Quick, call the cops! It"s a SCIENCE PROJECT!!!!!!

[SCE to AUX]

It sure has changed since the times when I was in 7th and 8th grade and participated in the school's rifle club. I even got permission to bring my own .22 in to school to take to the club meeting to have my coach help me sight it in better. And the rifle range was in the basement of the elementary school...imagine that.

Neat story! When was that, and in what part of the country?

Some of the class projects we did in HS chemistry and physics would get you on a midnight plane to Gitmo nowadays. Our teacher demonstrated stoichiometry by igniting balloons filled with different mixes of oxygen and propane, and comparing the loudness of the bang. We also made thermite, and lit it in the parking lot behind the school. Nitrogen Triiodide was a lot of fun, too...

In physics class, our studies of ballistics and trajectory culminated with firing tennis balls from compressed air cannons on the football field, and using the formulas to predict how far downfield they would hit for different launch angles and different air pressures.

 

[SCE to AUX]

The key here is that you got permission. From the article, there is no indication that this kid had done that.

Here are the school's own policy documents, which the principal claims were violated:

https://www.mtechmiddle.org/apps/pa...rmREC_ID=&pREC_ID=87933&hideMenu=1&rn=3058676

Please show us anything in this document that requires "permission" to bring a science project in to school.

Oh, yeah, there is the catch-all

"Socially Responsible Behavior includes, but is not limited to the following:"

, but all that really means is that the school reserves the right to make up the rules after the fact, to punish any student for any action, as the school sees fit.

 

[Samuron]

Here are the school's own policy documents, which the principal claims were violated:

https://www.mtechmiddle.org/apps/pa...rmREC_ID=&pREC_ID=87933&hideMenu=1&rn=3058676

Please show us anything in this document that requires "permission" to bring a science project in to school.

I said:

Furthermore, the school says he violated school policies, so there is at least the chance that he didn't tell anyone he was bringing it, or get permission to do so.

I fully admitted that we don't know the details; the policy violations could have been part of what he said to the authorities.

Regardless, we don't know; the article tells us very little, except that the boy built a "motion detector" which for some reason incorporated a bottle. Other than that, all we know is that the police and the fire department felt that they had, based on the boy's statements, sufficient cause to evacuate a school and search the boy's house.

Nevertheless, based on practically no information, you have chosen to conclude that the school, the police, and the fire department were idiots and the boy did nothing wrong. I suggest that such a conclusion, based on the information at hand, is premature.

 

[sandmantoy]

It sure has changed since the times when I was in 7th and 8th grade and participated in the school's rifle club. I even got permission to bring my own .22 in to school to take to the club meeting to have my coach help me sight it in better. And the rifle range was in the basement of the elementary school...imagine that.

I remember bringing in my .22 rifle to school and taking it out of my locker so the principal could admire it. After school we would go out behind the school to a large wooded area to shoot them. We even got to do some archery in school back then. I do remember a teacher asking questions to the class about being responsible with firearms and they still stand out in my mind like they where said yesterday.

I talk to one of my sons teachers all the time and he say's there hands are tied to get very creative on any projects. It's follow the path or you get replaced. They are focused on getting the numbers to get there budget more than actually teaching beyond the set path. Last year he had students build model rockets but they could not launch them and he was advised against making it a subject for the following year. Since our Station night club fire rocketry of any kind is pretty much against the law here.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Hi Luke,
I have a few questions
1.)whats "the monkey show"
2.)What does your daughter speaking english have to do with what you are saying?
3.)Is there something wrong with being a single parent in your view?
4.)Are you saying children in a family on social assistance should be banned from pre k classes? I assume this is to help them break the cycle of poverty somehow?
I am glad you are doing well with your daughter. She sounds well looked after I would say God bless all who struggle to bring up their children as best they can irregardless of where they learn, what they speak, or their economic circumstances.
Cheers
fred

Sure... glad to answer...

