School rules (Not how it sounds)

[Max]

Where I go to school and where I went to school, my schools have been so peace happy. It sucks to the power of nine! My elementary school where I went was so stuck up just because it is an international peace site. They're like "We do not tolerate this at gatewood school!" Sure they can be proud of the school but things have gone to far. I mean in the Hopkinds 270 school district, being so peace appy, we can't even play games that involve throwing things at other people. Dodgeball is like the only good thing to play in gym and we can't do that. It's some crap about not promoting violence or something. Need some help and if you live in Minnesota please come to me to sign my petition. Please! Need help!

You got a petition? For what, to get some more fun games in your school. Anyway, I would sign your petition if I lived in Minnesota, but I'm not. I'm in Canada, the country where Hollywood has made canadians be identified as the people who say "eh" a lot. Good luck with your petiton for fun Max.

[Lisa]

I don't know about your area, but here in Virginia it's like illegal to have petitions at school. I know it's a crappy rule. My friend got in trouble because she started a petition for a Halloween dance to replace the Valentine's Day one because they're so boring. But it went down the drain when the principal saw her getting signatures.

[Agent M]

Minnesota! Yeah- well, not yeah... heh. Only thing good here: SNOW. *ahem* My school isn't SUPPOSED to play dodgeball *ahem ahem* My gym teacher rocks though and he lets us play, plus his own weird version of kickball, that he named after himself... but anyway, I don't know about a petition, teachers HATE those. Are you at a private school? Because private schools don't actually have freedom of speech (the Constitution says that the government can't stop the press from freedom of speech, but private schools aren't controlled by the government.) So teachers can take away petitions and you can't argue for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or even freedom of the right to peaceably assemble. Me and a friend of mine tried to petition not being able to have signs on our lockers protesting things (hers was "Save Tibet" and mine was protesting Iraq) and the vice principal got SO MAD. She told us not to petition, then we kept on doing it... then she got worse... Surprisingly: no detention. I wear socks with smiley faces on them: Detention.
But anyway, off the subject. My brother isn't allowed to play dodgeball either, so he and his gym class made up a new version, that sounds "safer" but it's still fun. I can't remember how he plays it, but if that sounds like it would work, I could ask him and tell you, or anyone else who can't play dodgeball... lol

[alla]

At my first school we were pretty much allowed to play anything - well, except bat tennis until you were in grade 5. I don't think that it ever crossed our minds to play tackle games *shrugs* we had fun. The next school we were allowed to play anything that didn't involve pegged tennis balls (brandy) or tackling. The next school was a private school and we were pretty much allowed to run wild - until one kid got hurt in tackle red rover, but then we were only banned from playing that - everything else was still good.

As for petitioning - don't call it a petition. When I was in year 11, they decided to change the field trip dress code on us - previously we could wear whatever we wanted, then they pretty much said "you must wear school uniform". We were pretty annoyed at that, as dresses aren't that practical on a geology field trip - or at a theme park. We actually went and spoke to the "dean" of the senior school (the teacher in charge of organising the older kids... US grades of Sophomore, Junior and Senior, I believe) and asked him what we could do about it. We suggested a petition to him and he said "Don't call it that... call it an "expression of concern". We did that - and we got it changed. We even had our school "Safety and Security Marshal" ( - essentially the guy who enforced the rules in the grounds) actually encourage us, as he thought it was unfair too.
He was a top bloke. and looked compeletely like a sherriff from an old western movie XD.

Anyway, my suggestion to you is to go and speak to one of the staff members about it - someone you know that you can trust to take you seriously; a counsellor perhaps. And get your parents in on it too. Parents are always a good idea. See if you can come to an arrangement with the school.

Alla

[Small town]

Originally posted by Lisa:
I don't know about your area, but here in Virginia it's like illegal to have petitions at school. I know it's a crappy rule. My friend got in trouble because she started a petition for a Halloween dance to replace the Valentine's Day one because they're so boring. But it went down the drain when the principal saw her getting signatures.

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I need to say to this BS. US citizens have a Freedome of speech right that includes boycots petitions strikes....And so on.

[alla]

Yeah, there probably is a freedom of speech issue there, probably, but for some reason 'petitions' make schools very nervous. Thats why you don't call it a petition. Its an "expression of concern" or something like that - and you don't ask for signatures. Just get them to write their name, and perhaps place a comment about it - why they would like to be able to play those games or whatever. When my friend and I got that dress code changed - we got about 50 kids (just in our year level) in a couple of days to give us comments about it. Most people didn't even know that the dress code had suddenly been changed.

Oh and another - perhaps less sensible way to, uh, tell the school that your not happy with it, is to find a large group - a _very_ large group of people like in the vicinity of 60 - 100 kids and play the games that you want to play. Its much harder to punish that many students than it is to punish one or two. But I'd talk to the school first - and read the rule book. See if you can find out exactly _why_ the games were banned and so on. Then you can figure out how to fight it.

Alla

[the_peridexis]

i feel for you. but hey, that's life i guess.*shrugs* who ever said it was fair? i think the Powers find it amusing to watch us struggle. kinda like this conversation of theirs i overheard: "ha! look at that one, he'll never make it!""oh yes he will, i bet on him!!"

[Gryphon]

Lisa:
I don't know about your area, but here in Virginia it's like illegal to have petitions at school.

They can't do that. That's against the first ammendment; there shouldn't be any complaints against any nonviolent expression of opinions like that.

We're not allowed to play dodgeball either. I'm betting at some point, someone got hurt and sued, so the schools are worried about getting sued [again]. They take out anything dangerous and water down all of the sports. Thing is, we don't play dodgeball -- we play partner avoidance XD. It's the same thing, but... lol.

