I can't believe students are going to be punished for this

The problem is the mail fraud.

When I was a kid, a friend of my mother's used to pay my brother and I to ride around on our bikes and deliver flyers to people advertising an aerobics (but not jazzercise) studio. The instruction was simple: Newspaper box, not mailbox.

Their big mistake was using mailboxes.

And maybe it's not like that in other schools, as I did go to a Catholic school. But we were instructed to not celebrate our diplomas else they would be withheld. Schools seem very sensitive about conduct and representation. Of course, this used to be a social standard of properly representing the institutions you partake. But that's gone by the wayside over the last decades. My generation seems to reject it in practice, but I have seen suggestions that the concept is utterly foreign to those about ten years younger than I.

The mailboxes ... that's a hard issue. Misrepresenting the school in a prank ... that's a softer issue and one schools should get used to. But we must also remember that schools in the US are generally set up to stunt innovation and creativity; our education system is not designed to create well-rounded students but rather conforming citizens. So I doubt the schools will lighten up any time soon.
 
You were prohibited to celebrate your diplomas? Yet another thing I don´t understand. Every school has celebrated it here. And only on one celebration a serious brawl took place (new record). Even the catholic schools do celebrate.
My grade had a very big party, about three thousand people and more than 7000 litres of beer were sold....

Anyway, I don´t know if there is a big difference between mailbox and newspaper box. But perhaps you think of that different. Here most people only have one box for newspaper and mail anyway. But hey, different country different behaviour.
 
Throwing your cap, shouting out to your friends, whatever ... we received blank diploma books and they mailed the diplomas a week later. (And then had to re-mail them because somewhere in the B's they made a mistake so the remaining twenty-four letters of the alphabet were sent to the wrong people. I got the diploma for the guy before me in the list.

Cute.

Mailboxes in use are considered property of the U.S. Postal service (even though you buy it ....) Only the mailbox user and the Postal Service are legally allowed access to a mailbox. Oh, and now other parts of the fed, I'm sure. USA-PATRIOT Act and such.

Seriously ... "mailbox baseball" can get you a quarter-million dollar fine and five years in federal prison. Technically, so can putting non-mail items in a mailbox for an intended recipient.
 
Then I can understand it a little bit. I would still laugh about it.

Just because someone throws a prank mail in it..... :rolleyes:
 
But if it was an explosive. or a porn subscription ... then you wouldn't be laughing at it (unless you don't mind recieving a porn subsciption). There are limits to what can be considered a funny prank and a bad one ... even though we can handle a laugh better then most adults.
 
tiassa said:
The problem is the mail fraud.
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In my city a few years back, engineering students took apart a vw beetle and reassembled it on top of a local library, no problem (though technically a dozen laws were broken, everyone laughed). Every year we have a "lady goodiva" ride where a completely nude woman rides around the campus on a white horse (also illegal). Another year, the dean's office was broken into, completely emptied and reassembled exactly - including hanging pictures and electricity - on the lawn outside his office window (engineers again, illegal again). Can you guess what the dean did in response? He laughed and worked the whole day outside (and of course made them return everything perfectly the next day).

I guess my point is this:

There's illegal and ILLEGAL! as much as we might dislike it we know it is true and this case with the kids birthcontrol prank was "illegal"... barely. At THE VERY MOST they should have to pay the school back for the postage (if I read the article correctly they slipped the bogus letters in with the real school correspondence) I think even that's being petty but I could at least call that fair.
 
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Gawdamnit ... that's a minor act of genius, and it's going to get shat all over.

Singularity - I don't think it's so much North American as the United States. I think I've seen Canada on HBO's Real Sex, a program where they take clips of European, Australian, and Canadian softcore what not and broadcast it on a premium channel ... apparently, it's only offensive if it's free.
 
Its obvious why the parents would be angry. Think about it, the letter only brought back the fearful thoughts the parents supress during prom time. That their precious son/daughter might actually engage in sexual activity and might engage in it with some asswipe they don't approve of.

If you were a father with a young albeit hot daughter who was the apple of your eye the last thing you want to think about while looking at her in her prom dress is that she might sucking some loser's dick by the end of the night or having that fucker stick his dirty willy in her. Or that Johnny might knock up someone, and you know Johnny isn't the sharpest crayon in the box so you'll end up getting screwed.

The letter only makes the obvious future more obvious.....prank or not.
 
avoiding the sidetrack of "nipplegate", that was an awesome prank and police shouldnt be involved, the most that the responsible students should get is grounded for a day or 2.
 
Buffys

I don't argue with a word of it. However, I wanted to use this occasion to reiterate:

Tiassa said:

But we must also remember that schools in the US are generally set up to stunt innovation and creativity; our education system is not designed to create well-rounded students but rather conforming citizens. So I doubt the schools will lighten up any time soon.
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Strangely enough, I think that what people are thinking of as common-sense, that this isn't that big a deal, is something quite atrocious to the educational "system."

Start simply: How many of us have been assigned a label and then criticized for it? Even I have written loose statements at Sciforums that encompassed larger segments of a given label (e.g. "Christian") than is, technically, fair. But how is it that we let individual people represent diverse and transitory bodies?