1) "monkey show"-- the school more interested in driving people into lawsuits over pointless, outdated, and frankly stupid arguments over the dress code and hair length than actually focusing on their job, say EDUCATING THE KIDS! (and then perpetually losing those lawsuits or having to settle and pay off aggrieved parents with money from my school taxes, among others) Elementary teachers more interested in throwing their weight around and 'taking the day off' on field trips gossiping with their fellow teacher's like a girl's slumber party while the kids run wild, rather than DO THEIR JOB and actually supervise the children on field trips-- SO I REFUSE TO DRIVE ELEMENTARY FIELD TRIPS SINCE THE ADMINISTRATION REFUSES TO MAKE THE TEACHERS DO THEIR JOB, and then complains and rolls anything that happens on the BUS DRIVER when the TEACHERS are specifically to maintain order on field trips, per district policies. Administrators that will slam a good kid HARD on first offenses I've written up, yet the PERPETUAL TROUBLEMAKERS that should be in ISS, A-SCHOOL, SUSPENDED, or KICKED OUT STILL GETTING ASSIGNED LUNCH DETENTION OR OTHER "NON PUNISHMENTS" ON AS MANY AS THE SEVENTH WRITE-UP (personal experience). I could go on for a couple pages with what I've seen of the "monkey show", but you don't want to know anyway, not really-- you want to wave it all off as 'get involved and write your congressman' like that will really change ANYTHING, EVER...

2) In our school district in SE TX near Houston, the eligibility requirements for pre-K are: A) CANNOT speak the English language, B) cannot exceed the income levels as determined by the complicated formulas that restrict eligibility to low-income and welfare cases, C) or identified as a member of a group considered "at risk" (again, welfare cases and minorities)... IN SHORT, IF YOU'RE NOT A MINORITY YOU CANNOT ATTEND PRE-K.

3) No, never said that... there are plenty of responsible single parents. There are plenty of irresponsible "married" parents as well. I'm all for school vouchers, because I've seen the "rotating door" used by many 'bad kids' that are perpetual misbehavior cases who have parents who have been married several times-- they're about to get kicked out of school in the neighboring district, so they come live with their dad, or their mom, or dad's ex-wife, or their auntie, or grandma, or cousin, or stepdad, or former stepmom, or whatever, and get in trouble here until they're about to get kicked out (usually after nearly half a year or so) and then they go to another district down the road on the other side with another 'family' member and do the same thing again. They make it through the year and return to the original district the following fall, since once the new school year starts "all is forgotten" from their previous misbehavior (unless they're kicked out, which is why they go to a different district before getting kicked out) and so they start each new year with a 'clean slate' that they then keep doing the same crap they've always done, floating from district to district. Meanwhile, GOOD kids who happen to have the "misfortune" of a stable home with both parents in the same house cannot choose to attend a better school because TEA (education agency) perpetually strikes down any attempts at school vouchers, because the "good kids" would end up going to a good school, leaving the 'trash' in the sorry schools, and that would make TEA look bad... ESPECIALLY on standardized testing, which IS the be-all end-all of the schools-- LOOKING GOOD NOT BEING GOOD!

4) NO! I'm not saying that at all... WHAT I'M SAYING IS, MY DAUGHTER IS NOT ALLOWED TO ATTEND BECAUSE SHE'S WHITE, SPEAKS ENGLISH, HAS TWO GAINFULLY EMPLOYED RESPONSIBLE PARENTS, AND SHE'S NOT HANDICAPPED OR HAS SOME "CONDITION" OR "DISEASE" PROTECTED BY LAW THAT WOULD ALLOW HER TO GO! Our school system, thanks to limp wristed PC politicians more interested in looking good than being good, IGNORES the best and brightest in our society to PANDER to the lowest and least likely to succeed. THIS IS WRONG! We need to extend EQUAL OPPORTUNITY but this expectation of EQUAL RESULTS is a fantasy... I see it every day-- a LOT of kids (dare I say 'most' but certainly NOT ALL) follow the values espoused by their culture-- IE, if their culture places a high value on education, then they tend to do much better in school. If their culture places low value on education, and places more value on being a cut-up, a bad-@$$, machismo, or other such stupidity, then they do worse in school and spend most of their time honing their "rep" as a cut-up or bad-@$$. I see it every day. Yes, I know that's politically incorrect, racist, whatever you want to call it. I also know FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN THE MAJORITY OF CASES THAT IS A FACT! Ignoring it accomplishes nothing. My wife has the good fortune to teach Pre-AP (Honors in old parlance) English in high school in a suburban district near Houston (that pays MUCH better than this cow-pasture school district here, which incidentally I attended all 12 years and graduated from) and she's lucky enough that she's teaching MOSTLY PRE-AP KIDS... and most of them are Asian and Indian, two cultures that place a high value on education and push their kids to excel. She ended up with a REGULAR English class on her schedule this year in addition to the PRE-AP classes, and the (predominantly Hispanic and Black) kids are MUCH less motivated, more rowdy and misbehaving, and score lower and have MUCH less interest in doing their work or being successful-- they're there because they get a ticket for skipping school. I see this myself every day on the bus and around the schools.

