What do Y'all think?

[Carnut]

Here's a local hot story I am bemused about.

http://ksn.com/news/stories/15162260.html

How much freedom of speech should be allowed in a school yearbook?

[GreatOwl]

Very Interesting.  As an educator I certainly do not condone such content matter.  However, it is a freedom of speech issue.  I do beleive that schools can control a certain degree of content if it is over the line when it comes to health and safety.  The same probably is true of sexual content since it is being distributed to minors.

Parents do have a right not to pay for or allow material into their homes of which they do not approve.  Financial support is necessary for the continuing success of any yearbook.  Much of what is being protested is within the parents control to protest.  Is that material a reflection of the values they wish to instill in their own children?  If not, then do not support it financially.  

We live in very different times and students are testing the limits of some very far reaching ideas and actions.  Much of that behavior is unsafe and unwise.  As strange as it seems this is not the first time in the past thirty years I have come across this.  The unfortunate thing about it is that eventually it is the students who end up suffering at the conclusion of such radical action.  Those who are making the decisions of this years yearbook will graduate and those who come after may find themselves without a venue.  Everything eventually reverts to the norm.

It never shocks me to come across such a situation as you have pointed out.  I am dismayed by it.

[justinsmama]

I'm a traditionalist when it comes to things like this. It is a shame that this yearbook was published as it was. Thirty years from now, if not sooner, some of these kids will view that yearbook in an entirely different light. It will be too late.

[Carnut]

I'm a traditionalist when it comes to things like this. It is a shame that this yearbook was published as it was. Thirty years from now, if not sooner, some of these kids will view that yearbook in an entirely different light. It will be too late.

Yeah, well, I think it's a bit of a microcosm of our world and what kids are learning about in it.

What was missing in teaching these kids about decorum and public behavior?

Isn't anyone teaching that 'just because you can do it, dosen't mean you should do it'?

What was missing in teaching the kids who prepared the yearbook about what a yearbook is really for and why it might not be desirable to have anything of a controversial nature in it?

Did the editors really think that fond memories are based on teenage pregnancy and abortion?

[Carnut]

Also, where was the staff guidence for the yearbook editors?

Or where they the liberal types who promoted this agenda in the yearbook?

[justinsmama]

Also, where was the staff guidence for the yearbook editors?

Or where they the liberal types who promoted this agenda in the yearbook?

I'm a liberal and I would have strongly cautioned them from such material.

[LouiseVargas]

This is very interesting.

The mother in the article, Sheri Hills, feels the yearbook should be focused more on academics instead of controversial subjects.              Are you kidding

I don't feel that yearbooks are based on academics at all. They are based on the social events and extracurricular activities such as football teams, cheerleaders, homecoming queens and kings, clubs such as the Latin (language) club, scholarship societies, community outreach events, etc.  

I have my three yearbooks from jr. high school (1960), high school (1962) and junior college (1964). I have my daughter's jr. high book (1982) and high school (1984). I treasure them. Each one reflects the times we were living in. I graduated in the Rose Bowl and daughter graduated in the Greek Theater. My books come from an earlier age. My daughter's books come from George Orwell's 1984.

If is only proper and fitting that the yearbooks from Wichita reflect the culture of the students. Teen pregnancy is real. Body piercings are commonplace. (And I was amazed to see that the young sales ladies and men in Bloomingdale's cosmetic department all had beautiful facial piercings and black spiked hair and tattoos.) I think the concept of making friends with a nerd in order to study with them is a brilliant idea. Our kids are smart. Why is that statement considered "disturbing?" You know, the young Orthodox Jewish men have a policy whereby they only study religion and ethics with a partner. They need each other to brainstorm and debate with.  

I support the yearbook. The parents are out of touch and living in yesterday. It is now 2006. I don't know anyone who is ashamed of their yearbook. It was what it was at that point in time. Thirty years from now, NO kids' lives will be focused on their high school yearbook.

[Carnut]

Ok Louise, maybe acceptable in L.A. but not in flyover country.

Guess there is a bit of a generational gap, course I'm not sure that's a good thing.

[LouiseVargas]

Carnut wrote: What was missing in teaching these kids about decorum and public behavior?
****************

What was missing was the parents' inability to be sensitive to the needs of the teenagers to have their own their own harmless society.

Ya know, there were beatniks. Then there were hippies. Then political protesters. I can't recite all the things that came next. Baby boomers and Generation X's. Everyone grows out of it.

The more things you make forbidden to your children, the more they want to do it. My policy was always to say yes if there were no good reason to say no.

[LouiseVargas]

Sheesh, Carnut. I'm glad you are in the flyover flatlands and I'm here by the city, beach, desert, and mountains. You are secluded. I'm not. I'm on the cutting edge of what is going on in society.

My son is an MD, PhD in Leawood, KS, and I find his views and those of his wife very mysterious. They allow the oldest daughter (16) to have a long distance email relationship with an older guy from TX. My son says they hope to meet and get married. They are thinking about flying Lauren to TX to meet the man. I think they are nuts.

I don't know what is going on in KS.

[Carnut]

Well, there can be nuts anywhere, even in Kansas.

On the previous statement,  I've never been a parent so am just speculating here.

I don't think it's so much about forbidding as instilling an understanding of what is desirable/acceptable in public discourse.

