School in California decides to make elementary school students wear RFIDs *Updated*

[d20fool]

Man, those overworked teachers need to do more.

If we look at this from a monetary angle, wouldn't it be a better use of taxpayers money to train the teachers to be more cautious and to recognize threats rather than on the tags?

I am not omniprescent. Student leaves to go to a specialist teacher and doesn't get there, how am I to know? Student lags behind class to make mischief elsewhere in the building, how am I to know? I cannot be constantly counting and recounting my class because I do not have god-like abilities, nor can I follow up on students when they leave my room (many of those teachers don't even have phones, we don't have enough money for EVERYONE to have a phone.) When a student lags or dallies I punish them, have a "come-to-Jesus" meeting, and scare them into not doing it again. Did it just this morning in fact.

As for training for threats, we are college-educated people and respond to apparent threats quickly already. Non-staff adults on the playground? I call that in. Kid in the wrong spot? I call him in. We have precious little inservice time as it is that needs address our teaching. If they want to put electronic bells on our kittens, by all means let them do so.

John "d20fool" McCarty

 

[d20fool]

The badges stay at school

The badges stay at school, trust me on this one. I never let the kids take their ID cards home, they have no reason to and they just get lost.

John "d20fool" McCarty

 

[d20fool]

Do the right thing

My argument is not about "mind control." My argument is a) that children are being taught to fear rather than to simply do the right thing and b) that the ability to abuse the system would not be that difficult.

I would argue that they do, indeed, have a map. How else would they know where a child is located? They pull up a child's info in the database and it says that "Child A is in Room B" or in "Area B".

I usually do the same thing but, in this instance, I am very passionate about privacy and the right thereof. I see too much potential to abuse the system. I absolutely hate the notion that anyone would track the whereabouts of any human being, whether or not they are trying to protect them.

Many cultures throughout history have done this (makring citizens in some fashion for easy tracking and counting) and, while not every culture used it for violent measures, it has never led to anything positive.

A.) The cards are not a replacement for socialization, which is what we do in elementary. Nothing in the article indicates they will not be teaching the children responsibility anymore.

B.) By abuse I presume you mean someone using the school's system to locate a kid? This is a "locked door" argument. Why lock a door, anyone who really wants to get in will anyway. You lock it to prevent the opportunity an open door provides. We don't stop whomever is determined enough to abuse the system, but we do stop the 100 neanderthals who might consider it casually.

As for privacy, apply adult standards to children is the worst form of tyranny. Should we be protecting the privacy of the child who parents use drugs, abuse them, molest them? We already have to tread carefully because of privacy laws in these areas, and frankly I don't think we should be. If you have a child in your house, I think you should be willing to face some scrutiny. That child has a right to a good life, and parents have little accountability unless a child, who naturally loves their parents, has the courage to come forward and speak out. We had one girl whose fathe was molesting her, we suspected but could do NOTHING until she finally spoke out against him. He slipped out of town shortly thereafter and she got a lot better. That is the exception, not the rule. Privacy laws can be very harmful to children, honestly.

John "d20fool" McCarty

 

[Torm]

Umm what exactly bothered him about barcodes in general? Not sure I see a connection between the number of the beast and being able to scan my milk though the checkout using a laser.

Since this thread is almost political, but more just academic, and that's okay, I'll be vaguely religious, but more just academic, to respond to your puzzlement, and hope that's okay, too.

