<p>Yes, two girls wore bathing suits in the video, as the assignment was to make a video hotel brochure outlining all of the features of the hotel. They wore them when they showed the pool.</p>
<p>What a load of [bathroom material]. The only thing that seems “fraught with problems” to me is the teacher’s, and then the administration’s, zeal to find something with which to demonstrate their vigilance and sanctimony. And suspending kids (a kid?) for what sounds like a good-faith, even if misguided, completion of a class assignment? Great move, educators!</p>
<p>Maybe you didn’t follow the original thread, JHS. And maybe your kids would put bathroom noises in an academic video & you’d applaud that. Or put questionable Russian slang in a French video. Most parents would not be thrilled if their kids had done so. Certainly most teachers and administrators would not consider these cute little tricks to be demonstrating mastery of the French language. If my kids lost their minds long enough to submit such a video, I’d tell them to deal with any consequences.</p>
<p>
Well, I have to say that this is nothing new. When I was in middle school (back in the dark ages, it was called “junior high”), I was new kid in town. I was teased, bullied and attacked mercilessly. When I told my guidance counselor that I was jeered at when I raised my hand, his response was, “So don’t raise your hand.” When I cried, he sent me to the school psychologist. When I told the psychologist what was going on, and she confirmed my story with several teachers (just to see that I wasn’t clinically paranoid!), she told me to get out of her office - that she would be worried about me if I weren’t upset! Still, nothing ever happened to the bullies. It stopped only when I was put in a different “track” the following year.</p>
<p>Everything old is new again.</p>
<p>(Oh, and Cole Porter’s line:
“I get no kick from cocaine.
I’m sure that if
I took even one sniff
It would bore me terrifically too.”)</p>
<p>I remember the original thread fine. It was the kind of stupid assignment I hated when my kids got, but it sounded like the sort of work product the teacher should have expected (and it sounded like they actually worked on it, too). The Russian was a grace note, not the entirety of the video, and frankly kids learning any language at an advanced level should be alive to the ways languages co-exist in our world, n’est-ce pas?</p>
<p>I read a lot of actual French literature, including sometimes French literature for young adults. It has plenty of semi-bathroom humor. If the students did it in good French, I would probably praise them for it. If not, not. If I thought it went too far, I would mark down for that, and say so.</p>
<p>Well there are times when “blue ribbon suburban” schools get freaked out for the smallest things and you want to say, “have you been around lately?” When we’d just moved to town and S was a few weeks into 9th grade in a new district, so unknown what kind of (good!) kid he was, he handed in his excuse note to the attendance officer after returning from a week longdistance at my dad’s funeral.</p>
<p>When she told him the excuse note was no good, so he thought he’d be held responsible for every missed exam and get zeros and lose his chance to go to college ever…(that’s how kids think who don’t know the systems…), he says he crumpled the paper, turned to exit the room, and with back to attendance officer said, "Sonofab**ch.</p>
<p>Next thing I knew, I was called at school to be told he would be suspended for a week at an alternative school for kids too disruptive to be in their regular schools, because he had "verbally assaulted a school officer (attendance officer’s report wrote up, “he called me a b**ch and littered the room.”) My silly kid threw the note angrily at the wastebasket by the door as he left, and MISSED. No slam-dunk, no luck at all.
