my senior year.
If I hadn’t been sneaking Tylenol every day, that would have been my freshman year instead. And I’m not being dramatic here.
My school nurses were obstructionist assholes — even the one who was my friend’s mom. And even if they weren’t, I deserve to be able to take the medication I need to take without having to make a trip to the nurse’s office every few hours — which is humiliating and ALSO bad for me, physically — I had to have my class schedule arranged to limit my walking, for instance. The admin offices were all the way across campus.
They can document that I take Tylenol, get a dr’s note at the beginning of each year and let me take my own fucking medicine. Self-medication is what allowed me to live a normal life with a disability — rather than keeping me from living life because of it.
People who think it’s easy as “Well, THIS student could take the pill before school, problem solved!” –
This case is not exceptional. This happens all the time, for ibuprofen as well as BC. Students are singled out and punished for taking any sort of drug at all, even the most innocuous. And some of those drugs CAN’T just be waved away with “Well, take it before school then!”
This isn’t about once a day birth control. This is about students being forbidden medication they need to get through their school day.
I’m also not impressed with “They knew the rule!” I knew the rule, too. I was one of those kids who read every single thing in those handbooks every single year. It’s not fair to enforce any rule just because all parties knew about it beforehand. It doesn’t make an unfair rule fair.
THIS is ableism. This is people being power-high, obstructionist, controlling, all for its own sake. Not for the good of children, parents, or communities — but just because rules are rules, and it’s no use trying to think through the needs of actual students — which students with chronic conditions, or students with working reproductive systems!, ARE. They ARE students, full stop. And you are not only refusing to serve their needs, but making sure their needs ARE NOT served. Why? What good does it do? What does it do for you?
Actually, they don’t!
They ask if you wouldn’t rather lie down on the table in the back for five minutes and then go back to class.
They interrogate you, trying to passive-aggressively persuade you to turn around and leave. They ask every privacy-invading question they can think of, getting more humiliating as they go, trying to make sure you don’t get to do this the easy way. You have to “earn” it.
They sigh and wave to the phone for you to call home and ask for permission first. Hope your mom stays at home and doesn’t have to work or anything. Hope your mom isn’t disabled herself and might be taking much needed sleep right now, or unable to get to the phone except in case of emergency. Better to bother her every two hours.
Hope someone else isn’t in front of you and you have to wait 15 minutes to even be seen — missing class.
They refuse to let you call, saying they can tell you don’t need it right now, and send you back to class.
They look at you with disgust, because you are such a pain in their ass being in here all the time. And you don’t even bother to ask this time. You just turn back around and walk out the door.
You get back to class and have to interrupt everything to get to your seat. Your teacher is annoyed with you. Everybody is looking at you, and a few people snicker. If the teacher unfavorable that day, they write you a late slip and send you to detention for the period.
You’re still in pain, you’ve just expended way too much energy walking across campus for nothing, you can’t catch your breath, your face is hot, your shoulder is killing you and you can’t write. It takes 30 minutes for you to recover from that trip, you’re way behind on your work, and now you have to push yourself to finish 30 minutes of work in 5 minutes, expounding more energy than the normal kid had to use to get it done. And then it’s time to go to the next class, where you’ll spend 20 minutes recovering from THAT.
All this time, I could have pulled my Tylenol bottle out from my backpack, taken a pill, and settled in to do some learning.
Who are you helping?
William, I’ll repeat again that not everybody has awesome supportive parents who are willing to go to bat for them.
I have stated several times that there is a hell of a lot wrong with the school system. So much that I’m not sure how we would even go about creating a functional system (let alone a great system).
But I know that the alternative is a million times worse.
The fact that school is there, and school is compulsory, means that even if your parents are apathetic traditionalists who lick the boots of anything that looks like authority, you as an individual might have a slight chance of seeing another option for yourself and making that happen. Only a very slight chance, but a chance nonetheless.
In contrast, if people were allowed to decide privately whether and how to educate their children? All those kids with apathetic traditionalist authority-loving parents would never have a fucking chance of getting out from under that. Nobody would have a chance of getting out from under whatever they were born into.
Saying “wheee, homeschooling!” is all well and good for the sorts of parents who unschool nowadays — iconoclasts with children who are specifically unsuited to a classroom learning environment, and who are willing and able to go the distance to make sure their kid’s potential is realized. But most parents don’t have those resources or just aren’t like that.
