3 ms·

> the unreasonableness of the school making middle schoolers travel to a competition at 5:15 on a weekend morning This could just as well be "the unreasonablen

by ashark 11y ago

> the unreasonableness of the school making middle schoolers travel to a competition at 5:15 on a weekend morning This could just as well be "the unreasonableness of signing on for an activity then not wanting to do what's required to participate", and/or "the unreasonableness of signing up for more activities than one is (apparently) able to find time for". I thought she wants to participate in choir. I'd certainly get up early on the occasional weekend for something I wanted to do, and it wouldn't even occur to me to complain, ya know? As for letting her leave early, 1) they probably don't want to safely coordinate a bunch of individual pick-ups in an unfamiliar place _while trying to keep everyone else on schedule_, and 2) they may consider sticking around for the rest of the event to be important. It's really, really easy to imagine a world in which their refusal isn't primarily due to their being assholes. Maybe you're right about all this being an example of a hostile school, but your description of events makes it seem more like a case of whiney, entitled kids/parents. Again, maybe that's wrong, but that is definitely the impression I get from this tale, as written. I mean, this: "Yet, the choir forces kids to show up at 5:15 am (!) on a Saturday". I actually LOL'ed at the parenthetical exclamation point. Or: "and also do all of her regular class homework (which is already a lot in its own right)." I mean—yeah, of course. What's weird about that? Quit signing up for extra crap if you're having trouble meeting basic obligations. You cannot have/do everything.

p4wnc6 11y ago
> This could just as well be "the unreasonableness of signing on for an activity then not wanting to do what's required to participate", and/or "the unreasonableness of signing up for more activities than one is (apparently) able to find time for". I thought she wants to participate in choir. I'd certainly get up early on the occasional weekend for something I wanted to do, and it wouldn't even occur to me to complain, ya know? No, it cannot. Asking young minds to wake up for a performance (that the school is not required to participate in) is not reasonable. It doesn't matter how busy the student is; it doesn't matter that you voluntarily signed up. None of that matters. The point is that it's too early. It's an unreasonable burden to place on any child. Your attitude also strikes me as needlessly aggressive about it. Why should the child pay the penalty of being disallowed to participate, grow, and learn (and incur the future costs of what scholarship committees and colleges will think of someone who didn't do those things) just because they think 5:15 am on a weekend morning for children who can't yet drive is too burdensome? What is the point of the school choir if not to provide culturally enriching experiences to the very students who wish to join it? You're acting as if the platonic idea of "the choir" exists totally independently of the bang-simple basic life constraints of its participants. If the choir said you have to show up at 5:15 am for a concert, and you will not be allowed to use the bathroom or eat food for 6 hours then of course we'd have a problem with it. Kids need to use the bathroom. Kids need to eat. Voluntarily opting-in to participate in the choir doesn't give the choir director the permission to disallow eating or using a bathroom. But if we just slightly move the needle out to significantly disrupting the regular sleeping habits of a middle school kid, now all of the sudden parents are "whiny" to expect their kid gets to be healthy. Your position is preposterous. In other words, you're placing a deeply unrealistic expectation of accommodation onto a very young kid, meanwhile not holding grown adults to any degree of reasonableness or compromise.

by ashark 11y ago

p4wnc6 11y ago

> This could just as well be "the unreasonableness of signing on for an activity then not wanting to do what's required to participate", and/or "the unreasonableness of signing up for more activities than one is (apparently) able to find time for". I thought she wants to participate in choir. I'd certainly get up early on the occasional weekend for something I wanted to do, and it wouldn't even occur to me to complain, ya know? No, it cannot. Asking young minds to wake up for a performance (that the school is not required to participate in) is not reasonable. It doesn't matter how busy the student is; it doesn't matter that you voluntarily signed up. None of that matters. The point is that it's too early. It's an unreasonable burden to place on any child. Your attitude also strikes me as needlessly aggressive about it. Why should the child pay the penalty of being disallowed to participate, grow, and learn (and incur the future costs of what scholarship committees and colleges will think of someone who didn't do those things) just because they think 5:15 am on a weekend morning for children who can't yet drive is too burdensome? What is the point of the school choir if not to provide culturally enriching experiences to the very students who wish to join it? You're acting as if the platonic idea of "the choir" exists totally independently of the bang-simple basic life constraints of its participants. If the choir said you have to show up at 5:15 am for a concert, and you will not be allowed to use the bathroom or eat food for 6 hours then of course we'd have a problem with it. Kids need to use the bathroom. Kids need to eat. Voluntarily opting-in to participate in the choir doesn't give the choir director the permission to disallow eating or using a bathroom. But if we just slightly move the needle out to significantly disrupting the regular sleeping habits of a middle school kid, now all of the sudden parents are "whiny" to expect their kid gets to be healthy. Your position is preposterous. In other words, you're placing a deeply unrealistic expectation of accommodation onto a very young kid, meanwhile not holding grown adults to any degree of reasonableness or compromise.