TV or jail for kids forced to watch in school!

D

Dennis Olson

New member
OMG! Yet another example of our eroding rights.

http://www.tvorjail.com/nocompromise.html

A snip....

D.J. and Carlotta Maurer (ages 13 and 14) were placed in the Wood County Juvenile Court Center in Bowling Green Ohio on October 6, 2000 after a two week struggle with school officials, in which the Maurers requested to be excused from the daily viewing of Channel One and other video programming in their classes.

The Maurers' request is based upon their sincere religious conviction to not view television programming of any kind.

(end snip)

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"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H.L. Mencken
 
Channel 1 is a thinly-veiled excuse to play commercials in the schools to a captive audience. I have worked in a school that had it and the Ch1 news reports were next to useless. The librarians were angry with us because I and a lot of other teachers would refuse to turn on our TV sets to watch the program. Then they put on control boxes to make them come on automatically. They warned us that the computer system kept track of when the TVs were on to make sure that we fulfilled our end of the contract. I and other teachers promptly unhooked the boxes. When they badgered me I played dumb. Gee, it must not be working right! Some teachers told them outright to go screw themselves.
THe only advantage of having Ch1 in the school is that they provide the school with the televisions. I used to run an RF adapter from my computer to the TV so I could do simulations and give the kids notes off of Powerpoint with all the nifty animations and sounds.
I am against anything which takes away from class time. Enough teachers felt the same way that when Ch1 reviewed the data they were angry. For once the admins had the sense to tell Ch1 adios and coughed up the cash to get us screens to use with the computers.
More power to those kids.

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Those who use arms well cultivate the Way and keep the rules.Thus they can govern in such a way as to prevail over the corrupt- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
 
I'm a very new teacher, but when I was a kid, the teachers just turned Channel One off whenever they felt like it. I just assumed I was allowed to do the same. No one has questioned me about it after ten weeks.

I agree; it's just a way to get commercials played, and their coverage of issues is worse than the "real" media. Most of my kids don't pay a great deal of attention to it since they've got other things to do with homeroom (mostly discussing the upcoming weekend.) The ones who do, it seems to me, are watching mainly so they won't miss it when that one sacrificial lamb of a reporter who gets sent to all the deathtrap countries gets blown to bits.
 
Channel One makes me furious. Teachers need to stand up against this. If they can't see educational reasons for turning off the TV then maybe they can understand that if all they do is turn on the TV they aren't really needed.
 
Wait - so these schools are just for kids to go watch TV?

Why bother having schools? Most kids will just watch TV at home anyway.

As a nation, we are oh so very screwed.
 
Geez, George, time in school is the only time during the day that a lot of those kids AREN'T watching TV. I overhear kids talking about 'their shows', the vast majority of which I have never seen and quite a lot of which I've never even heard of. They actually TAPE them. One girl was distraught because she missed one called "Dawson's Creek" or something similar and forgot to tape it. :rolleyes: She had just bombed a test in my class. I was tempted to ask if she missed it while studying for my class but already knew the answer.


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Those who use arms well cultivate the Way and keep the rules.Thus they can govern in such a way as to prevail over the corrupt- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
 
Most of the replies so far have missed the most important civil-liberties point.

The issue isn't whether it's good to have TV in schools; the issue is whether a public entity is obligated to respect the free excercise of religion.

These kids aren't 6 year olds; they are teenagers old enough to have consciences of their own. Is the school which they are obligated to attend, obligated to respect their sincere religious convictions?

Wars have been fought over less.

pax

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." -- Harper Lee
 
Pax, I agree that one big issue here is the freedom of religion. The school system has no right to trample their beliefs. Families who object to sex ed are allowed to opt their kids out of it, why not in this case as well?
Another issue is conditioning kids to obey advertising. There is, I believe, a trend towards commercialism continuing to invade the schools. Channel 1 is an example. It is forcefed commercialism and it bloody well perturbs me.
Some things I never want to hear in a school building-
-" Today's anatomy lecture brought to you by Vagisil"
-" This chemistry lab made possible by the makers of Preparation H"
-" And here comes out team: the Pampers, Fighting Crybabies!"
And the number one thought that wakes me screaming in the night:
-" This morning's annoucements brought to you as a paid advertisement by the Gore for president campaign."

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Those who use arms well cultivate the Way and keep the rules.Thus they can govern in such a way as to prevail over the corrupt- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
 
Teachers, please continue to try your best, though you are greatly hindered by administrators, policies, curricula and unions.

Parents: homeschool.

--Denise
A bad day at a home school is better than a good day in government school.
 
No, TV is not the reason for kids to go to school, George. Let's not get too paranoid here. Channel One is a fifteen-minute program at the beginning of the day--it plays during homeroom. But it's still insidious.

I DO sometimes get the feeling, though, that the "unspoken objective" no one wants to mention is to turn out "good" consumers and taxpayers--with "good" defined as someone smart enough to make a lot of money but sheeplike enough to do as he's told with it.
 
As a teacher, I love Channel One! Many of my kids never watch the news. This is a chance to inject some learning disguised as fun. I think there are some topics that Channel One does very well. It only lasts around seven minutes! And I like it BETTER when they show a lake of objectivity. Gives me a chance to talk about the quality of our sources of info...

I can't believe that the school took such drastic measures. That's usually a sign that the admin of the school has lost control. In my class, I'd have just let the kids sit outside until it was over. What's wrong with that stupid school?
 
Don Gwinn says:

I DO sometimes get the feeling, though, that the "unspoken objective" no one wants to mention is to turn out "good" consumers and taxpayers--with "good" defined as someone smart enough to make a lot of money but sheeplike enough to do as he's told with it.

To which I reply:

This is a theory proposed by no less an expert than John Taylor Gatto, former New York State teacher of the year.

The Underground History of American Education
 
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