Jen: Thanks a lot, but, I have to confess. As much as I’d like to take credit for the ideas I’ve been kicking around in here mostly I’ve just been adding a healthy dose of indignation to Foucualt’s ideas about discipline and Alice Miller’s ideas about how society routinely hurts children (and generally anyone with less power) in order to maintain power and normalize their own past abuse.
amandaw: silly, girl, don’t you know that those rules were there to help you? I mean, if someone just self medicates how on earth can the adults/men/politicians/bosses/mechanism-of-power-du-jour supervise them and make sure they’re doing it right? Clearly you’re too irresponsible to be trusted with that kind of a decision, as evidenced by the fact that you couldn’t follow the rules.
…I think I might have just vomited in my mouth a little.
William, I’ll repeat again that not everybody has awesome supportive parents who are willing to go to bat for them.
That was kind of my point. Even with great parents th school system did it’s best at every turn to grind me down, to force me into the mutually exclusive roles of pathetic retard or gifted example, to offer me the choice of complete submission or expulsion. Even with parents who were willing and able to go to bat for me (and incredible privilege) school was not something which fostered my development and education, or even a neutral force, but an active and aggressive opponent.
For some. I’d argue that even then that has more to do with other social factors which support a specific system of power then something intrinsically good about the school system. If it wasn’t for the fact that I needed a state backed slip of paper attesting to the fact that I’d bowed low enough to satisfying some petty fuck over a long enough period of time to get into college I don’t really see much point to what schools do past the three Rs. God knows the state of history education in this country is a horror.
Still, I’m not advocating the abolishment of public schools. I know I probably would have been better off on my own, and I’ve seen a lot of other students (some in a professional context) who would have been fine without 12 years of social and intellectual stompings. I like the idea of public schools, they’re a great way of mitigating some of the privilege that class creates. I like public schools for all the reasons that even minarchists like Jefferson saw them as essential to a functioning society. I just think that they way we operate them is broken beyond repair and that they cannot be fixed and still left standing. I think that the educational system in this country needs to be rebuilt from scratch and anyone who has worked in it as a teacher or administrator needs to be locked out of the process.
Some systems are too broken to fix from the inside and just need to be torn down. I see the way we teach kids today as being similar to the way we treated people in the 50s. Segregation was a specific system of power designed to maintain certain relationships and train people into certain behaviors so that they would police themselves internally. You couldn’t fix the problems from the inside, you couldn’t make black schools better, because the system was so basically fucked that it had to be dismantled. Thats where I see the schools. Sometimes you just have to burn something down and try again.
I learned to fight because growing up, I was the weird smart/disabled kid who got picked on. After getting knocked down and kicked enough times I eventually figured out how to use my size and my words to my advantage and after awhile people stopped attacking me. It took some time, and a lot of blood and tears, but I saw that I had an option other than sitting there and taking it. That doesn’t mean it was ok to attack me, nor does it mean the system that let it happen did me any favors by giving me the chance to figure out how to defend myself. I’d rather not know how to hurt someone until they stopped fighting back because there was no need than learn that after a half dozen years of beatings.
And thats my problem. This discussion is always framed as who gets to decide how to educate children. Because children can’t make decisions for themselves. Because children need to be fostered and protected. Because children need someone to exercise power over them. You go into first grade at around 6, you leave high school at around 18, somewhere around 12 is when you develop the capacity to understand consequences in a meaningful way and make decisions for yourself. We still subject kids to a universal system which treats them as incapable of making decisions because its cheap, and its efficient, and it transmits the lines of bullshit we want transmitted, but don’t fool yourself. I’m glad you found a positive experience, I wish more people could, but you’re an exception, not the rule. Most people follow along and never noticed that they’ve been trained, a larger number realize its happening but accept it as the way things are, a pretty significant number give up and drop out, only a handful of people like you and me end up coming out whole. Theres nothing empowering about treating a 16 year old like a toddler and then burning her future when she dares to disobey because of procedure. Yet that is the core of schools today.
This discussion is always framed as who gets to decide how to educate children. Because children can’t make decisions for themselves.
No, William, the discussion is framed that way because this is how it would play out. This is how it does play out globally, in parts of the world which do not provide state-funded compulsory education for children. It is left to the individual family unit to decide whether children will be educated, and thus what future opportunities will be available to children.