The Mark of the Beast is an ancient symbol, expressed as vav-vav-vav in Hebrew (a vav looks like a straight up and down line with a very small line that comes back up at the bottom, kinda like an upside-down 1 without the base line) - which translates numerically as 6-6-6 into our numerals. Now, the important thing to know about the Hebrew alphabet (or, more accurately, the alephbet) is that each character can be used as a letter, a number, or a pictograph. So one could argue that the Mark is actually 666, VVV, or the actual pictograph of vav times 3. (I, personally, tend to think the last is what was meant. That would be more like what it would look like if a beast raked one's forehead with three claws - three downward lines of blood with almost reversals of the vector of the rake at the bottom when the claws pulled out. But my opinion is neither here nor there. )

Since barcodes also exhibit the qualities of looking more or less like up-and-down lines and representing numbers, and more importantly, as was described in Revelations of the Mark, it is very difficult to buy things without them, some religious people speculate that they, or perhaps just one in particular, are the Mark. Needless to say, the idea of having one attached to people in any way gets them alarmed. (I can't say I'm particularly happy with the notion, myself, but mostly for other reasons....)

As an aside, the Mark, according to Revelations, is placed on the hand and/or the head. Since a mouse is held in the hand and a monitor is looked at with the head, this has led some inclined to do so to speculate that the Mark is something to do with the Internet (since there seems to be a trend toward one needing a computer to buy one's necessities), and that perhaps (Bill Gates/Steve Case/insert favorite person important in the computer industry here) is the Anti-Christ.

Of course, people tend to come up with new theories to use the Number/Mark to reveal that identity every so often, anyway - I remember reading in the 80's of someone suggesting that either Ronald Wilson Reagan or Daniel Manuel Ortega might be the Anti-Christ because they each had three names with 6 letters each.

(Note to everyone: I'm not posting this to argue/debate about any of it, or to hijack the thread. I just wanted to explain to Krieg about what he was puzzled about. If anyone knows anything I didn't provide, OTOH.....)

 

[Torm]

Should we be protecting the privacy of the child who parents use drugs, abuse them, molest them? We already have to tread carefully because of privacy laws in these areas, and frankly I don't think we should be.

I agree that you shouldn't have to worry about getting sued to ask a few questions, but you're putting the cart before the horse, methinks: If you know a child that you suspect of being abused in some fashion, there you go. Ask questions, call police or social services, take action. And as I said, I think things need to be changed to make teachers freer to do these things when they do have cause. BUT, there is a very important idea in this country - yes, even as important as that child's welfare - called "Innocent until proven guilty." My point being that you can't just go around taking away the right to privacy and install police-state-like observation for every parent just because some few are doing bad things. Most people are good people, and don't deserve the uncomfortable scrutiny or the implied insult.

In other words, do you mind if I see you naked? I mean, if you don't have anything to hide, there's no problem, right?

The reason the ID cards with RFID tags are not, in my opinion, a good idea is that they promote the idea that it is okay for the authorities to monitor us that way in the minds of the children. Like a baby elephant held in place with a weak rope who will stand in place for the same rope even after they've grown large enough to break it easily, children raised to think that way may never even notice civil rights they never knew they had slipping away as adults!

That said, I think it is a positive thing that you say that you at least make sure your students don't take their IDs home. Maybe if it is clearly outlined to them that there IS a separation between the time they are the responsibility of the state and the time that is theirs, my concern above won't be relevant.

 

[Raloc]

Finally, there is the fear of abduction.

Assuming of course, that the person doing the abducting decided to leave the tag/collar/whatever on the child.

 

[Krieg]

Since barcodes also exhibit the qualities of looking more or less like up-and-down lines and representing numbers, and more importantly, as was described in Revelations of the Mark, it is very difficult to buy things without them, some religious people speculate that they, or perhaps just one in particular, are the Mark. Needless to say, the idea of having one attached to people in any way gets them alarmed. (I can't say I'm particularly happy with the notion, myself, but mostly for other reasons....)

Thanks that's the bit I was looking for.

As an aside, the Mark, according to Revelations, is placed on the hand and/or the head. Since a mouse is held in the hand and a monitor is looked at with the head, this has led some inclined to do so to speculate that the Mark is something to do with the Internet (since there seems to be a trend toward one needing a computer to buy one's necessities), and that perhaps (Bill Gates/Steve Case/insert favorite person important in the computer industry here) is the Anti-Christ.

