Saturday, January 31, 2009
Sex and students.
I've told this story before, but I know a guy in another district who received, on his desk, an envelope containing a sexually explicit letter from one of his 7th grade students, a girl. I asked him, "What did you do?"
He replied, "Oh, man, I did not pass GO, I did not collect $200, I ran that thing straight to administration and reported it. Scared me to death".
The girl got called in, and the sort-of-odd part was, she wasn't some lost soul or anything. She was a straight-A student and a popular girl, from a solid and stable household, with no sign of anything being amiss. The letter was a kind of stepping-out cry for help, I guess. Wacky. I would have freaked out too. You just never know.
Another aspect of the sex/student thing happened in another place around here, where a guy went into Police Academy straight out of high school, got a job at the age of 20 with his hometown police department, and, incredibly, got assigned to patrol the very high school he'd graduated from!
He promptly got busted for getting himself a 17-year-old student for a girlfriend and having sex with her. He wasn't prosecuted, as 17 is legal age in that state, but he got canned for something like 'abusing a position of authority' or some such ethical charge. I really think that showed a frightening lack of judgement not only by the officer, but by the department who hired him. Personally, I think 19-20 is too young for anybody to be a cop. I mean, if they've done a hitch in the military first, sure, but straight out of high school? I just don't think sending a guy to ride herd on kids more or less his own age is a good idea. And have you sat outside a high school on a reasonably warm day, and seen the way these girls dress and act?
Holy Moses.
He replied, "Oh, man, I did not pass GO, I did not collect $200, I ran that thing straight to administration and reported it. Scared me to death".
The girl got called in, and the sort-of-odd part was, she wasn't some lost soul or anything. She was a straight-A student and a popular girl, from a solid and stable household, with no sign of anything being amiss. The letter was a kind of stepping-out cry for help, I guess. Wacky. I would have freaked out too. You just never know.
Another aspect of the sex/student thing happened in another place around here, where a guy went into Police Academy straight out of high school, got a job at the age of 20 with his hometown police department, and, incredibly, got assigned to patrol the very high school he'd graduated from!
He promptly got busted for getting himself a 17-year-old student for a girlfriend and having sex with her. He wasn't prosecuted, as 17 is legal age in that state, but he got canned for something like 'abusing a position of authority' or some such ethical charge. I really think that showed a frightening lack of judgement not only by the officer, but by the department who hired him. Personally, I think 19-20 is too young for anybody to be a cop. I mean, if they've done a hitch in the military first, sure, but straight out of high school? I just don't think sending a guy to ride herd on kids more or less his own age is a good idea. And have you sat outside a high school on a reasonably warm day, and seen the way these girls dress and act?
Holy Moses.
Blue, in his favorite place...
...out in a field, watching. It's been almost a year since we had to put him to sleep, and I'm really not happy about it. I'm not good with various anniversaries.
Child pornography, and thoughts on behavior
I read the other day about an interesting (?) legal 'trend', if you will...
Kids taking sexually explicit photos of themselves.
This is not an unusual practice, believe me. The current social lives of teenagers in the US are permeated in sexual discussion, imagery, and acts. It really has to be witnessed to be believed. Seriously. I hear open and explicit discussions of sex, mostly by the girls, constantly. By 'explicit', I mean explicit. It's, like, uh... remember Penthouse Forum? Like that. But with underage people. It's very disturbing.
I mention this to adults from time to time, and preface the subject with the observation, "Remember when porn was hard to get? When you had to really work at finding it, and hide it from your parents and adults, whatever? When porn was, like, secret?" Well, not no more, folks. It's all over the place. Kids have this stuff on cel phones, cameras, ipods, etc. It's everywhere.
Anyway, in the vein of that kind of thing, which is something I try to ignore as best I can, as I find it really, really, really scary, there are currently legal precedents for kids being prosecuted for disseminating 'pornography' featuring themselves. Some 13-year-old takes a crotch shot and sends it to her 'hook-up', and suddenly she's being busted for 'producing child pornography', and spends the rest of their life registering as a convicted sex offender. It's happened.