Sorry if that offends, but I SEE IT WITH MY OWN EYES. It's a sad but unfortunate truth. How to fix it?? I know how but it's not pleasant... we have to re-establish the possibility of FAILURE and STOP PANDERING... it's ENABLING people to get away with their irresponsibility.

My grandmother and I were talking one time when I was in high school-- the teen pregnancy rate was BIG NEWS back in those days-- now it's a given. She asked me "what those girls were thinking" and I commented that they didn't care-- their parents would take care of them and the baby, or they'd get an abortion, and they could get welfare, WIC, free healthcare, free childcare, and a myriad other programs payed by our taxes to take care of them and their illegitimate children, so they didn't care... they did what they wanted and didn't worry about it... NO CONSEQUENCES! My Grandmother commented how, "in my day, we didn't mess around like that-- if you got knocked up, your life was OVER-- NO man worth having would have you, and you would end up living in a dirt floor shack chopping cotton, poor as church mice for the rest of your life!" Harsh medicine, but it's what we need...

You may flame away at me now... OL JR

 

[Samuron]

I remember bringing in my .22 rifle to school and taking it out of my locker so the principal could admire it. After school we would go out behind the school to a large wooded area to shoot them. We even got to do some archery in school back then.

I talk to one of my sons teachers all the time and he say's there hands are tied to get very creative on any projects. It's follow the path or you get replaced. They are focused on getting the numbers to get there budget more than actually teaching beyond the set path. Last year he had students build model rockets but they could not launch them and he was advised against making it a subject for the following year. Since our Station night club fire rocketry of any kind is pretty much against the law here.

Sure, but when we were kids, the schools knew that they could make judegement calls about such projects, and the parents would back them up. If a teacher, or a police officer, said a kid was out of line, the parents would respect that.

Nowadays, the expectation is that the parents will scream that the school or the police are out of line; their kids would never do anything wrong.

Frankly, this thread is a pretty good example of the type of reaction I'm talking about.

 

[luke strawwalker]

It sure has changed since the times when I was in 7th and 8th grade and participated in the school's rifle club. I even got permission to bring my own .22 in to school to take to the club meeting to have my coach help me sight it in better. And the rifle range was in the basement of the elementary school...imagine that.

Yeah.. I was a farm kid, I ALWAYS had a pocket-knife IN MY POCKET because I used it on the farm all the time... and unlike most of my peers, I HAD FARM WORK TO DO WHEN I GOT HOME. Yeah, it was against the rules, but I never flashed it or threatened anybody with it; I did WHAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO and left people alone.

Nowdays, I'd be tackled and hauled off to jail... While our useless "school cops" stand by and watch a mentally challenged (superhuman strength if you know anything about those folks) student slams another kid's head repeatedly against the concrete while a 250 pound weightlifting coach tries to wrestle him off the kid before he killed him, while the worthless cops stand around and watch! (The kid ended up in ICU and the doctors said if he's slammed his head into the concrete a few more times he'd have been dead!-- YEAH THIS REALLY HAPPENED IN OUR SCHOOL!) I was talking with one of our new 'campus officers' and he told me when he went to break up a fight on campus, the senior officer told him, AND I QUOTE: "that's not our job-- let the coaches and teachers break up the fights."

