12 replies to this topic

[^Leo^]

A high school track and field team should just be there for having fun right? Sure some people are going to take it seriously, but for the most part the members are there because they enjoy running or jumping. A friend of mine joined the track team to do only shot put and discus because he knew very well he was too big to run like the others. It just wasn't possible for him to keep up even in practice, so he focused on throwing. The coach decided not to let him go to any meets. He wouldn't even let the kid come just to watch. Other people went to watch without a problem, but not this kid. So the other members of the team finally got fed up with it, and refused to go to any meets. The school kicked my friend off the team because he was "a bad influence causing other students to be insubordinate". The coach wasn't even talked to about his behavior even after the rest of the track team brought it up to the school.

THE STUDENTS USED NONVIOLENT MEANS TO PROTEST UNFAIR TREATMENT. That's exactly what the schools teach, and yet when the students did it, they were suspended. Why? Why do they teach something only to punish its use?

[Mercurius]

Schools are only interested in telling you to do that in order to avoid negative attention toward their school. It makes sense that as long as nothing bad enough to them happens they shouldn't bother to put the effort into spending attention toward it.

 

Have you heard teachers tell you that school is basically an imitation society to train you for the real world? They are wrong, it isn't an imitation society. It is a real society. It's not training you for the real world. It IS the real world. Anything making this less of what adults have to deal with is mostly due to how the government makes this more of the parents' responsibility than the child's own.

 

And just like a real society, the higher ups are human beings, who don't really care enough to fix the problem if it doesn't meet their needs to do so. The keyword is "needs", the members of the team refusing to go to these meets most likely caused more publicity than the coach being unfair to your friend, so it's better to keep them away for now so that they realize they should continue to contribute to society(school) rather than make these kinds of protests. It's better to keep them as powerless as possible, they are just there to do their jobs, not to deal with this kind of strange behavior from students. Think about the problems that could be involved in punishing the coach, who is a far more permanent member than the hundreds(guessing) of students who are only there by obligation. It makes a lot more sense to just keep the students from becoming meaningful.

 

Think about the news. There was this one article (including a video) about a woman going up to a table of a...banker, I think. She did nothing in particular that would bring long-term harm, besides how the offended would most likely lose some level of respect for reacting like a coward instead of remaining totally composed. But it was still enough to warrant being news, because this kind of occurrence is rare enough to bother bringing it publicity, because in general, you're not really supposed to grow enough of a spine to disrupt society. (Unless you want to be a journalist. Your main job is to do so in that case, albeit within limits nonetheless.)

[Rujio]

I assume school's basically over for you, but in case it isn't, I think the best way for the kids to deal with this would be to continue to not show up to meets. I dunno, maybe you could try getting the story to a local news agency or something, too, but still I think demonstrating to the school that what they did didn't fix the problem would be the best way to go.

[^Leo^]

it's over now yeah, but this happened almost 4 months ago. i just hadn't had the chance to talk to any of the people from the track team since i moved to a different state. taking to the news now would be a complete waste of time. unfortunately the students were warned that if they did anything else like that to retaliate they would all be suspended again, and if they kept it up after that they would be put in an alternative school. basically it comes down to the coach having more influence than the students, so whatever he says is going to be what the administration believe regardless of what actually happened. i'm sure there's parts of this i'm missing as well since i can't talk to the coach, but honestly he's an asshole so i'd probably ignore half of what he said anyway. also i did find out the coach had his position as an advisor revoked(basically he had to start doing his job as a teacher after this instead of just being a coach), so it's not like nothing was done about it like i thought. really though making someone do their job isn't really a good punishment since he should have been doing that anyway.

Edit: I know that people aren't supposed to go against society, but when something is wrong with society then it warrants change. If you think of this as a microsystem then it's pretty clear that a change in society was necessary. It just didn't happen.

[Mercurius]

The change in society isn't necessary at all. It only becomes necessary when the people in charge and others around them are threatened too much by it. What they did to demote the coach wasn't necessary either, but since what they did doesn't even really change the situation, it was a choice they bothered to make. To some level it helps their reputation without having a meaningful cost.

