What would a logical bus room be like? I wonder. What if your kid compared the bus room to a Nazi concentration camp?
In my daughter’s school, kids have to wait up to over an hour in a room until their bus arrives, sadly because the county is short on funds like all school systems but also for irresponsibly spending taxpayer dollars. For instance, the superintendent’ s contract will be bought out in an effort to rid her of her duties since several new comers were voted onto the board. They say, according to the local paper, that they promised change and firing the current superintendent (the one responsible for the crazy rules I guess) is part of such change. She wants to be bought out for just over 200k.
I wonder what it costs to buy a couple of extra buses and hire a few more drivers thus minimizing and eventually negating the need for a bus room at all. Had the county spent taxpayer dollars wisely, I suspect more funds would have gone to buses so kids can get home earlier and avoid what my daughter calls “the concentration camp”.
In “concentration”, the idea of sitting and focusing wasn’t the analogy; it was the Nazi concentration camp concept my daughter feels imprisoned in. Seems the tuck/belt issue is difficult but she’s willing to overcome that, if nothing else, at least try; however, the bus room is becoming a problem. My husband is currently drafting up a letter to the school board commission and next week I’ll be working on my own letter.
Yesterday, kids who talked stood facing the wall with their hands up against the wall as though they were about to be frisked by the police. In an effort to deal with this in the proper manner, I will refrain from expressing the nasty words that ran through my mind when she told me this. Get creative for me.
I thought comparing the bus room to a concentration camp was pretty extreme but then my daughter explained:
It’s the same because you have these people glaring at you, walking around you, watching your every move and you didn’t do anything wrong; they’re just waiting. And if you talk or go into your backpack or whatever, you get in trouble and they enjoy it.
My daughter came home red as a Washington apple. She was inflamed from head to toe, her face and neck the worst and her legs next. She’s so scratched up she can’t walk normally (and looks like she’s got something up her butt, poor thing). “It hurts to walk normal, mommy.”
She and her classmates are merely being controlled to do as they are told through fear and my child has a negative history of people pretending to care for her but actually demean and control her via fear and coercion. I suspect her anxiety and inflammation is merely attributed to a neurological association of past events which bring up the prison-like feeling of being controlled. In her mind, the bus room is her haunted past. This is unhealthly for her and fear directed discipline is unhealthy for all children.
So, the shit hit the fan with me. You know, if Govenor Sarah Palin can enact change, smart woman that she is, I can stir a revolution. My fight, however, will focus on ensuring the next generation isn’t brought up to fear and thus waive the freedoms they never understood the true meaning and experience of.
My daughter is to obtain a copy of the bus room rules, which include no eating, talking, drinking or going to the bathroom (yes, you read correctly). I can’t wait to read the rest. A girl in the room yesterday pulled out her water bottle and had a drink. She felt what it was like to be a criminal before she was read her rights: ”Get against the wall,” the chaperon said.
This is so not acceptable. I want to know why the Principal feels it is and the justifications for concentration camp fear being instilled into innocent children and I guarantee somebody is going to give me an explanation. I’ll happily share it with my readers and newspapers. For their sake, the explanation better be good. I have a voice and have no fear to use it.
***
UPDATE March 7
In an effort to present fair and accurate information, I obtained a copy of the bus room rules. The rules are in place for 4th and 5th graders. While they don’t state kids can’t use the bathroom specifically, as my daughter interpretted, # 4 hints at it and # 3 supports it.
1. Enter bus room with book or homework in your hands. (kids can’t enter until they have one or the other to do. If neither, worksheets are provided)
2. Sit at the table with your bus number and skip every other chair. (because they can’t talk)
3. No talking or getting up from your seat. (of course)
4. Go get water and use restroom before bus room. (because then kids can last an hour more in their seat after 7 hours in school)
5. Do homework or read book. (because they haven’t done enough thinking in 7 hours)
6. No drawing or cutting paper. (because that’s fun and might make kids laugh or make other sounds which may hurt chaperon ears. Creativity doesn’t help kids on standardized tests anyway)
related posts which offer a little more history about this bus room, tuck/belt, control the little kids thing:
http://vontauber.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/radical-america-on-school-safety-political-correctness/
http://vontauber.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/were-the-john-mccain-clan-dont-you-know/
If I was there I’d stand right beside you! You GO!
Go for it. I am completely horrified by what you have written and am so glad that my kids are here. They are allowed to be children but to learn to be independant and make decisions themselves.
Good luck
Why can’t they use that time to study? To socialize? To do exercises – stretching, yoga? Meditation time? So many positive things could be done in that time – if they have to have it. Forcing children to sit and not do a thing – that’s totally absurd! Expecting that kids CAN sit for a long time is CRAZY!!! I know this and I’m not a teacher. Frankly, I expect more from teachers and they usually disappoint. If we paid teachers, fire people, police people and paramedics what they really SHOULD make, maybe the quality of people interested in those professions would increase.
This is stunning to me. And, yet, it shouldn’t be. Just this morning, I sat in child dependency court wondering how it came to be that insane people got put in charge of everything.
I’m a criminal defense attorney, normally, but had heard something outrageous from someone who wanted to hire me to get his kids back. And although the man was charged with no crime (so normally I would not take him as a client), his story made me so angry I had to take the case.
After attending two hearings there, I’m not at all surprised that I have so many clients in my regular practice. It appears to me that the goal of our system is not the protection of children, but the production of criminals.
Your story demonstrates yet one other way that the idiots who have somehow gained control of our formative systems damage our society. Through the example and training — and that’s what they’re providing to those kids: sadistic training — we are systematically inculcating a well-deserved disrespect for authority to the majority of our population, while simultaneously teaching future leaders that power is a tool for self-gratification.
Hi Shannon. While we discussed this over email I want to clear up for readers that in the bus room the kids MUST either do homework or read. They do not sit there doing nothing. However, as mentioned in our emails, you had a super point about why there isn’t more creativity for kids in the bus room: “meditation” time, yoga, stretching, dancing, listening to music, drawing, etc. While I don’t see any of those activities being approved by any means, it’s interesting to think about in terms of how creative solutions could benefit kids much more than extending the school day another hour simply because there aren’t enough funds (or funds were inappropriately used) for extra buses.
“we are systematically inculcating a well-deserved disrespect for authority to the majority of our population, while simultaneously teaching future leaders that power is a tool for self-gratification.”
Wow, rhdefense. Amazing viewpoint. I was particularly moved by “well-deserved”. Your entire response left me chillled simply because it’s so correct on many points. “Production of criminals” is reassuring to hear though I simply think their treating kids as *potential* criminals as best. I suppose, however, that if one treats another as a criminal, there must be a backlash somewhere. In other words, everyone rebels. The question is what buttons make kids rebel more than others? Is this school board pushing buttons which ought to be left alone?
Lastly, while it’s stunning to me too, it is surprising. I’ve read about stuff like this but never been one to experience it and wearing these shoes makes me want to kick. Reading about them distances me and so it’s just something to talk about, to blog and bitch on but when it affects you personally, it’s much more surprising; it’s always someone else, right? Why fight? Why worry? That’s the way it is, they say.
I disagree with such philosophy. That’s the way someone made it. It’s not the way it must be.
thanks so much for your comments.
*** Kim & Karen,
Thanks. I think I might go for it.
[...] teen hormones and not expect rebellion. In a way, after seeing how the new county I live in fears children into “proper behavior”and that I live in a very faith-based town in the U.S. south (lucky me), I’m gaining an idea [...]