Sorry, but WHY are we paying you $40,000 a year and maintaining a TCLEOSE certified police department within the school district again?? NOT YOUR JOB?? I guess you're just here to sit and radar the school zones during pickup/dropoff times and escort the football buses to games, eh...

Some folks here are seriously deluded about the state of most schools nowdays... if you have a good school, THANK GOD FOR IT!!! For the rest of us, don't judge us til you walk in our shoes... :eyepop: OL JR

 

[Fred22]

Obviously, we have been homeschooling since long before this incident, Fred. This article simply provided yet another example of one major reason why the numbers of homeschoolers are growing.

Over-reactions, paranoia, and "zero-tolerance" policies are turning our public schools into armed camps, where control and forced submission are held to be more important than learning and creativity.


BTW, Fred, I reported your post as a personal attack on me. Now we can see if moderators are going to be held to the same behavior standards as you enforce on the rest of us...

Which schools and how are these behavioural codes turning them into "armed camps". Could you be specfic please? I realise you feel strongly on the subject but beyond that facts would be good. Even better how many of the millions of children who attend public schools actually face these Orwellian conditions? Can you be specific?
Your last paragraph is interesting. I would prefer to discuss these matters via PM as opposed to assuming the stage as it were. Be that as it may Mr Weiss you are allowed to hold any opinion you want. Disagreeing with it is okay too. If in any way I seemed to have insulted your daughter I apologise completely.

 

[Fred22]

Sure... glad to answer...

1) "monkey show"-- the school more interested in driving people into lawsuits over pointless, outdated, and frankly stupid arguments over the dress code and hair length than actually focusing on their job, say EDUCATING THE KIDS! (and then perpetually losing those lawsuits or having to settle and pay off aggrieved parents with money from my school taxes, among others) Elementary teachers more interested in throwing their weight around and 'taking the day off' on field trips gossiping with their fellow teacher's like a girl's slumber party while the kids run wild, rather than DO THEIR JOB and actually supervise the children on field trips-- SO I REFUSE TO DRIVE ELEMENTARY FIELD TRIPS SINCE THE ADMINISTRATION REFUSES TO MAKE THE TEACHERS DO THEIR JOB, and then complains and rolls anything that happens on the BUS DRIVER when the TEACHERS are specifically to maintain order on field trips, per district policies. Administrators that will slam a good kid HARD on first offenses I've written up, yet the PERPETUAL TROUBLEMAKERS that should be in ISS, A-SCHOOL, SUSPENDED, or KICKED OUT STILL GETTING ASSIGNED LUNCH DETENTION OR OTHER "NON PUNISHMENTS" ON AS MANY AS THE SEVENTH WRITE-UP (personal experience). I could go on for a couple pages with what I've seen of the "monkey show", but you don't want to know anyway, not really-- you want to wave it all off as 'get involved and write your congressman' like that will really change ANYTHING, EVER...

2) In our school district in SE TX near Houston, the eligibility requirements for pre-K are: A) CANNOT speak the English language, B) cannot exceed the income levels as determined by the complicated formulas that restrict eligibility to low-income and welfare cases, C) or identified as a member of a group considered "at risk" (again, welfare cases and minorities)... IN SHORT, IF YOU'RE NOT A MINORITY YOU CANNOT ATTEND PRE-K.

3) No, never said that... there are plenty of responsible single parents. There are plenty of irresponsible "married" parents as well. I'm all for school vouchers, because I've seen the "rotating door" used by many 'bad kids' that are perpetual misbehavior cases who have parents who have been married several times-- they're about to get kicked out of school in the neighboring district, so they come live with their dad, or their mom, or dad's ex-wife, or their auntie, or grandma, or cousin, or stepdad, or former stepmom, or whatever, and get in trouble here until they're about to get kicked out (usually after nearly half a year or so) and then they go to another district down the road on the other side with another 'family' member and do the same thing again. They make it through the year and return to the original district the following fall, since once the new school year starts "all is forgotten" from their previous misbehavior (unless they're kicked out, which is why they go to a different district before getting kicked out) and so they start each new year with a 'clean slate' that they then keep doing the same crap they've always done, floating from district to district. Meanwhile, GOOD kids who happen to have the "misfortune" of a stable home with both parents in the same house cannot choose to attend a better school because TEA (education agency) perpetually strikes down any attempts at school vouchers, because the "good kids" would end up going to a good school, leaving the 'trash' in the sorry schools, and that would make TEA look bad... ESPECIALLY on standardized testing, which IS the be-all end-all of the schools-- LOOKING GOOD NOT BEING GOOD!

