News Firebomb Attack on German School

[Andy44]

About uniforms: I went to a school which required uniforms. I can say with certainty that the myth of uniforms masking who is wealthy and who is not is flatly false. Uniform or not, you only have to be in a room with a bunch of other kids for a few hours before you figure out what the batting order is. That said, it does help a little to "put everyone in the same boat" so to speak.

Earlier in the thread Urwumpe mentioned cowardice, Eagle mentioned self-respect, and Ohmra mentioned "bravery and a Colt". Good points, all, and all are linked.

You guys all know I am rabidly in support of the right to keep and bear arms, but before you have the Colt you have to have the bravery, first.

And in order to have the bravery, you need to have self-respect and a sense of self-worth, along with a corresponding respect for the lives and dignity of other people.

Modern society is, in my opinion, structured counter to this. The combination of a fairly comfortable lifestyle, public officials who tell us not to take action but rather to let the professionals do it for us, and an educational institution which treats teenagers as if they're stupid, along with a general failure to teach people to grow up.

People have a right to defend themselves, of course. But if you want to put an end to these crazy killing sprees you need to fix a lot more than just some gun laws. You need to ask why a healthy teen with a comfortable life is so lost in despair and narcisism, so hopeless, that he could commit such a pointless act.

I had until recently thought this to be a mostly American phenomenon, but I see it is occurring with increasing frequency in other Western nations now. It obviously has little to do with the diverse laws; find the common threads of culture to find the common causes.

 

[Ark]

These aren't perfectly healthy teens with comfortable lives. They often have extremely crappy lives or serious existing mental health problems that have been willfully ignored by everyone around them. Most people are too absorbed in their own dramas to notice the warning signs in others, and the ones that do generally don't want anything to do with them. People don't decide to do these things overnight, it takes years of stewing mental issues under the noses of everyone else.

When Columbine first happened, it was like a public Rorschach test. Everyone looked at it and blamed something they already disliked. Music, video games, school, parents, society, etc. The truth, as it was eventually discovered, was pretty simple: They were batsh*t insane. They were completely and totally nuts. Wanna know my theory why this seems to be happening more often now than in, say, the 60s? Because the population of the world has doubled, so at bare minimum there are going to be twice as many of these people. That's never going to change, there will always be a certain number of people that are totally nuts.

The thing we can do about it is to stop ignoring the people around us and learn to do something to head these things off years in advance. And by "do something" I do NOT mean pump them full of drugs and lock them in a mental institution for a few decades, which is one of our favorite ways of dealing with people that make us uncomfortable.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, the invention of the word "Childhood" does not take away the fact that it initially was used to descripe the period of being unable to walk and talk. It was used to descripe the period of being dependent. Unable to live on its own. As soon as children could walk and talk, they were treated like adults and not rarely even treated as replaceable cattle. Education was not something for children just as for the majority of non-aristocratic people.

Again: http://www.ehs.org.uk/society/pdfs/Hendrick 15a.pdf

I can't say it often enough. If we would always limit ourself to what we know in 1961, 16384 words is enough RAM for a computer.

Also you don't include the distinction between slavery, commons and citizens in your historical view. Slaves had no age limits, you have historically never been too young to be slave. commons and citizens instead had protected childhood, also both legal traditions for Germany have separate treatments of children and adults (Roman code civil and Germanic law)

---------- Post added at 11:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:01 AM ----------

I had until recently thought this to be a mostly American phenomenon, but I see it is occurring with increasing frequency in other Western nations now. It obviously has little to do with the diverse laws; find the common threads of culture to find the common causes.

http://www.spreekillers.org/index.html

Look at the dates and see the truth.

 

[Ghostrider]

you have historically never been too young to be slave.

The more things change, the more things stay the same...

 

[Urwumpe]

The more things change, the more things stay the same...

I didn't intend to express it that way, but yes, you are right.

 

[T.Neo]

Yes, that's nice, but the purpose of our schools is to teach students about the intellectual things, not the social things. It's the job of the parents to teach the students about the social things. Having those things in schools distracts from learning the things that schools are there to teach.

And a good deal of parents either couldn't care, or don't have the time to "teach" their kids anything. Btw, social skills are something you learn, from experience, not something that can be taught to you.

Indeed, and many students learn how to be bullied and ostracized because their parents aren't rich, or feel inferior because they don't have a boyfriend.

Firstly, kids are going to be interested in romantic relationships anyway- that has nothing to do with being in a co-ed environment.

And as Andy44 said, kids figure out who is rich or not regardless. And remember, kids are mean- they'll find reasons to pick on and bully each other anyway.

Beyond the earliest grade levels, teaching social interactions is not the primary purpose of the schooling system. Having (very often negative) social interactions at school distracts from the primary purpose and can make for a very difficult time learning the material.

Forcing children to wear uniforms and segregating gender will not remove social interactions. The only way you are going to eliminate social interactions, is if you prohibit any contact between children. Which is nonsense.

And very little useful information is learned (or retained) at school. Any real "education" either occurs in early primary education (i.e, reading and arithmatic) or in tertiary education.

And often children have a tough time "learning" regardless, because either the teacher is not teaching the class properly, or because the curriculum is badly put together.

You know, you're right.
We should allow toddlers to drink, smoke, and drive cars.

That is why I said within reason- and after all, there are many adults who shouldn't be driving anyway. :lol:

You obviously don't seem to be able to realize the differences bewteen childhood and being adult.

Yes I do. As a child, you are shorter, have a prepubescent body shape, and a higher voice.

But seriously, treating a child as subhuman is simply wrong. There is no legitimate reason why children should be treated in the sometimes atrocious manner that they often are.

 

[tblaxland]

And very little useful information is learned (or retained) at school. Any real "education" either occurs in early primary education (i.e, reading and arithmatic) or in tertiary education.

I'm not quite sure where you draw the lines between primary, secondary and tertiary education, but I beg to differ. A brief list of things learnt in secondary school (age 12-17) that I use regularly:

1. Mathematics - algebra, trigonometry and complex numbers most notably, but many others.
2. Physics - Newtonian mechanics (not just for Orbiter )
3. English - structured writing
4. Electronics - alternating current electrical circuit dynamics
5. Basic computer language skills

There are many others, not to mention the things I learnt that allowed me to complete an electrical engineering degree. Each stage of education was a gradual building on what came before, and I use large parts of all stages.

 

[T.Neo]

I'm not quite sure where you draw the lines between primary, secondary and tertiary education, but I beg to differ.

In SA, primary education begins at grade 1, and ends at grade 7. Grades 8 to 12 are secondary education. Tertiary education is undertaken at a college or university.

1. Mathematics - algebra, trigonometry and complex numbers most notably, but many others.
2. Physics - Newtonian mechanics (not just for Orbiter )
3. English - structured writing
4. Electronics - alternating current electrical circuit dynamics
5. Basic computer language skills

I learned those things too, btw. But in my own time when they related to something I was interested in, not at school. Heck, computer classes at school were a joke.

But I can say, however, that trigonometry and algebra have long left my brain- that is, if they ever entered it.

There are many others, not to mention the things I learnt that allowed me to complete an electrical engineering degree. Each stage of education was a gradual building on what came before, and I use large parts of all stages.

Yeah, everyone's experience in school differs- I utterly hated it, but I've heard that others had great enjoyment in school, and even used it as a refuge from family life.

I've met many people who were "educated", and had graduated, but lack simple language skills that I learned in my own time, after school. So just because you had a good experience in school, does not mean it works for everyone (or that it works well)- the same goes for someone who has had a very bad experience with education.