I can't speak for elsewhere around the world, but in the United States the educational "system" is originally designed as a conformist-citizen factory, and not a springboard for innovation. And while educators have broadened their vision over the years and many seek to inspire their students beyond mere test scores and achievement quotas, I don't know that the fundamental purpose of American schools has really changed that much. Watching the headline-and-analysis debate in the local media during the 1990s in Oregon, I got the distinct impression that people expected the schools to teach their children general orthodoxy and set conformist life patterns while developing social functionality at a basic level. Parents at the time didn't seem to want a well-rounded education for their children--e.g. reasonable emphasis on arts and social sciences around the necessary core of literacy, arithmetical faculty, and empirical theory toward abstract problem-solving (or, simply, communication, math, and science). Rather, they seemed to want the schools to focus on math, science, and vocational skills. Specialize the children even younger.

Respect the authority. Respect the herd. Obey. Be all that you can be by not sticking out in the crowd.

And that fundamental purpose needs to change; as it does, one of the last things that will go away from the schools will be the idea that, "You must conduct yourself well because you represent your school and your community, and diminish them by misbehavior."

It's such an appealing idea. Parents use it: "What will the neighbors think? Don't act like that or people will think we're horrible parents!"

Youth church groups, Cub Scouts, youth sports teams, ad nauseam--the idea is reiterated that your conduct represents other people as well. And that's where we learn to assign other people's specific conduct to more diverse and general labels.

And it's also why the schools will be vicious if you f@ck with them like this.

Yes, it sucks. If e'er there was a school administration just asking for toilet paper and cheez-whiz all over the place, this be it.

But that ideology that you do not sully a school's reputation, that fierce irrationality .... it will have to be stomped out of American cultural expectation before it dies.

Lastly, as an open note to school administrators everywhere: How was the year? Anybody get shot or stabbed or raped at your school? And speaking of rape, how many of your female students, do you think, were raped this year by how many of your male students? Hell ... were any of your male students raped by fellow students? How many teachers' cars stolen? Any hands or feet or eyes or teeth blown out in the science lab? Frankly, if your student body burns your ass like this in celebration of their accomplishment, you ought to be thankful that you did such a good job with them.

Hell, I was focusing on the mailboxes. Whoops.
 
Thor said:
What the fuck! Seriously, what the fuck!

Do people not have a sense of humour nowadays? And is it that extreme that it's illegal to have a sense of humour?!
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I think they don't have any anymore. I was threatened with disciplinary actions because I send a funny email (apparently not funny to some) to a student mailing list (A very limited mailing list I must state: only PhD students in a certain building who registered for it - which means maybe 10% of them). One of the wonderful and intelligent students reported it as spam and the computer administration came down on me like crack whore in desperate need of a fix.

people all over the world. I have a message for you:

lighten up. You will die one day and never had any enjoyment out of life.
 
When I read Tiassa´s post, I somehow get the impression that our school system greatly differs from the American one.

At least to a great part.
No one is brought uup to be conform. Most teachers try to make us individuals, who can think and act on and for their own.

I got the distinct impression that people expected the schools to teach their children general orthodoxy and set conformist life patterns while developing social functionality at a basic level.
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Hmm, not in our school system... No one tries to force a student to fit into any kind of pattern. The teachers take the students for what they are: individuals and try to help them to become as much as possible with their individual possibilities.

Respect the authority. Respect the herd. Obey. Be all that you can be by not sticking out in the crowd.
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Interesting. Truth to tell, no one really respects the authority here. And the authority doesn´t really care. At least to some extend.
And here it rather is "be all that you can".

I am happy that I did not have to endure the American school system, from all that i´ve heard it is not really nice.
 
Yep...i get into trouble in some countries because I am the victim of the dutch educational system: no respect for authority whatsoever. You are considered a failure if you conform.


Where did you get your education Dreamwalker?
 
Dream, what about Germany's censorship of most things related to the Nazis? I know that's kinda off the topic, but I've heard of the lead singers of two racist metal bands being imprisoned - one was out on parole, gave the salute, and was arrested here in the States, and is currently awaiting extradition. By and large, I think the way Germany's responded to the Holocaust has been admirable in terms of its honesty, especially in contrast with the denial in Japan, but when you're imprisoning people for expressing their beliefs, how is that helping people to think on their own and how is that not forcing people into a certain pattern?

(Side note: I've also heard Wolfenstein 3-D, this old FPS, has never been released in Germany, due to a preponderance of swastikas, Hitler portraits, and other Nazi paraphenalia. Know anything that about?)

(Side, side note: Vidkun, the first name of Quisling, the Norwegian who served in the Nazi puppet government, has been banned in Norway.)
 
tiassa said:
Throwing your cap, shouting out to your friends, whatever
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Yeah, they threatened us with that too. Part of our 'class gift' from the donations to the class government (forget what they called it) were boxes full of blowup volleyballs.

The only reason it was done is because they made a big stink out of it. Plus, you need something to do when you are sitting there for an hour with them just calling off names.
 
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