Sorry he asked
Paula
phone call from a high school aged kid who says he needs to make an
appointment because he was suspended. I'm thinking he must have been
told he needs to enroll in one of our anger management courses, which
I now teach because one of my conditions for taking the office job was
that I be able to still do some actual counseling work. He is in 12th
grade.
High school kid: I don't think I need to sign up for anger management
classes. They just said I need to make an appointment with my
counselor.
Me (still trying to find out why he called me instead of the counselor
who works at his school): What were you suspended for?
HSK: Possession of contraband at school.
Me: What did you have on you? (I'm still thinking this has to be
anger management related, so maybe it was something violence or racism
related)
HSK: Some cigarettes, a lighter and some marijuana.
Me: Did you say you are in 12th grade?
HSK: Yeah.
Me: So you only have to hang in there for a few more months to get
out of there with a diploma and you risked it on some cigarettes and
weed? That was pretty stupid.
HSK: Um, yeah, I guess it was. (I can hear the "What kind of
authority figure are you, anyway?" in his voice)
Me: Well, if you can't give up smoking, at least be smart enough to
keep it away from school.
HSK: Okay.
Me: I'll leave a message for the counselor who works at your school
that you want to make an appointment to talk to him. Will you be back
from your suspension by Thursday?
HSK: I go back next Tuesday.
Me: Okay, if he doesn't get in touch with you when he's back at your
school next Thursday, tell your regular counselor you want to see the
outreach counselor then.
HSK: Okay.
Me: And try to stay out of trouble in the meantime.
HSK (laughing): I think I can stay out of trouble for a couple days.
Me: That's good. I don't want to have to go all the way out there to
kick your ass or anything, but I do hate stupidity.
--
Paula
"Anyway, other people are weird, but sometimes they have candy,
so it's best to try to get along with them." Joe Bay
Lots42
> So I'm at work today kind of missing my play-doh days when I get a
> phone call from a high school aged kid who says he needs to make an
> appointment because he was suspended. I'm thinking he must have been
> told he needs to enroll in one of our anger management courses, which
I wish my school had been cool enough to have anger management
courses. Of course, they still probably would have screwed it up by
having the bully and the kid he beat up attend the same class because
both 'fought'.
And fought is in scare quotes because self defense should be rewarded,
not punished.
Paula
>On Sep 22, 12:55 am, Paula <mmmtobler...@earthlink.ent> wrote:
>> So I'm at work today kind of missing my play-doh days when I get a
>> phone call from a high school aged kid who says he needs to make an
>> appointment because he was suspended. I'm thinking he must have been
>> told he needs to enroll in one of our anger management courses, which
>
>I wish my school had been cool enough to have anger management
>courses. Of course, they still probably would have screwed it up by
>having the bully and the kid he beat up attend the same class because
>both 'fought'.
Anger management courses are all the rage these days. The courts like
to order people to anger management and victim awareness courses. Back
in the day, kids were smart enough to at least act compliant when in
front of the judge. Times have changed and now all the kiddies who
show up in court for even petty crimes are being ordered to anger
management.
One of the cardinal rules of anger management courses is to be very
careful who you put in the same group. Many of the people who see
money making opportunities stemming from all these anger management
orders are not all that concerned about the specifics. Whoever signs
up is put in the next group to start up without getting to know them
first. Schools are notorious for also cutting corners in this way. My
agency even did some of this before I took over. All people who
subscribed to that school of thought have now been executed or
reassigned.
We are currently setting up anger management courses for high
functioning autistic and MR adolescents. For some reason, the
schools' anger management programs that lump them in with all the
other angry teens doesn't work out that well for the teens with autism
or mental retardation. Who woulda thought that would be a problem?!
Glenn Knickerbocker
>having the bully and the kid he beat up attend the same class because
>both 'fought'.
We didn't get classes, we got private one-on-one-on-one sessions where he
sat there being studiously civil and pretended he had no idea why the bus
driver thought he had to sit up front where he could keep an eye on him.
>And fought is in scare quotes because
"swung and missed" really isn't the same thing.
http://users.bestweb.net/~notr/arkville.html "I felt like I was in a
ŹR demented Wallace Stevens poem, with food poisoning." Spalding Gray
Chris McGonnell
In my day, ya kneed the bully in the nuts and sometimes ya fought
after school OFF SCHOOL PROPERTY. After 9th grade, bullies became
extinct. Being 6' 1" and beating up a guy so he missed the next three
days of school may have hastened this sxtinction.
--
Chris McG.
Harming humanity since 1951.
"Well now you're just getting SILLY." -- Darla
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Lots42
> On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 09:22:02 -0000, Lots42 wrote:
> >having the bully and the kid he beat up attend the same class because
> >both 'fought'.
>
> We didn't get classes, we got private one-on-one-on-one sessions where he
> sat there being studiously civil and pretended he had no idea why the bus
> driver thought he had to sit up front where he could keep an eye on him.