[Carnut]

Louise, I've always thought that tongue studs, eyebrow earrings, and facial tattoos as somewhat social/career limiting, even as avante garde as they may be for some folks.

[LouiseVargas]

Well, Car, thank you for setting me straight ... yes, there are nuts everywhere, not just in KS. Didn't mean to stereotype.

Re the piercings, had I never been to KS, I would never imagine they did piercings in middle America. They were on a harder edge than Los Angeles.

At first I was horrified but came to differentiate attractive piercings from unattractive ones. I also thought it was career limiting but then I realized I had not run into pierced people in corporate settings. They were in artistic settings, common settings and by the way ... it is now very much ok for a male corporate executive to have one very small stud in one ear.

So, my overall point is that we elders have to change with the times if we want to be relevant to our children.

I'll give you an example. My mother influenced me to love music like she did. I sat on the floor with 78 rpms listening to opera and country music. I took in her music and she embraced mine. My grandma from Russia's favorite song was "Love Me Tender" by Elvis. In 1987 when my mother was 85, a girlfriend of hers dropped over. My mom was watching TV. She said, "Look, look ... that's Bob Dylan singing!" She laughed herself to pieces when her girlfriend said "I don't keep up with those new groups."

Goodnight, Gracie.

[nonesuche]

Well, there can be nuts anywhere, even in Kansas.

On the previous statement,  I've never been a parent so am just speculating here.

I don't think it's so much about forbidding as instilling an understanding of what is desirable/acceptable in public discourse.

You speculate well Car, I have two children that feel like misfits often for they do have a sense of propriety and also are not cruel.

Louise, I think the intent of the comment regarding making friends with a nerd was meant as a slam against nerds, therefore promoting using the nerd for your own gain? I don't see that as something smart or admirable.

I also wonder if this yearbook staff realized that as leaders for the yearbook, they are representing many and not just their own personal agendas? It appears not from Lexie's comments.

Like GO, I am dismayed.

[LouiseVargas]

Nonesuche wrote: Louise, I think the intent of the comment regarding making friends with a nerd was meant as a slam against nerds, therefore promoting using the nerd for your own gain? I don't see that as something smart or admirable.
**********************

I disagree. Obviously the nerd is highly intelligent. Do you think the nerd would let himself/herself be used?

What do you think happens when the student tries to make friends with the nerd? The nerd is going to be very wary. The nerd cannot wave a magic wand and put the answers into the brain of the student.  A friendship has to develop before the nerd teaches the new aquaintance anything. They both have to come to terms and the nerd is not giving out this teaching to every jerk who comes along and tries to make friends.

It is A BRILLIANT IDEA.

Nerds are not stupid and they do not suffer fools nor teach jerks.

[Carnut]

Nerds may be Brilliant in the academic sense and quite deficient in the social skills to understand what more worldly types might be up to. Especially at the  high school level.

I do know just a bit about what Nerds are like.

I think a real Nerd would be quite flattered if anyone outside their circle showed some interest, especially if it were from the opposite sex, without necessarily having a grasp for what a friendship is being proposed for.

[Carnut]

Actually I think 'deficient in social skills' is part of the definition of a Nerd.

[Carnut]

Heh, heh, a bit of a personal confession.

In my sophomore biology class where every one was setting at long tables in rows down the room. We received our test results back with the teach, handing out the exams at the end of the table and the students passing them down the table to each student in turn. As it were then the first students would see the scores of the folks on down the line as they passed them by.
Being at the end of the line I would receive my exam last on the table.

I happened to be at a table with some rather popular and good looking ladies adjacent and some more nice gals in the row in back of me.

When the results of a big midterm exam was passed out each gal seemed to take particular interest in my score as the exams were passed by. Then there were looks and huddles and comments with surprised eyeballs looking my way.

This was kind of the end of the 'James Dean/Elvis look' period and I was very much into that style, so I didn't appear to be much of a nerd, just a quiet guy who kept to himself and word was I liked cars.

Anyhow on this day I heard the best compliment I ever had given to me when one of the cuties piped up and said 'geese George, I thought you were just as dumb as the rest of us'.

I had aced the test as usual for me.

[nonesuche]

Nonesuche wrote: Louise, I think the intent of the comment regarding making friends with a nerd was meant as a slam against nerds, therefore promoting using the nerd for your own gain? I don't see that as something smart or admirable.
**********************

I disagree. Obviously the nerd is highly intelligent. Do you think the nerd would let himself/herself be used?

What do you think happens when the student tries to make friends with the nerd? The nerd is going to be very wary. The nerd cannot wave a magic wand and put the answers into the brain of the student.  A friendship has to develop before the nerd teaches the new aquaintance anything. They both have to come to terms and the nerd is not giving out this teaching to every jerk who comes along and tries to make friends.

It is A BRILLIANT IDEA.

Nerds are not stupid and they do not suffer fools nor teach jerks.

Louise,

I just spent the night with three college jocks, I heard more than I'd like to, trust me - some of them use others all the time.

Not all nerds are socially adept or even perceptive, some are just really smart but incapable of sensing their way through situations with street smarts too.

This is my last post in this thread, period.

[nonesuche]

Louise,

Let me clarify my last sentence, my point was I wish I had not stepped into a heated exchange here - I also tend to feel frustration at lecturing my own two on WHY you never use others for your own gain, when so many kids seem to do that with no conscience.

It wasn't directed at you