Yeouch.
I have to say, as well, that I doubt this is really the right message to be sending. So to speak. You know, there have already been several episodes in schools in the region of super-on-track A-student cheer-squad types finding nude photos of themselves broadcast all over their schools and community. Some guy they're dating asks for a nudie shot, they do it, and suddenly they're porn stars. Perhaps we need some public service spots aimed at kids telling them:
DON'T TAKE NAKED PICTURES OF YOURSELF UNLESS YOU WANT THEM SPREAD ALL OVER THE INTERNET.
Like all 'teen sex' scares, I find it interesting to see not only the aspects of frightening sexual behavior on the part of underage kids, but the flip side of that: the crushing embarrassment of many kids at their exposure to things that they wish they didn't have to experience. This is the positive part, and makes me think that, like all discussions of 'teen sex', that a lot of kids don't go in for the sex-saturated society they live in, and are honestly embarrassed by it. For every Bad Girl's Club wannabe I see a quiet, together teen in the other corner of the room, thinking to themselves, "I'm not like that, and I find this kind of thing humiliating and embarrassing, and these people and the culture of pornography freaks me out".
Anyway, I was thinking about that this morning after hearing a creepy-crawly conversation involving 6th graders yesterday, and in hearing it, recognizing the genuine desire for some direction and information and guidance those particular kids really wanted. I hear that all the time: "Stop us! Give us limits! Don't just let us run riot like this!" And, believe it or not, in exactly those words. I have kids tell me to my face, "Why don't you stop me from acting like this?"
Sometimes I work at it, sometimes it's not worth the brawl, but I can at least recognize the desire for order and control and discipline a lot of these kids have... but I sure wish they'd stop snapping naked pictures of themselves. It's just not a good idea.
Anyway. Time for breakfast.
Kids taking sexually explicit photos of themselves.
This is not an unusual practice, believe me. The current social lives of teenagers in the US are permeated in sexual discussion, imagery, and acts. It really has to be witnessed to be believed. Seriously. I hear open and explicit discussions of sex, mostly by the girls, constantly. By 'explicit', I mean explicit. It's, like, uh... remember Penthouse Forum? Like that. But with underage people. It's very disturbing.
I mention this to adults from time to time, and preface the subject with the observation, "Remember when porn was hard to get? When you had to really work at finding it, and hide it from your parents and adults, whatever? When porn was, like, secret?" Well, not no more, folks. It's all over the place. Kids have this stuff on cel phones, cameras, ipods, etc. It's everywhere.
Anyway, in the vein of that kind of thing, which is something I try to ignore as best I can, as I find it really, really, really scary, there are currently legal precedents for kids being prosecuted for disseminating 'pornography' featuring themselves. Some 13-year-old takes a crotch shot and sends it to her 'hook-up', and suddenly she's being busted for 'producing child pornography', and spends the rest of their life registering as a convicted sex offender. It's happened.
Yeouch.
I have to say, as well, that I doubt this is really the right message to be sending. So to speak. You know, there have already been several episodes in schools in the region of super-on-track A-student cheer-squad types finding nude photos of themselves broadcast all over their schools and community. Some guy they're dating asks for a nudie shot, they do it, and suddenly they're porn stars. Perhaps we need some public service spots aimed at kids telling them:
DON'T TAKE NAKED PICTURES OF YOURSELF UNLESS YOU WANT THEM SPREAD ALL OVER THE INTERNET.
Like all 'teen sex' scares, I find it interesting to see not only the aspects of frightening sexual behavior on the part of underage kids, but the flip side of that: the crushing embarrassment of many kids at their exposure to things that they wish they didn't have to experience. This is the positive part, and makes me think that, like all discussions of 'teen sex', that a lot of kids don't go in for the sex-saturated society they live in, and are honestly embarrassed by it. For every Bad Girl's Club wannabe I see a quiet, together teen in the other corner of the room, thinking to themselves, "I'm not like that, and I find this kind of thing humiliating and embarrassing, and these people and the culture of pornography freaks me out".