And over and over you see that an overwhelming number of families simply decide that any sort of education beyond the 3 R’s (as you say) is impractical or unnecessary. “Why educate a girl? Do you need to know how to diagram a sentence to change a diaper?” “Why send him on to high school? It’ll just put unrealistic ideas into his head.” “Third grade was good enough for us, after all…” And that doesn’t even approach the huge number of families who simply don’t have the means to educate their children, whether they want to or not.
If you don’t think that people like this exist in the real world, or that this sort of thing only happens in developing countries, your privilege is showing. Bad.
I’m glad you found a positive experience, I wish more people could, but you’re an exception, not the rule.
I get the sense that you didn’t read any of my posts in this thread, especially my post #56.
Because “I had a positive school experience” was pretty much THE FUCKING OPPOSITE of what I have said here. What I said was that I had a miserable school experience for the vast majority of my educational life, until I was lucky enough to find out about an alternative school and spent two years tirelessly working to get to go there. I then had two years of a positive school experience. Which I earned for myself with no help from anybody else.
That experience taught me that unless you are lucky enough to end up with awesome brilliant amazing genius parents with practically unlimited resources of time, energy, money, and social capital, and virtually no obstacles to making sure that you get the absolute best educational experience the world has to offer, your lot is probably better thrown in with a school than with your family. Because at least in the school environment you have a little room to find your own way. When all you have is your family, you are at the mercy of what your family wants for you.
Which is part of the problem. Maybe I get a bit too theoretical, but for me the problem with schools doesn’t really stop at them. They’re an example of a large system of power which seeks to force individuals into certain pre-determined social roles. Your argument is that if the school doesn’t drag kids by the neck into it’s inculcation factory parents are the next in line to get to do that. I agree, both options suck. I’m just saying maybe we should rethink the value of dragging people around by the neck so we can hammer whatever brand of bullshit we favor at the moment into their ears for a little over a decade. I’m saying it to parents who view their children as property as much as states who view children as property.
Again, my problem isn’t with the existence of public schools. It is with how they exist today. I don’t think they can be fixed. That doesn’t mean getting rid of the idea of public schools and leaving children at the mercy of their parents, but that we need to start over with empowering children as the primary goal of a public education. I don’t think that can be done in the system we have, no matter how many tweaks we give it, so the system has to go. But the system has to go in order to make room for a better one. The first is necessarily tied to the second.
At #56 you said:
Bleak, sure, but I read that as a positive experience because its lead you to defend the system. For you, as painful as it was to get there, the system worked. It sure as hell was better than what a lot of my clients got. Thats how bad the system is right now. You went through something so terrible no one should have to experience it, and thats what we get to call the light at the end of the tunnel. Abject horror getting defined as good. You had the strength to claw your way to something better and you’re glad you had that option. I think thats a pretty shitty set of options to have been presented with. I think that any society which offers you that kind of option ought to be ashamed. I think that any system which can at best offer that needs to be rebuilt from the foundation. And I certainly don’t think that having to put up with 10 years of hell to get 2 years of something else is education. Thats all I’m saying. Not get rid of the public schools, but change them completely so that you didn’t need to search out a light after 10 years of torture. Education shouldn’t be an exercise in inhuman resiliency.
In the school system you have as much chance to find your own way as in a family: none unless you’ve got the combination of luck, strength, and power to drag your way out. I don’t think thats a good pair of alternatives: being at the mercy of a state that wants docile proles and an autocratic family. What I’ve been trying to say is that that pair of options needs to be changed.
I’ll say it again: that pair of options needs to be changed. Children need to be freed from their parents as much as they do from the current system but this discussion was about a school, not a parent so I responded to the problem of schools. I believe in the value of public education but I don’t think thats what our schools do today. That certainly isn’t what they do for most students, and it doesn’t seem to be their goal based upon their practices and policy. I don’t think we have a system of public education today, I think we have something which calls itself public education but what is really a factory for the creation of a specific kind of individual. The fact that some people like you and me make it out, or manage to find meaning in the brutality, doesn’t vindicate the system it just makes us faulty constructs.
I want public education, I really do. I think that beyond the basics what form that education takes should be up to the individual (not the family, not the state). I think that a sensible system of public education would look like a university at an early level. Certain kinds of classes that need to be taken, a certain number of classes, but content that is chosen from a variety of options by students. If you’re interested in computers theres no reason you should be forced to play dodgeball for forty minutes a day unless you’re also interested in dodge ball. If you have a passion for music theres no reason for you to learn how to draw a bowl of fruit if you don’t have an interest in drawing bowls of fruit. If you love literature theres no reason you have to read the same book by Dickens as 30 other people if you’d rather be reading Gogol. Theres no reason anyone should have to listen to DARE or hear about how sex should be saved for marriage unless they ask to hear that.
