The kids in the San Jose school district ruined the Bathroom Pass!
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They scraped off the paint to turn it into "DAT ASS". :)
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I won't even snap a picture of what they wrote on the backside.
As you may recall, I was helping a San Jose high school teacher who needed a large bathroom pass so that she could insure (a) that only one student left the room at a time, and (b) it was clear to everyone what they were doing at all times, and (c) it was clear from a glance from anywhere in the classroom that a student was out with the pass, and (d) the pass didn't get easily lost or misplaced by the students.
I had never routed anything, so, I chose to use spray-paint stencils.
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The stencil kit I bought was too large, so, I then printed the fonts:
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I had then cut the letters out and reinforced them with clear tape:
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Then I spray painted the letters onto a spare yard-long pine board:
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It wasn't pretty, but, it seemed (at first) to do the job for her:
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But, one by one, the kids scraped off the letters to spell DAT ASS: And, they carved and wrote gang graffiti on the back of the board.
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So, I sanded off the carvings, and then spray painted the whole thing black (to discourage graffiti), and put the original printed template back on the board:
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I then routed (is that a verb?), by hand, the letters, 3/8" deep:
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I was actually very surprised I could route along the stencil fonts:
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The result isn't all that pretty, but here is what it looked like:
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After sanding and cleaning it up a bit, it looked like this:
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The letters, with only one pass of the router, were pretty rough:
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Let's see what the little San Jose vandals do with this new attempt! :)
Stormin Mormon wrote, on Mon, 27 Oct 2014 03:05:09 -0400:
It's funny, but, apparently the teacher didn't want to tell me that the spray-painted letters didn't last a week at the school.
She thought I would be upset.
I took it as a challenge, to see if I could keep a bunch of high-school hoodlums at bay. You can't defeat them, but, you can make it hard for them.
So, with the letters now deeply routered (is that a verb?), and the knife marks in the back sanded out, and the back painted black so that the gang graffiti is covered, I think I just made it a bit harder for them to vandalize it.
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Of course, the teacher told me they unscrewed her desk and hid it two classes down the hall, so, they're formidable opponents.
But, they are kids, after all, and so, I hope that by the end of the year, I'll have a system (titanium perhaps?) that they can't deface!
Oddly enough, I agree with the Storming guy this time. A school is supposed to teach children so they become responsible adults. It's not an assault class where the medal goes to the one that breaks the most "laws". New pass. Anyone altering it in even the tiniest way gets punished. No exceptions. []'s
Ideally, the kids are supposed to be learning obedience to law, and some other things like that. If they are defacing the potty pass, maybe they can hold it till class is over? Are these illegal non citizens who started their visit to our country by violating the border laws?
I'm not encouraged when our border agencies permit such incredible disrespect for law.
Sigh. Your reputation is forever destroyed, having agreed with a religious whack job right winger dinger. You'd better vote twice in the election, to begin to repair the damage.
Historically, [may be urban myth] first generation border crossing people make better citizens than residents.
More likely, these children are raised without any concept of accountability. The thought process is that any action that is not 'caught' is allowed, simply by definition. There is no higher concept of accountability. No love of righteousness. They are actually 'practicing' the principles they'll use in adulthood by emulating the examples constantly being shown to them by the 'adults' who should know better.
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 06:21:24 +0000 (UTC), "Danny D." wrote in
Since they abused the pass, then no one gets to go the the bathroom. They all have to go in their pants, and then get sent home to change. If they don't come back, no loss.
RobertMacy wrote, on Mon, 27 Oct 2014 05:38:54 -0700:
I think it's a small percentage of the overall class, and, I think, over time, this dissatisfied percentage falls out of the system, either as dropouts, or failures.
I'm sorry about that Oren. Unless you're happy about it. School isn't for all kids, especially the kind of kid who likes to do it his own way, and the ones who don't like sitting down at a desk for 180 days in a row.
John Paquay wrote, on Thu, 30 Oct 2014 04:51:58 -0400:
She's brand new to teaching, but, it turns out that classroom management is a standard problem in these multi-ethnic San Jose schools.
One teacher uses a bathroom plunger, as his bathroom pass.
What it (attempts to) accomplish is the reduce undue interruptions of the classroom environment.
We all know that the kids can go to the bathroom plenty of other times, but, all kids will take advantage of a "free pass" out of jail, if even for only 10 minutes (which they can synchronize with other friends, if they're clever).
What the pass does, first and foremost, is it discourages such intents. Also, it allows the teacher to continue teaching, uninterrupted, as the students just get up, grab the pass, and return, unannounced.
It also is very clear to everyone, what the purpose of the kid is, whether grabbing the pass or walking the hallways. It's also not something they can leave hidden in the hallway while they surreptitiously run a'muck about the hallways or outdoors to catch a smoke or whatever.
Likewise, it prevents multiple kids (from the same classroom anyway) leaving the room at any one time.
Furthermore, it's obvious to all whether the bathroom pass is in use or not. It's like the red sign on an airplane bathroom door showing it's in use, rather than what we have to do at a McDonalds, which is to jiggle the doorknob repeatedly to find out if someone is in there.
And, being so large (on purpose), the kids, who almost certainly don't like it, can't lose it easily.
At the very least, it's objectionable to carry (as you noted), which would further discourage the unnecessary potty breaks.
Rest assured, this teacher has at least one kid a day out of her 200, walk out on the class without excuse. She has kids banging on the table, and calling her a b*ch, and plenty of disciplinary problems, all of which are common through all the classes, as she told me most of these kids are being weeded out of the system through their behavior in *all* their classes.
I also find this behavior strange, as *my* kids have always had comments on their report cards of "very polite", "always helpful", "pitches in to volunteer every time I ask", and even once "raises hand to answer questions too often!".
Heh heh ... the apple doesn't fall far from the tree ...
I think this teacher, who is brand new, is learning on the job. In California, they go through 3 semesters of graduate training, to obtain a preliminary teaching certificate, two semesters of which have on-the-job training of sorts.
Then, they're thrown to the wolves for 2 more years, until they get their preliminary teaching certificate cleared. At that point, they also get tenure (which is kind'a soon, if you ask me), and then they're bona-fide teachers.
The clearance process, apparently, starts with three weeks of training on "classroom management", which I found odd when I saw that it's the
*first* thing they re-train the preliminary-credentialed teachers on.
Out of 200 kids that she has, she estimated, to me, that about 10% are the ones using the bathroom pass constantly. The rest sit and listen.
You have to remember these are Algebra classes, where probably only a small percentage of the kids (maybe 1/3?) actually care to learn it. It's a required class for the rest, which they hope to never see again during the rest of their lives.
When is the last time you or I graphed a quadratic equation, for example? Could each of us solve a binomial equation to save our lives? (Building suspension bridges in the redwoods notwithstanding... :)
I'd take a different approach... As a complete unmolested lettered board it is a bathroom pass. If altered it is not a bathroom pass and subjects the student carrying it to the same penalties as any other "no pass" or "altered pass" infraction. This would require the cooperation of the teachers and administration who monitor student movement in the hallways... It may require a few repair jobs in the beginning but I suspect that it would not take long for the kids to figure this out. Maybe have two or three board passes initially so there is always a good one available for the kids who really need to go, or who have to deal with their monthly issues.
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