Update: Students Drinking On Facebook
I’d like to update and clarify a few points that I made earlier today in a post about some students being suspended in Minnesota after being “caught” drinking on Facebook. To begin with, I never once congratulated or applauded the students for drinking alcohol. Never did I say, “yeah, woooo, way to go guys for breaking the law!” If they were drinking, then they were breaking the law. That is crystal clear. But again, anybody who has had a little life experience knows that people love to brag about and pretend to do things that they won’t actually go through with. Yet I digress, as that’s something you’ll only understand if you’ve been around the block a few times and not still a youngin’. No, instead, we’re dealing with this: Some kids got “caught” drinking by administrators of their school
And here is where the story gets murkier than a Louisiana swamp.
It’s a school’s job to educate a child. That’s it. A school is not a substitute for teaching morals or enforcing the law outside of the property. It’s a parent’s job and responsibility to teach a kid about safe sex or underage drinking or religious beliefs or anything else that doesn’t have to do with knowledge. It’s also their responsibility to enforce it. It’s great that schools teach sex ed and that some teachers are still engaged enough and not yet jaded to try and teach morals to students. But leaving it up to the schools to fulfill this duty is not just silly, it’s irresponsible.
In fact, a lot has been made in the news recently about the mom in Iowa who sold her son’s car after finding alcohol under the seat of his car. THAT’S how a kid should be punished. Let the parents deal with the non-school problems: nowhere in that story did you hear about that kid’s school stepping in and slapping him with a suspension because they have nothing to do with this equation.
Some commenters on the previous post liked to point out that the kids were breaking a law by drinking and thus warranted the suspensions. Chances are they probably were breaking the law. But does every student that gets a speeding ticket get suspended? How about every kid that gets caught trespassing or spray-painting an overpass? What about when a parent finds marijuana in a kid’s sock drawer? All of these actions are illegal and yet I highly doubt anybody caught doing any of this would be suspended.
They also pointed out that it wasn’t nearly 100 students, but instead only 13. And that they were suspended from extracurricular activities and not school itself. If that’s the truth, my bad, but I was only quoting the article that was posted in the Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper. If a major newspaper can’t get the story correct, what the hell do you expect from bloggers?
Furthermore, this argument isn’t over whether or not the kids should have put the pictures on the Internet. Anybody with half a brain can tell you that’s a retarded move to make, as I’ve argued here on Facebook Talk many times before. To put them on Facebook and not expect anybody to find them wasn’t just stupid, it was moronic and they deserved to be caught. But they should have been grounded for a few months by their parents, not suspended by the school. Why?
Because the point here is that the school officials suspended the kids with no real proof that they’d broken any rules and that even if the pictures were enough proof for some, they had nothing to do with the school. The kids weren’t caught being actually drunk. They weren’t on school grounds. They weren’t at a school function off-campus. They weren’t even bragging about drinking while on-campus and thus overheard by a teacher. How this involves the school isn’t just unclear, it’s downright absurd.
But you fail to understand that this is in fact a school problem. When the administration was presented with evidence of the school’s students drinking, they were legally obligated to act upon the evidence.
also, in response to your saying that “if a major newspaper coulndt get it right, what can we expect from bloggers?” I say: I go to that school. I am around those pathetic people who drink underage all the time. And when our principle came on over the intercom on wednesday, there were only 13 people who were suspended from sports. And another thing. You will probably read the Tribune tomorrow and see new about the walkout. They will say that about 40 students left campus as a protest. Well that, my friend, is total bullshit. It was bout 5-10 students, max. Most couldnt muster enough courage to protest verbally, much less actually go outside. so next time you base your views on one source, id think about it one more time.
When the administration was presented with evidence of the school’s students drinking, they were legally obligated to act upon the evidence.
You do realize that notifying parents that their children were “caught” drinking is acting upon it, right? There’s nothing that says a school has to then suspend the students, especially when the school had absolutely nothing to do with catching them.
Actually, the newspaper article you quoted never said anything except ’suspended from activities or reprimanded’ - that was all your misreading.
(I expect basic literacy from bloggers, and an admission when they are wrong).
I agree 100% with Goob. IT’S THE PARENTS RESPONSIBILITY. The kid was NOT on school property, he did NOT come to school drunk, he was NOT talking about it AT school, a teacher did NOT see him ACTUALLY doing it…I could go on and on. This is just pathetic.
> *AMEN to that! So right!