I’m just saying maybe we should rethink the value of dragging people around by the neck so we can hammer whatever brand of bullshit we favor at the moment into their ears for a little over a decade.
…
Children need to be freed from their parents as much as they do from the current system …
You realize that lots of *good* things need to be hammered into people’s ears too, right? And that children regularly try to make shitty decisions and are prevented from doing that by their parents who –it turns out– often really *do* know better, as the kid generally realizes later? If I’d picked everything I learned in school I’d be pretty good at reading novels and maybe know a little biology, but you’d get a hell of a blank stare if you asked me about anything prior to 1995. Because I only realized the value of history, for example, *after* my parents made me learn some despite all my fussing and boredom.
If you only wait until the system is *perfect* to implement it, or if you only educate the children who show up and learn *purely for the love of learning* you’re going to have a pretty dumb-ass populace.
To clarify: school is pretty terrible. And it would be nice to have a little more teenager-empowerment in high school, for example. But having *no* school (or school dependent entirely on the whims of kids) is worse.
I agree with you, William, but think the scope of the change you want is almost too huge to contemplate in a conversation like this. I mean, sure, it would be awesome if everyone had absolute freedom in every way, to do whatever they wanted, forever, with nobody trying to coerce or manipulate them into so much as a scheduled bathroom break.
But right now we are not at a point where the existence of schools is the big bad evil because they’re all run by a bunch of meanies who want to cramp your style by making you read books you think are boring or paint when you want to dance. We’re at a point where we’ve got to fight hard just to ensure that free public education remains available to students. And in my opinion we need to work toward educational systems that might have a snowball’s chance in the here and now, rather than just giving in to the Right by agreeing that only the ultra-wealthy should have access to education.
I also realize that the state tends to be a pretty poor arbiter of what those things are. In history we get a Eurocentric narrative that focuses on the theory of Great Men, stresses the memorizing of names and dates rather than the development of an understanding of circumstances, and white washes atrocities out of existence. In math classes we tend to get a specific set of skills likely to make us more useful when we hit the work force. In the sciences we get whatever combination of rote memorization and careful dancing not to offend theocrats that ends up getting hammered out. Along the way we put our captive audience in front of a variety of programs developed by special interests and designed to tell them what and how to think. The whole thing gets stuck together by a healthy dose of gender policing and conformity enforcement back by the threat of someone taking away your future by putting a black mark on your permanent record. I’m sorry if I don’t see the ends as justifying the means.
Perhaps I’m too far from high school to remember properly, but I seem to remember myself and my friends learning that our parents were right only after doing the wrong thing anyway. I still can’t remember a situation in which I learned a school’s policy was right.
Watched television lately? Followed any presidential election post Kennedy v. Nixon? Seen Limbaugh’s ratings? We’re there already.
I’m not entirely convinced. I’ve often wondered how differently the lives of some of my friends would have turned out if they hadn’t been driven out of school by 16 or 17, if any passion they had for learning hadn’t been extinguished. I’ve wondered how my life would have turned out if I hadn’t had to hire a lawyer to convince my high school that yes, I did have the right to an education; no, learning disabilities and giftedness aren’t mutually exclusive, and no, not conforming to the stereotype of the docile “special” kid doesn’t mean I’m a danger to those around me who needs to be segregated in a different school. The only reason I even bothered fighting is because I’m a spiteful bastard who wanted to smirk his way across the stage at graduation.
You’re right, it probably is. That doesn’t mean we can’t address the symptoms of the larger problem when the opportunity presents itself. As I had tried to do before you came to the bizarre conclusion that I was advocating home schooling.
Actually, come to think of it, a pretty similar educational model does exist and has been in practice around the world close to 100 years. Its not quite as extreme as the picture you’re painting, but its a world of difference from you average school. Its called “Waldorf education” and has been adopted by a number of private and charter schools in the US and internationally. It focuses primarily on the arts, language, and moral development and tends to give children a significant amount of freedom. Its also done pretty well when compared with more traditional models.