[magicalmike]

A couple of my friends and i had a petition to start a new sports team for our school, but we got in a lot of trouble when we took it to the headmaster.

The worst school rule would be, at my school, dress codes. People should be alowed to dress how the want. It is a good way for people to express themselves. Of course I see the sense in it having to be aproprate, but why cant we wear hooded swaetshirts?

[Alyson-Devereaux]

Mike, you're right. Dress code sucks. My school's got one, and it is eeevil... "Blue on top, black pants or skirt on the bottom, no singlet tops, no midriff showing, covered shoes, no thongs, sport top for sport, blah,blah, blah" or seniors (grades/years 11 and 12) can wear white shirts instead.
BUT BUT BUT. Nobody bothers wearing it, because it's common knowledge that the teachers never, ever check uniform, except on assembly days (Tuesdays).
I think we're allowed petitions, but they have to be sanctioned by the school - eg the school Amnesty International branch does them a lot. If you want to change something or have something (eg a dance), then you go to the Student Representative Council and talk to them and it might happen. It seems to work.
We're not allowed to play contact sports for PE, I think. But the teachers only stop people playing tackle footy (football, not soccer. With the oval shaped ball) when they're too near other people, and they're not allowed to play cricket on the basketball courts anymore, because kids were getting hit.

[alla]

oo 'nother Aussie. I'm not alone in the world! *cough* ahem... G'dai mate!

Anyway, school uniform wise, Alyson - thats light. We _had_ to wear uniform and it was an annoying uniform. Girls could wear a dress or a skirt (neither of which were designed for Queensland weather, or designed to fit properly) and the boys had the option of long pants, or shorts a shirt and a tie. If the guys had long pants on, they had to leave their ties on all day. Then on "formal" occasions, the girls had to wear the skirt/blouse combination and the guys had to wear long pants and everyone had to wear blazers (reguardless of the season). Boy am I glad that I'm out of that now.

Although having a uniform does make it easier to get ready in the morning... no looking through your clothes for 10 mins trying to find something to wear when your bus leaves the bus stop in five minutes. lol

(oh and to clarify 'football' to the Americans, I think Alyson would be referring to AFL - Aussie Rules Football)

[Space Cadet]

When I was at high school (or 'college' as it is called in NZ) my friends and I liked having a school uniform. Whenever we had a mufti day (which we always had to pay $1 for the privelege as it was done as a fundraider), all the popular girls would dress up like they were going clubbing or something and then snicker at those of us who weren't so cool and wore whatever we wanted to rather than what was 'cool.'

There was a boy in my year who started a petition against having a school uniform, but we wanted him to stop. He didn't get many signatures, so started forging teachers signatures and got in a lot of trouble.
Actually, after we left school that guy tried to get into politics but got thrown out of the Labour Party for being too left-wing. He also used to wear pink dresses and sarongs to University. Too bad for him he was far too ugly to pass as a woman.

omg that is so funny space cadet. Whoa, we got like a whole spectrum of people here. Like I'm from Canada, theres someone from the states, and there's someone from australia, new zealand! wow! i totally relate witht the pay "$1" to dress "cool". Like if you don't you are a total outsider - that is unless you can get a band of your friends to weart heir uniforms on the civies day (that's what we call these days when you go out of uniform to dress the way you want).

As for the no petitions, that is totally crazy! Don't americans have rights? Because in canada we can do all the petitioning we want. we can even have rallies and not get arrested (its a freedom of speech thing in canada).

Now if your doing just dodge ball Max, in elementary school, trust me that isn't too bad. Like I guess if your in grade 6 and under, that's really the only thing worth doing. In grade 7 and 8, that's when you got to do real sports. in elementary i did all sorts of things. football (lthe not round ball for the aussies), floor hockey, batminton, basketball, and yeah some real team sports. to be honest, i cannot do physical sport, it's too tiring. Like i guess im not worrying about exercising. IT's not like i look obese (which is a major problem in canada btw). I like the odd sporys. Like recently, I did golf, i play archery (think robin hood if you don't know what that is), and so yeah. i guess i am a bias person to talk about sports *blushing*.

[Gryphon]

Alyson: No thongs? How are they going to punish that!?

Ohhh, you're an Aussie. XD I see. From my experience, some Aussies enjoy dropping "thongs" around to shock other people, espescially Americans.

Our uniform is relatively loose. We have to wear shirts bought from the school. I had some sort of a viriety, but the next year at my school, I learned to get all of the loose, long, and comfortable sort. Wisdom like this is good stuff. :P As for pants, we can wear anything 'cept for jeans and sweat pants. They also have rules about no flares or right pants, but everyone (about) does anyway, so they don't punish people. I've been trying to find good black pants or corderoys (sp?) because I can wear them in and out of school -- vs. either khakis are jeans. :/

Every last Friday of the month is a dress down day. It's free, but what the freshman wear is uggh.

I love the active sports. If I'm not always playing a part, anyway, I'll zone out. And I do, all the time. XD In games like tennis or badminton, that's what makes singles games so much more fun. Oh, and I love karate.

Today was our last day of gym, and it happened to be the exams, too. After taking our quick test -- emmm... possibly bombed it? My gym teacher has horror stories to go along with her -- we did our BMI and body fat % on this hand-held thing. My body fat was 12.8%... I think that might be okay for a guy, but I'm a girl; that's pushing it for scary-underweight. At the beginning of the year, I was 8.8%, so this is actually a *good* thing.

Nice to see balthasar is facinated by the diversity. We've got a lot of Canadians and Americans (that'd be me), along with brits and a handful of Aussies. We've even got a newbie who lives on a boat. (...) Diegowts ( ) lives in Puerto Rico.