[Fire Blazer]

A high school track and field team should just be there for having fun right? Sure some people are going to take it seriously, but for the most part the members are there because they enjoy running or jumping. A friend of mine joined the track team to do only shot put and discus because he knew very well he was too big to run like the others. It just wasn't possible for him to keep up even in practice, so he focused on throwing. The coach decided not to let him go to any meets. He wouldn't even let the kid come just to watch. Other people went to watch without a problem, but not this kid. So the other members of the team finally got fed up with it, and refused to go to any meets. The school kicked my friend off the team because he was "a bad influence causing other students to be insubordinate". The coach wasn't even talked to about his behavior even after the rest of the track team brought it up to the school.

THE STUDENTS USED NONVIOLENT MEANS TO PROTEST UNFAIR TREATMENT. That's exactly what the schools teach, and yet when the students did it, they were suspended. Why? Why do they teach something only to punish its use?

 

it's over now yeah, but this happened almost 4 months ago. i just hadn't had the chance to talk to any of the people from the track team since i moved to a different state. taking to the news now would be a complete waste of time. unfortunately the students were warned that if they did anything else like that to retaliate they would all be suspended again, and if they kept it up after that they would be put in an alternative school. basically it comes down to the coach having more influence than the students, so whatever he says is going to be what the administration believe regardless of what actually happened. i'm sure there's parts of this i'm missing as well since i can't talk to the coach, but honestly he's an asshole so i'd probably ignore half of what he said anyway. also i did find out the coach had his position as an advisor revoked(basically he had to start doing his job as a teacher after this instead of just being a coach), so it's not like nothing was done about it like i thought. really though making someone do their job isn't really a good punishment since he should have been doing that anyway.

Edit: I know that people aren't supposed to go against society, but when something is wrong with society then it warrants change. If you think of this as a microsystem then it's pretty clear that a change in society was necessary. It just didn't happen.

 

that is freaking awful, I completely agree that it's b.s., that is just... wow, I totally would have been one of the people who didn't show up to the track meets and got suspended, I mean that is absolute garbage and that coach deserves to be fired and it should have hit the news and something should have been done, ugh it really upsets me that someone got away with that... that is just... freaking awful, UGHHHH, SCREW PEOPLE I HATE HUMANS SOMETIMES AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh

 

...

 

...

 

*deep breath/sigh*

 

ok I'm ok now, I'm ok

 

so yeah, just reading about that got me really riled up. I can't even imagine how it must have felt for you and the people actually involved. and there was no real resolution, it sounds like they just... won. what happened to the coach was practically nothing IMO.

 

 

a change in society was necessary. It just didn't happen.

 

kinda this

 

(I don't really agree with Merc's assessment but eh)

 

idk

 

I just want to give that coach a right and a left and an uppercut lol

 

or well, have someone do it. it's not really my problem so I'd just be happy knowing someone who actually suffered from it got some kind of retribution, lol

[^Leo^]

I just want to give that coach a right and a left and an uppercut lol
 

Yeah had I been there at the time this may have happened. Maybe not quite like that...he's kind of a big guy so I'd go after his knees personally. Either way I'd have been expelled for sure if I had been there.

[Mercurius]

Violence: Not the best solution, but the most satisfying.

[^Leo^]

Damn right it is. Walking away might make you the better person, but I'd rather make it exceedingly clear just how pissed off I am.

[Fire Blazer]

Yeah had I been there at the time this may have happened. Maybe not quite like that...he's kind of a big guy so I'd go after his knees personally. Either way I'd have been expelled for sure if I had been there.

 

Violence: Not the best solution, but the most satisfying.

 

Damn right it is. Walking away might make you the better person, but I'd rather make it exceedingly clear just how pissed off I am.

