Aug 19 2008
School! Yay! (Not!)
Angelic Daughter’s school has reached new heights of ridiculousness.
You must understand, I am not being facetious when I call her Angelic Daughter. We might have our little squabbles at home, but since infancy, she has been perfectly behaved whenever she leaves the house. She’s quiet and thoughtful and considerate of others and has never been in trouble a day of her life.
So imagine my surprise when I’m asked to come to the principal’s office on her first day of seventh grade.
Guess why. Go ahead, guess. Be creative. I thought it couldn’t get more outrageous than calling the cops because a student was carrying the highly dangerous controlled substance known on the street as “Tylenol” or a deadly weapon like nail clippers, but I was mistaken.
I had to leave work and go to the school because my child had a rubber band around her wrist.
Often during the day, she will find it desirable to pull her hair back in a ponytail. They’re not allowed to have backpacks or purses, mind you, so there’s nowhere to carry a rubber band other than on her person.
“Did she take it off her wrist and pop somebody with it?”
“No.”
“Okaaaaaay. Then I’m really not seeing the problem.”
“What concerns us is the statement she’s making.”
“That statement being… she might like to keep her hair out of her face? I don’t recall anything in the student code of conduct indicating this was a strictly hair-in-face school.”
It was an hour-long lesson that people cannot hear the stupidity that comes out of their own mouths. I tried mirroring back the stupidity that was said to me, and it sounded just as stupid the second time.
Toward the end, I became somewhat belligerent, since calm, rational dialogue had zero effect. Words to the effect of “How did a fucking idiot like you get a job that doesn’t involve a hair net and a deep fryer?” may have been spoken.
I just might have to find a way to make home schooling work because I am increasingly terrified of subjecting her to so much idiocy 6 hours a day. I’ve tried to teach her to use her brain, but being submerged in anti-intelligence 5 days a week can do a lot of damage.
And I’m still not clear about the “statement.” Was there a Fox News report that wearing a rubber band on one’s wrist is the mark of the Taliban or something?
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August 19th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Oh. My. God. Please tell me your joking? Cuz if you are, that’s really funny. If you’re not . . . that is so *not* funny. *cringes*
August 19th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
A rubber band is a circle. So is the sun which, all nonsense about pollution aside, is the major culprit in the terrifying phenomenon known as Global Warming. Therefore, by wearing a rubber band on her wrist, Angelic Daughter was, in actuality, celebrating the sun and all it stands for and, by proxy, shouting her acceptance of aerosol hairspray and plastic milk jugs and was, in fact, issuing a call to arms for the more militant members of the school body to just chuck the entire concept of recycling right out the window.
See? Makes perfect sense.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
*speechless*
August 19th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Gwen, I am not creative enough to make this up. On the one hand, yeah it’s funny because it’s completely ludicrous. On the other hand, people like this forcing their influence on young people between the ages of 5 and 18 explains an awful lot of the dysfunction displayed by young people between the ages of 5 and 18. How can you blame them for having no respect for authority when the authority they’re exposed to consists of irrational, power-mad control freaks with warped priorities? School no longer has anything to do with education. It’s all about cracking down on rubber band possession and making sure boys’ shirts are tucked into their pants and parents are observing Proper Dropoff Procedures in the morning. (Which earned another big “fuck you, buddy” from me, but that’s a rant for another day.)
I was warned it would be extremely frustrating to be a parent, but no one mentioned only 1% of that frustration would be caused by the kid. All the rest of it is holding off a world hellbent on screwing the kid up.
There’s a new reality show about school principals, and I’m morbidly curious whether they’re all this disturbed, or if we’re just *lucky*.
(And won’t teenagers purposely get in trouble so they can be on TV?)
August 19th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
C.J., you know what else is a circle? A cookie, known to be the emblem of the notorious Killer Crumbs gang. Snapping the rubber band three times summons swarms of crumb-scavenging vermin which would overrun the campus, causing panic, chaos, and anarchy, which would force them to shut down the school for two whole days.
(Oh, wait. They did that anyway because of Tropical Storm Fay. It, ah, rained today. Kind of like it does every day in August in Florida. Next thing you know, they’ll be canceling school ’cause it’s hot or—horrors!—humid.)
Meljean, I too was speechless. Until my daughter looked at me with tears in her eyes because she’s never been in trouble before. At which point, I found a lot of speech.
On the up side, they’ll probably never look at her sideways again because I seriously doubt they want me back in that office.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I remember my high school principal making this statement at a start-of-the-year assembly: “The moment you step foot on school property, you lose all civil rights. Don’t even attempt to exert them. They don’t exist here.”
I don’t remember his trying to ban hair accessories, however. Mostly, he was against kids drinking coffee at breakfast (tea was ok), holding hands in the hall, slamming locker doors, and making eye contact with adults (disrespectful and challenging to authority, don’tcha know, so I made a point of staring at his crotch when I spoke to him - I like to think I shriveled his balls that last little bit).
In your situation, I’d go to the school board and ask for an apology to your daughter for frightening and humiliating her. Unless there’s a written policy that states “no rubber bands around wrists,” they’re in the wrong.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
This whole “zero tolerance” thing is getting more and more ridiculous. Kids getting suspended for bringing steak knives from home to cut their lunch, then for having plastic knives they Got In The School Cafeteria?! And one kid found a knife on the way to school, took it straight to a teacher and was suspended. How does that make sense? :/
And now rubber bands?? I had rubber bands on my wrist all the time, from around eight to around… twenty at least. They come in handy. Good grief….
Angie