Anyway, I was thinking about that this morning after hearing a creepy-crawly conversation involving 6th graders yesterday, and in hearing it, recognizing the genuine desire for some direction and information and guidance those particular kids really wanted. I hear that all the time: "Stop us! Give us limits! Don't just let us run riot like this!" And, believe it or not, in exactly those words. I have kids tell me to my face, "Why don't you stop me from acting like this?"
Sometimes I work at it, sometimes it's not worth the brawl, but I can at least recognize the desire for order and control and discipline a lot of these kids have... but I sure wish they'd stop snapping naked pictures of themselves. It's just not a good idea.
Anyway. Time for breakfast.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Special Ed Art.
Well, today, we worked on Egyptian art, and a lot of the work had to do with simply getting the kids to follow through on tasks.
This is cool. A lot of the kids are just not going to be capable of physical or mental tasks past about, oh, about the age of 7.
This is realism. anyway, art is big part of that. Some of the kids' stuff was awesome, I think, but I can't post it here.
Here's my work, as I had to contribute as well. It's in colored pencil.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
6th Grade Metaphysics
Today I overheard a conversation between a Mexican girl and a White girl, in which the Mexican girl openly discussed firmly believing in El Chupacabra. I don't find this surprising, as I found a lot of fairly interesting beliefs among Mexican immigrants where I used to live.
However, the true gem was the White girl's discussion of 'illegal aliens', involving a long story about a family member getting into a car accident with an 'illegal alien', and some more discussion of some other, progressively more odd things, until I finally realized the girl thought 'illegal aliens' came from outer space.
However, the true gem was the White girl's discussion of 'illegal aliens', involving a long story about a family member getting into a car accident with an 'illegal alien', and some more discussion of some other, progressively more odd things, until I finally realized the girl thought 'illegal aliens' came from outer space.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Things I Don't Like About Wisconsin
The black spots in the ice are dead ducks. Some pack of dimwitted yayhoos went snowmobiling up the Rock River, went under the bridge at high speed (for those of you who live where there may not be snow, these new machines can do in the neighborhood of 100 MPH) and ground up, over two nights, over 120 Mallard ducks.
This is in Fort Atkinson, and is why, despite the 'ghetto' reputation of where I live, I don't care for rural Wisconsin.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Genius MousePen
This thing is way cool. I received a Genius MousePen 8x6 drawing pad for Xmas and just now got around to working with it. It is totally nifty, and easy to draw with.
Meeting
I went to a seminar yesterday for work techniques, and one of the most useful portions of the day was an assessment that asked the question, "Who was your best teacher?" and "What were their characteristics?"
It was obvious listening to the responses that when you're trying to teach someone something, you fall into the dynamic that taught you the most effectively. This may not be a good thing. For instance, my most effective teacher was the guy who got me into construction. His characteristics were:
Crude
Demeaning
Profane
Harsh
Allowed a large amount of individual freedom in work
Didn't care how you looked as long as the work got done
Didn't care what you did outside of the workplace
The only way you knew you'd done something right was when he said nothing at all. There was no expression of praise, merely silent support for good work. If you screwed up, you heard about it, publicly and humiliatingly, and you fixed it. You were expected to take initiative on your own and supervise yourself. He did not expect 'busywork'; if there was nothing to do, there was nothing to do. The workplace environment was tough, difficult, dangerous, and uncomfortable. You were expected to show up and work regardless, and to keep your mouth shut and not complain.
It was pointed out to me by a 'discussion partner' that this imprinted leadership dynamic creeps into my workplace behavior, and is not appropriate for what I do for a living currently. I honestly expected the seminar to be largely a waste of time, but instead I found it extremely useful and informative.
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