4 ms·

Aside from the whys are wherefores of the situation, the thing I find the most disturbing is that people who set these policies and do things like this: > staf

Aside from the whys are wherefores of the situation, the thing I find the most disturbing is that people who set these policies and do things like this: > staff taking debt notices to class > when the cashier discovered she had an unpaid food bill from last year, the tray of pizza, cucumber slices, an apple and chocolate milk was thrown in the trash Are allowed anywhere near children. I know it's nothing new, and in many countries we're beyond school staff being enabled by the state to physically abuse children (at least by a couple of decades in the UK), but it seems like we still turn a blind eye to emotional and psychological abuse. It's one of the things that petrifies me about potentially having children at some point. > It shows how lasting these experiences can be.

glubGlub 10y ago
Given the general chaos of any single school, and the amount of "normal" discipline applied across all students in aggregate, it's probably incredibly difficult for bystanders to notice and distinguish types of discipline, and the underlying motives behind disciplinary actions throughout the day. Schools are noisy places. It's partly a signal-to-noise and triage problem. Kids fighting wjth each other. Kids disrupting class. Long quiet noiseless periods during tests. Fixed attention while movies are shown in class. Noisy cafeterias, amid rushed, scheduled lunches. Gym class as a more general hell. During the pace of everything else, it probably just blows by, while other more chaotic events grab attention. To the individual child, it's all-consuming. To the reader, each experience collected with similar accounts reads as deliberate child starvation. To bystanders in the moment, there's probably a moment of temporary confusion, and then it's ignored. Kids should pretty much eat for free, especially at public schools, but in general too. It doesn't change the fact that healthy food remains expensive, and that kids will try to eat junk food as much as possible, but the last thing anyone wants to hear is kids being deprived of food for petty reasons. It probably rings in the mind as less urgent in the moment, when there are no apparent signs of malnutrition visibly evident. Not as much the Dickensian orphanage of the imagination. In the moment, the situation probably strikes a person as the usual scolding ever-present throughout any school.
- afandian 10y ago
  That's kind of what I mean. The kind of person who will put a child's lunch in the bin, even (especially?) if they are in a rush, is not the kind of person I think should be in the school environment.
  - dismantlethesun 10y ago
    Ah is it their lunch if they haven paid fo it? Also I think you may be going a bit far with the schools as sanctuary angle. Schools are imperfect places and seeking to shield children from all possible stress only leads to raising adults who cannot take any stress.

glubGlub 10y ago

Given the general chaos of any single school, and the amount of "normal" discipline applied across all students in aggregate, it's probably incredibly difficult for bystanders to notice and distinguish types of discipline, and the underlying motives behind disciplinary actions throughout the day. Schools are noisy places. It's partly a signal-to-noise and triage problem. Kids fighting wjth each other. Kids disrupting class. Long quiet noiseless periods during tests. Fixed attention while movies are shown in class. Noisy cafeterias, amid rushed, scheduled lunches. Gym class as a more general hell. During the pace of everything else, it probably just blows by, while other more chaotic events grab attention. To the individual child, it's all-consuming. To the reader, each experience collected with similar accounts reads as deliberate child starvation. To bystanders in the moment, there's probably a moment of temporary confusion, and then it's ignored. Kids should pretty much eat for free, especially at public schools, but in general too. It doesn't change the fact that healthy food remains expensive, and that kids will try to eat junk food as much as possible, but the last thing anyone wants to hear is kids being deprived of food for petty reasons. It probably rings in the mind as less urgent in the moment, when there are no apparent signs of malnutrition visibly evident. Not as much the Dickensian orphanage of the imagination. In the moment, the situation probably strikes a person as the usual scolding ever-present throughout any school.

afandian 10y ago
That's kind of what I mean. The kind of person who will put a child's lunch in the bin, even (especially?) if they are in a rush, is not the kind of person I think should be in the school environment.
- dismantlethesun 10y ago
  Ah is it their lunch if they haven paid fo it? Also I think you may be going a bit far with the schools as sanctuary angle. Schools are imperfect places and seeking to shield children from all possible stress only leads to raising adults who cannot take any stress.