4) NO! I'm not saying that at all... WHAT I'M SAYING IS, MY DAUGHTER IS NOT ALLOWED TO ATTEND BECAUSE SHE'S WHITE, SPEAKS ENGLISH, HAS TWO GAINFULLY EMPLOYED RESPONSIBLE PARENTS, AND SHE'S NOT HANDICAPPED OR HAS SOME "CONDITION" OR "DISEASE" PROTECTED BY LAW THAT WOULD ALLOW HER TO GO! Our school system, thanks to limp wristed PC politicians more interested in looking good than being good, IGNORES the best and brightest in our society to PANDER to the lowest and least likely to succeed. THIS IS WRONG! We need to extend EQUAL OPPORTUNITY but this expectation of EQUAL RESULTS is a fantasy... I see it every day-- a LOT of kids (dare I say 'most' but certainly NOT ALL) follow the values espoused by their culture-- IE, if their culture places a high value on education, then they tend to do much better in school. If their culture places low value on education, and places more value on being a cut-up, a bad-@$$, machismo, or other such stupidity, then they do worse in school and spend most of their time honing their "rep" as a cut-up or bad-@$$. I see it every day. Yes, I know that's politically incorrect, racist, whatever you want to call it. I also know FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN THE MAJORITY OF CASES THAT IS A FACT! Ignoring it accomplishes nothing. My wife has the good fortune to teach Pre-AP (Honors in old parlance) English in high school in a suburban district near Houston (that pays MUCH better than this cow-pasture school district here, which incidentally I attended all 12 years and graduated from) and she's lucky enough that she's teaching MOSTLY PRE-AP KIDS... and most of them are Asian and Indian, two cultures that place a high value on education and push their kids to excel. She ended up with a REGULAR English class on her schedule this year in addition to the PRE-AP classes, and the (predominantly Hispanic and Black) kids are MUCH less motivated, more rowdy and misbehaving, and score lower and have MUCH less interest in doing their work or being successful-- they're there because they get a ticket for skipping school. I see this myself every day on the bus and around the schools.

Sorry if that offends, but I SEE IT WITH MY OWN EYES. It's a sad but unfortunate truth. How to fix it?? I know how but it's not pleasant... we have to re-establish the possibility of FAILURE and STOP PANDERING... it's ENABLING people to get away with their irresponsibility.

My grandmother and I were talking one time when I was in high school-- the teen pregnancy rate was BIG NEWS back in those days-- now it's a given. She asked me "what those girls were thinking" and I commented that they didn't care-- their parents would take care of them and the baby, or they'd get an abortion, and they could get welfare, WIC, free healthcare, free childcare, and a myriad other programs payed by our taxes to take care of them and their illegitimate children, so they didn't care... they did what they wanted and didn't worry about it... NO CONSEQUENCES! My Grandmother commented how, "in my day, we didn't mess around like that-- if you got knocked up, your life was OVER-- NO man worth having would have you, and you would end up living in a dirt floor shack chopping cotton, poor as church mice for the rest of your life!" Harsh medicine, but it's what we need...

