Anonymous asked: nah, the hall pass/lockdown drill thing is something we do in my aussie school too. hall passes are accountability and are a (somewhat ineffective) method of reducing truancy. there are indeed people who cut class quite often, hence the hall pass (though we call it something diff here) and while you could argue that it's one's own responsibility to take care of one's studies, the school legally has a duty of care to us which gets problematic when someone is unaccounted for (cont.)
(cont.) just in case something were to happen. now, the ineffectiveness is because we don’t log toilet trips and so on into the school network, and rely on paper. if your student is missing carrying the only written record of them leaving at so-and-so time to go to the locker/toilet, what the hell is the use of that? the end goal is to make sure you’re in class as much as possible, because the point of a school is, after all, to educate. as a student, the place we are supposed to be (cont again)
(cont. 3) during lesson times is in class, learning. the point of kids going to school and then cutting class IS inherently contradictory to the point of a school, and i do not find that outrageous. now, one of the phrases most kids in my mandarin class (not in aus, though, this was a while back) could speak accurately was, translated, ‘teacher, can i please go to the toilet?’ i suppose it’s respect for the teacher/school as well as making sure you go where you’re supposed to be going. (cont)
(sorry this is getting so long) getting to lockdown drills and so on, we do those here too. it’s just safety. we understand the likelihood of someone showing up to school with a flamethrower or grenade launcher or simply handgun is not awfully high, hence why the kids dont take it so seriously, but the adults are Dead Serious because there is always a risk and people should know how to react. like i said, its simply safety (cont but i swear last one)
(sorry) teachers and admins have to know who’s out of the classroom and where they’re going (or where they say theyre going), not only to verify truancy and accountability stories, but also in the event of an evacuation (fire/shooters/freak floods/elephants raining from the sky), then emergency responders know where and for who to look. so i dont find it all that outlandish. sue them, theyre taking precautions. (thanks for the long read lol)
First of all, this was genuinely a fascinating trip through Australian school regs.
Second of all, particularly in the US…I still feel like a lot of problems could be sorted out with tighter gun regulations. That being said, yeah, I think there’s something to be said for knowing where your students are because, like, damn people definitely just wandered off in the middle of the day at my high school. THAT being said, I think US schools get a little…obsessive.
Third of all, in the interest of full disclosure, I can guarantee you’ve never seen a school give less of a fuck about student safety than my high school, in this context. So like I dunno if I’m the best source on this one.