No, we’re at a point where schools are run by a group of people who believe that what is best for you (and the society which owns you) is for you to learn how to be a docile, malleable, responsible, productive creature that will respond to orders without complaint. There are very few evil people who oppress for the sheer sadistic glee. Most oppression stems from a belief that that the oppressor’s judgment is so superior to the judgment of the individual that the individual needs to be supplanted for their own good. The underlying belief is that order is preferable to disorder. The techniques of discipline started in the monestary, then moved into the workshops, the prisons, the armies, the hospitals and asylums, and the schools. It’s been very good for business, but it hasn’t done much for people.
Glad to see you’re willing to give up discussing real problems (and their roots) because they might lend strength to the simplistic arguments you’ve projected into your demonized and monolithic opponents. Better to discuss compromises than think about where the problems are coming from.
Also, there are quite a few educational models that don’t look a thing like the schools most of us know. They just aren’t put into general use. Funny how the system which breaks wills and enforces blind obedience is the system we see in “public” schooling while alternative systems are open primarily to the rich and well connected. Different classes already receive different education, its telling to consider what the proles receive.
Its called “Waldorf education” and has been adopted by a number of private and charter schools in the US and internationally.
I’m familiar with Waldorf. I agree that I think a model like Waldorf or Montessori would be a good place to move towards in public education. However, from what I know about those educational models, they’re not really what you’re looking for. Students at a Waldorf school are still told what subjects they have to take, for instance. Students still have to complete assignments whether the assignment interests them or not, still have to do math even if they’d really rather read. They still have a structured day where certain things happen at certain times and you kind of have to go with the flow of what the rest of the class is doing. Yeah, sure, dodgeball is switched out for rhythmic gymnastics. That hardly seems world-changing, though, considering that a great many students will think rhythmic gymnastics is lame and boring and wish they could play a fun game instead.
The reason I’m a big fan of the Waldorf model is because it strikes a reasonable and realistic balance. Perhaps more importantly, the way teaching is handled tends to be different and there is much more of an emphasis on creativity and discovery. Also, in the Waldorf schools I’ve seen, as students get older the amount of latitude they’re given increases. There are still assignments and set classes, but the restrictions are lighter and have different goals. Perhaps most important, to me at least, is that the attitude of teachers and administrators at Waldorf programs is different. I just can’t imagine the kinds of small men and women in search of a balcony that dominate traditional pedagogy having much of a place in a Waldorf-model system. The tone is more one of learning and education than training and discipline, and that tone makes all the difference to me.
I have seen classes run, at the graduate level, with a pretty shocking amount of freedom. In psychology you have the client-centered movement that grew up around Carl Rogers and some professors who teach that therapeutic style run their classes around the principle of non-directivity. The assignments tend to be optional (with fuzzy due dates) and wide parameters. The in-class discussions are allowed to go wherever they go. Often times the professor comes prepared with several vague tasks they suggest and the class develops a consensus on what it will learn that day. A lot of these professors refuse to give grades, or only offer the classes pass/fail. Even when a broader system requires they give letter grades I know of at least one professor who refuses to give any grades besides A and C (because at the level of these classes a C requires a retake) and claims to have only given a half dozen C’s in the 10 years since she was forced to issue letter grades. I learned quite a bit in the two doctoral-level classes I took under this model.
I’m not suggesting we switch to a purely non-directive model immediately or even that it ought to be our goal in education. I do, however, think that there are a lot of competing models that wouldn’t drastically increase costs or fail students that simply aren’t tried. I feel that there are a lot of reasons for them not being tried and I don’t really like any of the explanations. Progressives like to talk about broad social change, but if thats really the kind of thing you’re after you need to consider what will be required. The school system we have set up right now trains students to obey authority, to judge others harshly, to compete, to think concretely, to value the objective over the subjective, and to avoid straying more than a standard deviation or so from the mean in any given situation. Thats your big obstacle to meaningful social change right there. You can have grass roots efforts and run PSAs till the sun burns out, but as long as the vast majority of society has more then a decade of opposing experience you’ll be wasting your time.
The excerpt was enough to make me not want to read the whole thing; my blood pressure is already sufficiently high.
Whenever I hear someone advocate a “zero-tolerance” approach to anything, I know I’m dealing with a fucking idiot.
I relate to this statement…for more reasons than what I said in “spread the word to end the word” but I’m not gonna go into it now. Also I was the weird smart/disabled kid too.
Yeah, and, there are way more ppl than those in charge of schools who want that. As in just about everybody. x1000