You may flame away at me now... OL JR

I am not flaming you Luke if it seems that way I will try to phrase things differently
It is unfortunate your school district operates as it does. My sister's children attend school in Texas near SanAntonio. They go on field trips, play football and attend band camp. The police on campus break up fights and sort out drug crime and such. They have problems but she feels her children to be safe and learning lots. I am also sorry you feel there is no way to change this. It seems you need better support in your job as well. I have been on the school parent commmittee for some of my childrens schools and we have provided funding and support for busy teachers. I hope your situation gets better.
The prerequistes for pre K in your area sound very unreasonable I agree. Up here pre K is a half day thing where one pays a fee for your children to attend. Is that an option for you down there? has anybody approached the school board or local elected officials to protest this policy?
What is the school voucher? I have seen kids who behave poorly transferred from one school to the next up here as well. It makes no sence to me. However when they hit high school if they misbehave badly enough they are permanently tossed out and their only option is taking distance learning.
You dont have to shout Luke. Your fustration with your situations comes through loud and clear. Your statements about entire cultures being negative such as blacks and hispanics frankly floor me. I have no responce whatsoever beyond I could not disagree more on so many grounds. I would suggest however that you look closely at this and others
https://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/dates/2008/nov/21/miguel--a-wilson/
In making blanket statements about entire groups of folks I feel good people are disrespected as well even unintentionally. Its why I maintain one needs to speak in specifics as broad based negative statements are unfair to so many exceptional individuals who arguably have given their all literally. My own niece went to texas was educated there and is now serving in the US army in South Korea. I am extremely proud of her. Someday soon I want to visit your neck of the woods again.
Once again Luke the caps are unnecessary. I can hear you. In as regards to making teens who become pregnant live in squalor well I just dont see that as helping things. The child certainly did not make the choice and he/she will feel the effects of grinding poverty well enough. It will not help her or him to achieve a good life at all when the only thing they did was be born.
I'm not flaming you Luke but I disagree in fundamental ways with a lot of what you have said on this topic. I am not calling you names, asserting you are a bad person or shouting. You are entitled to your opinions as I am to mine.

 

[Fred22]

I would hasten once again folks to say I personally have no problem with folks home schooling at all. If an individual feels this would be good for their child then go ahead. I would like to see these people supported as well by the professionals in ways deemed apropriate by themselves and their communities. I will not insult them by making blanket assertions about them based on the problematic actions of a few.
Cheers
fred

 

[troj]

The topic has gone from a discussion about a specific incident to some pretty broad generalizations regarding public school systems.

Either reign it back in, or it's gonna go the way of the Dodo bird.

-Kevin

 

[BsSmith]

Wow, this doesn't make sense.

I've brought one of my rockets to school before (one of the larger ones too) and I didn't get the cops called on me. I didn't even get questioned about it at the school. The bus driver asked me if it was a thermonuclear weapon, but that doesn't count.

 

[shrox]

...Either reign it back in, or it's gonna go the way of the Dodo bird.

-Kevin

There are dodo birds locked up somewhere?

 

[roadkill]

There are dodo birds locked up somewhere?

Area 51 since the 'Timewarp' experiment...

 

[powderburner]

The bus driver asked me if it was a thermonuclear weapon, but that doesn't count.

Now that's the first person I'd ask if I ever needed an expert on special weaponry.


Yeah, go ahead, accuse me of bus-driver-bashing.

 

[BAR_Daddy]

Area 51 since the 'Timewarp' experiment...

Right next to the frozen alien bodies from Roswell! :roll:

 

[DexterLB]

I can't see why the school has been evacuated etc - there were no explosives in the device, no volatile chemicals, and no igniters/similar components, were there? Or it was just idiocy?

 

[shreadvector]

I can see a kid being suspended if they show up at school with their pants on the ground.

https://www.hulu.com/watch/120690/late-night-with-jimmy-fallon-neil-young---pants-on-the-ground

 

[dave carver]

I can't see why the school has been evacuated etc - there were no explosives in the device, no volatile chemicals, and no igniters/similar components, were there? Or it was just idiocy?

These days all "they" have to do is THINK there MIGHT be a problem and it's Condition RED!!

Then again, after Columbine and other high profile cases you can't much blame them. Today you just don't know what's going on with anything and I don't blame them for playing it safe.

I mean, YOU wouldn't want to be the one to say you didn't stop Joe Billy going down the hall with an angry look and an oddly bulging backpack and something happens.

 

[Samuron]

These days all "they" have to do is THINK there MIGHT be a problem and it's Condition RED!!