 

+5 respect for zac

 

and honestly violence isn't always the most satisfying (after all it could be considered stooping down to one's level/a poor way of expressing oneself) but it's definitely one way of getting things out. personally I only think to resort to violence in extreeeme situations where I or someone close to me have/has been wronged, really... otherwise, like I said, I'd rather someone who has more of a reason to do the violent stuff (e.g. it upsets me, but the actual guy who wasn't allowed to go to track meets was way more justified in wanting to punch the coach than me, so if given the choice, I'd rather him do it, lol)

[Mercurius]

What do you gain from walking away, but a conceited satisfaction over your superiority merely for doing nothing about it? The real benefit is in simply not dealing with the risk. It's something people who can't do anything about it tell themselves(and others) so they can feel better about their powerlessness and forget it ever happened. Think about it: "I didn't do anything about it. ISN'T THAT GREAT? Man, I'm so mature, trivializing my experiences and not personally disrupting the status quo."

 

"Stooping down to the villain's level", this kind of sentiment only exists in someone that looks down on others to feel better about themselves. As better off as they may be for being that kind of person...I can't see any reason to find it worthy of respect.

[^Leo^]

"Conceited satisfaction over your own superiority" that phrase right there is exactly why people want to "be the better person". It has nothing to do with doing the right thing in most cases. From what I see it's either cowardice or condescension. People don't want to stoop down to violence because they've been taught that all violence is wrong regardless of the reason. I say if you're protecting something important then being violent is justified...to a certain extent.

[kirant]

If I may play Devil's Advocate for a second.

 

 

There we go.  Now where were we?  As a starter, I'm not a fan of how the school acted. 

 

That said, I think this may come down to a difference in approach to this topic.  My junior/senior high school (it was a merged school so I went to the same place for 6 years) always had competitive high school track and field teams.  The talk of fair and equal representation occurred in the first three years while our inter-school competitions fielded competitively.  The only times I've heard that students entered without competition were on teams too small to take anybody but.

 

I mean, I watched one of the high school basketball games.  It ended up with fairly uneven playing time and my friend played something like 10 minutes out of 40 on a team of something like 7 players.

 

(By the way, it didn't fix anything.  The school is so small all our teams sucked anyways.  It's just reference that high school teams aren't always just "fun and games")

 

On the main topic though...preaching non-violence does not mean not retaliating against any non-violent opposition.  There's nothing logically which states that they must not non-violently punish someone which broke their rules non-violently.  I mean, if you say "Let's use our words here, not our fists" and I turned around and said "F*** you", is it wrong for you to say "I am hereby banning you from my house"?.  Nothing by strict definition breaks the rule you state in the punishment you dole.  A bit of an overreaction?  Maybe depending on the circumstance.  But nothing that breaks the first statement.

 

Have you heard teachers tell you that school is basically an imitation society to train you for the real world? They are wrong, it isn't an imitation society. It is a real society. It's not training you for the real world. It IS the real world. Anything making this less of what adults have to deal with is mostly due to how the government makes this more of the parents' responsibility than the child's own.

I've never heard it used for that scope.  The reason people often argue that school is "imitation" society is that your punishments are less severe.  Screw up a test in school?  Worst thing you get is a failure.  You are required to have access to as many tries as you'd like for grade scchooling.  Cheat on something elsewhere?  People are depending on you.  Let's say you're a structural engineer.  You screw up?  Boom, bridge collapses.  People die.

 

The social aspect is certainly a real and operating society with its own hierarchies and tendencies but the aspect they talk to you about as imitation typically refers to your professional performance since you are virtually incapable of harming another or letting those who are counting on you down.  Cheating or outside pressures notwithstanding.

 

 

On the topic of violence/non-violence, I stand very close to Asimov's oft loved line that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.  It only exists as a way to express ourselves when all else fails.  You physically threaten me because you can't find the words to describe it any longer.  We riot because nobody listens otherwise.  We engage in war because diplomacy failed us.  You fight back because words no longer have effect.  Few revel in violence but few also deny its savage efficiency.