Even my high school wasn't that far gone.
> >And fought is in scare quotes because
>
> "swung and missed" really isn't the same thing.
I learned 'that day' that I didn't mention in this thread that high
school management are morons. I reported that my fist connected with
his eyebrows, because hey, that is what happened. I still got
suspension/punishment, yet I was the one who got a goose egg the size
of Manhattan, blurry vision and needed an escort to the nurse's
office. I was probably lucky the office was so damn close.
Never learned what exactly happened to the psychopath who hit me but
every year or so I put his name into Google to see if he got run over
or arrested.
Lots42
wrote:
> In my day, ya kneed the bully in the nuts and sometimes ya fought
> after school OFF SCHOOL PROPERTY. After 9th grade, bullies became
> extinct. Being 6' 1" and beating up a guy so he missed the next three
> days of school may have hastened this sxtinction.
>
> --
> Chris McG.
Off school property? Hah! The psychopaths I dealt with probably
couldn't even SPELL 'property'. But socking them a few good ones
tended to make them back off.
I wasn't -too- concerned about repercussions. Detention consisted of
sitting in a small room and reading novels. SERIOUSLY. We were allowed
to sit quietly and read books we brought from home. I grew up in a
Catholic household. Forced quiet and thus reading in peace was HEAVEN.
Adam Funk
> Anger management courses are all the rage these days.
Bah-doom-pah!
--
History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of
urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.
[Thurgood Marshall]
Chris McGonnell
Because I had to travel 20 miles into Olean, NY, to attend Catholic
high school, I was excused from detention. I did have to turn in a
handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence. By my sophomore
year I knew what paragraphs I could skip without the Prefect of
Discipline catching on.
Doctroid
Chris McGonnell <smea...@notthis.verizon.net> wrote:
> Because I had to travel 20 miles into Olean, NY, to attend Catholic
> high school, I was excused from detention. I did have to turn in a
> handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence. By my sophomore
> year I knew what paragraphs I could skip without the Prefect of
> Discipline catching on.
Never mind what you skipped, I want to know what grievances you added.
--
- Doctroid Doctroid Holmes
It's too confused to make sense, so let's make nonsense.
-- Chris McG.
Darla Vladschyk
<smea...@notthis.verizon.net> wrote:
>Because I had to travel 20 miles into Olean, NY, to attend Catholic
>high school...
Really? I have relatives in Angelica. Even been there?
[Shout out to my aunt and uncle]
Darla
Nova Scotia, Canada
--
"I'm still here, you bastards!"
---Papillon
Otto Bahn
> > Because I had to travel 20 miles into Olean, NY, to attend Catholic
> > high school, I was excused from detention. I did have to turn in a
> > handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence. By my sophomore
> > year I knew what paragraphs I could skip without the Prefect of
> > Discipline catching on.
>
> Never mind what you skipped, I want to know what grievances you added.
Tofu hot dogs.
--oTTo--
TimC
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> Because I had to travel 20 miles into Olean, NY, to attend Catholic
> high school, I was excused from detention. I did have to turn in a
> handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence. By my sophomore
> year I knew what paragraphs I could skip without the Prefect of
> Discipline catching on.
Prefect of Discpiline:
Good band or house of ill-repute name.
--
TimC
You can't tuna fish, but you can put tuna on a piano.
Chris McGonnell
>On 2007-09-24, Chris McGonnell (aka Bruce)
> was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
>> Because I had to travel 20 miles into Olean, NY, to attend Catholic
>> high school, I was excused from detention. I did have to turn in a
>> handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence. By my sophomore
>> year I knew what paragraphs I could skip without the Prefect of
>> Discipline catching on.
>
>Prefect of Discpiline:
>
>Good band or house of ill-repute name.
Somebody must've named a band Ill-Repute by now.
Jacob W. Haller
> In my day, ya kneed the bully in the nuts and sometimes ya fought
> after school OFF SCHOOL PROPERTY. After 9th grade, bullies became
> extinct.
Jeez, man, how many did you kill? (Although depending on the lifecycle
of bullies I suppose you could have just rendered them sterile somehow.)
-jwgh
--
"'God damn, this banjo will make a club!'"
-- John Brunner, _No Other Gods But Me_ (1966)
Chris McGonnell
>Chris McGonnell <smea...@notthis.verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> In my day, ya kneed the bully in the nuts and sometimes ya fought
>> after school OFF SCHOOL PROPERTY. After 9th grade, bullies became
>> extinct.
>
>Jeez, man, how many did you kill? (Although depending on the lifecycle
>of bullies I suppose you could have just rendered them sterile somehow.)
I mentioned how I would treat anyone who bullied another kid, and
somehow the bullying stopped at least until June 22, 1969. Even Lots42
would have walked in safety down those halls.