Then again, after Columbine and other high profile cases you can't much blame them. Today you just don't know what's going on with anything and I don't blame them for playing it safe.

I mean, YOU wouldn't want to be the one to say you didn't stop Joe Billy going down the hall with an angry look and an oddly bulging backpack and something happens.

It does make you wonder why a San Diego high school would think a kid would have a bomb that looks like a soda bottle:

Honor Student's Bottle Bombs Prank Lands Him in Jail
Another High School Bomb Prankster Causes Trouble

 

[RimfireJim]

Sure, but when we were kids, the schools knew that they could make judegement calls about such projects, and the parents would back them up. If a teacher, or a police officer, said a kid was out of line, the parents would respect that.

Nowadays, the expectation is that the parents will scream that the school or the police are out of line; their kids would never do anything wrong.

Frankly, this thread is a pretty good example of the type of reaction I'm talking about.

I've heard exactly the same thing from one of my son's teachers who's been teaching high school ag classes for many years, and how the problem kids know exactly how to manipulate their parents to turn any situation in their favor. I'll tell you one thing: I wouldn't last very long as a teacher - the parents would drive me nuts.

 

[Rocketeer41]

Wait a minute I`ve read about UFO`s.:roll: And on one of the pages they show a man with this alunimin foil like thing. But I don`t know what it is. And I also did electrical science projects with my dad.:cyclops:

 

[WillMarchant]

It's funny you brought this up again. I'm out at Caltech for the week and saw one of the students walking his UAV blimp out to the gym for some test runs. Made me think of "balloon boy"!

 

[Rocketeer41]

Ok, why are you thinking "Balloon boy" WillMarchent.:shock:

 

[DAllen]

And if Heathkit was still around, they'd be shut down for inciting terrorism or some such.

Heathkit is still around:

https://www.heathkit.com/



-Dave

 

[Shade]

Well, what the hell...we've already exported our industrial base.

We dont hold a monopoly but we still produce our share

This is a little off-topic.

I did a little research back in the beginning of '09
so the data is based on '08 year end numbers.

The US GDP represents 26% of the world's GDP and
is still #1, only the EU a collection of 22 countries
comes close. In producing, 26% of the world's goods
and services we consume 24% of the world oil
production, and we do it with 4.5% of the world's
population.

I think we are very efficient in our use of resources.


Back on-topic.
Anyway this thread was an interesting read. My opinion is the Admin way
over reacted and some one there other than the student and parents needs
some re-training.

 

[green dragon]

I've heard exactly the same thing from one of my son's teachers who's been teaching high school ag classes for many years, and how the problem kids know exactly how to manipulate their parents to turn any situation in their favor. I'll tell you one thing: I wouldn't last very long as a teacher - the parents would drive me nuts.

You know, it was EXACTLY like this 25 years ago when I was in High School .

if a troubel maker ( known drug dealer, tough guy, punk ) caused trouble he got a slap on th e wrist and the principle knew them by name and joked with them - a good kid ( me ) would get suspended for a week for defending himself against the punk ..

go figure..

and I doubt things have changed fo rthe better, sadly.

~ AL

 

[green dragon]

The key here is that you got permission. From the article, there is no indication that this kid had done that.

like you should need permision to take a non hazardous item to school ?

guess I should not have taken my toys, rockets included, to school class, oops.

hmmm...

 

[blakcat137]

You know, it was EXACTLY like this 25 years ago when I was in High School .

if a troubel maker ( known drug dealer, tough guy, punk ) caused trouble he got a slap on th e wrist and the principle knew them by name and joked with them - a good kid ( me ) would get suspended for a week for defending himself against the punk ..

go figure..

and I doubt things have changed fo rthe better, sadly.

~ AL

Sadly, you are right. The vice principal at the high school where i live has accused people of selling pills and/or other drugs at the public park, but only the "good kids" with no known record. The druggies, when caught, get off scot-free.
About the article, was there any mention whether something extreme had happened before this incident, like a bomb or other destructive device, that might have caused the reaction? That might be why, when taken out of context, it seems severe...