He picked up the paper and put it into the can, then left. </p>
<p>H diplomatically spoke to principal who checked and saw “no prior offenses.” Also when S had been called in to principal he’d been “contrite” which the principal appreciated. S told me later he was sorry, tired and frustrated, so meant to curse the whole situation, not the person. I told him, “cursing aloud isn’t acceptable anywhere in public, and that’s where you caused yourself grief.” </p>
<p>Principal reduced S’s punishment to 2-days inschool suspension with the promise it wouldn’t go on his permanent record if he didn’t re-offend.</p>
<p>We told S to carry out this punishment because indeed he should not be
cursing aloud anywhere in public (our values, too). We did not ask him to apologize to the attendance officer, which was a great relief to him. He said if we’d made him utter a false apology, he didn’t know what he’d do as he’d also been taught not to tell lies.</p>
<p>So that was it. To me it seemed the original punishment was much too large for the infraction committed. When there is a disciplinary path, some people funnel kids right into it. I appreciate the principal, actually. A problem with “zero tolerance policies” is it deprives administrators from being able to address such reports on a case-by-case basis, which is how he handled it. In general, this was a great school-- once we got to know each other better.</p>
<p>Cursing isn’t part of one’s right to free speech, but the jump-to-the-ceiling reaction of the attendance officer was ridiculous. Also, she lied and exaggerated in her report. Maybe she didn’t have ENOUGH to do in that blue-ribbon district.</p>
<p>well, I gotta tell you (and hang in here with me)… I remember a story my D told me one year when she was in the classroom doing video editing, when demonstration speeches were going on in an adjoining room, and kids were invited to come watch one that, word had gotten around was going to be hilarious.</p>
<p>Use your imagination here… the kid did a demonstration speech on how to put on a condom - it involved playing some Barry White music, a large garbage bag, a couple of wigs, a couple of balloons, and the boy himself started his demonstration sort of bent over, and as the music progressed, he began to become more upright, with all the proper props in place. He enlisted a classmate to follow his instructions on how to put the garbage bag over him at the right moment, etc.</p>
<p>As my daughter told me this story, I had some very different reactions… first - oh my gosh, I wish I would have been there to see this - just to hear the Barry White music (can’t recall that one particular song’s name, but you’ve all heard it). Then I thought what an awkward situation the speech teacher must have been in. This one speech alone probably will prevent some teen pregnancies down the road, much more so than what kids might have learned in a sex ed class.</p>
<p>So a couple of weeks later, I run into this kids mother at Dairy Queen and began to congratulate her on a job well done by her son, and let’s just say, she didn’t know about it. Now this was a ‘respectable’ family in the community, very involved in church, community, sports, etc. Her reaction was pretty much the same as mine - wanting to congratulate her kid for being original and creative (he did get an A for the speech), but kind of being horrified.</p>
<p>Maybe this is off topic, but it just goes to show you that if kids want to be sensual in school, they’ll find a way around all the rules!</p>
<p>LOL!! That’s great! Why should something like that be punished? But I assure you in my D’s school it would have, with a 0 and suspension. Another interesting note: D just informed me that in health class this year they are showing a birth with a closeup of the episiotomy being performed. I have no problem with that, because I can’t think of a better way to encourage safe sex, but wow! That’s the same school in which kids can’t show kissing in a video.</p>
<p>Four years ago a senior boy (who had never been in any trouble) at our school decided to streak across the football field at halftime when we were playing our big cross-town rival school. He thought it would be a great prank.
All of our students thought it was hilarious. </p>
<p>He was arrested and and expelled from school. </p>
<p>Most thought he should have been suspended but not expelled considering our school is full of kids with criminal convictions. One kid even came to to S’s football practice this summer wearing an ankle monitor clamped on his leg because he had been arrested and was on house arrest except for attending school!</p>
<p>I have never even heard of such a thing happening in our “blue ribbon” high school when it came to the filmmaking process - content, dialogue, scenes, etc. S had quite a bit of artistic freedom, and his work was taken very seriously and was well-respected by the school staff including the administration. I can’t imagine it being otherwise. There could have been some controversial aspects/situations/scenes in the films, but it never got out of context. If S had made that very same film that was referred to in the original post, I’m sure that he would have made sure that it was taken very seriously - even if it was meant to be a spoof of something. He a;ways had an excellent repoire with the members of the school community, so it wouldn’t have been an issue. If there was a question with reference to the content of the film, he would just take the time to explain it in such a way that it always worked out, even if that meant having to reassure someone about a certain scene, dialogue, etc. In this case, he was working on full-length features, so they were full-scale productions encompassing everything from him having to deal with the legal issues, getting permisison from certain sources, etc. It was quite a hugh undertaking to say the least.</p>