Pshaw, everyone knows the anti-christ is the man in the purple turban....or the man with the stinky smell. I always get Nostradamus & King of The Hill mixed up.

 

[fanboy2000]

Everyone thinks that of their own kids and that's great.

I've thought a lot about this and I have to disagree with you. Growing up, I've seen a great deal of parental mistrust , and I think it's getting worse. Many parents I met when I was growing up seem to think that their kid is capable of doing unspeakable things. The very few children who are capable of thouse things creates a fearful state in some parents where they feel that they are near powerless to stop their own children from doing harm.

Add that fear to one other thing, divorce. Imagine you divorced someone and you see your child is exhibiting the same behavor that made you divorce your former spouse, now couple that with the fear of your child doing something unconscionable, and you have a dangrous mix. Growing up, I remember my parents (divorced) telling me that I was just like the other parent. I'm just glad that they divorced over minor diffrences rather than major stuff, or I might have had that problem.

Also, there is a whole industry that makes money off of fear. They advertise fear and creat a fearful state in their clients (who are increasinly schools) so that they buy their products.

Mistrust+current events+divorce+advertising+technology capable of invading your privacy. I think this is a very bad combination.

We have to worry about any number of problems dealing with children, such as children that habitually run away (We had one that stole a bike and took off), get on the wrong bus (one young man lied to a driver and got on the wrong bus, his mother blamed the district, not him), hide out in classrooms and bathrooms after hours (one girl hid in a classroom so she could eat a bag of candy she stole from a teacher), and so on. We need to know where these little guys are. They would be very welcome at the high school, where student might just get up in the middle of a class and leave or go that whats-his-name's across the street for a smoke (or worse.) There are innocent times too, like the kid that goes to his speech therapist without telling his substitute teacher (who doesn't know he usually goes at that time) and they need to find him. We've had that happen too.

I can't help but wonder, how were these problems handled 20 years ago? 30 years ago? I realize that schools used to use corporal punishment, but I have a problem beliveing that these problems only have one solution: radio tags.

Also, this is like tagging animals because, in fact, it is also used to keep track of livestock.

By abuse I presume you mean someone using the school's system to locate a kid? This is a "locked door" argument. Why lock a door, anyone who really wants to get in will anyway. You lock it to prevent the opportunity an open door provides. We don't stop whomever is determined enough to abuse the system, but we do stop the 100 neanderthals who might consider it casually.

Let's analyze this locked door argument.

If I leve a $5 bill on the ground in a hall, how many people would pick it up? A lot. Not everyone, for sure, but many people would. Also, many of them wouln't think it was wrong. (I don't think it's wrong.)

Now, let's say I put the $5 bill in an unused, unoccupied room with no door. Now how many people would pick it up? Only those who need to go into an unsued and unoccupied room, people who goe in there by accident, or those looking for something (like trouble).

Now, I put a door to the room and close. How many people will go into the room and pick-up the $5 bill? Fewer. There's a mental barrior to opening up a door to a room that you don't need to be in. Many of the people who go in there will do so by accendent, but some people will go in there looking for trouble. The number of people looking for trouble in a room with a door (particularly sence a door means they may get caught) goes down from just an open room.

If I put a lock on the door, now people have to be doing more than just looking suspious, they have to do something illegal to get in. (Assuming they don't belong there.) Also, now it's obviously stealing when you pick up that $5 bill, because you had to get through a locked door to get to it. I've seen police not bother with a report if the door isn't locked. The police actually told a freind of mine that it was there fault because they left their car door unlocked.

By this point, we've eliminated a lot of people from taking that $5 bill. In fact, my $5 bill is probably safe in an unoccupied, unused, and locked room.

Now, here's the point of my argument. Up until this point, the steps have been pretty small and all of them have made my $5 bill noticeably safer. But at this point, the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

Now is my $5 safer if I put a deadbolt on the door? By how much?

What if I also add a chain?

and another lock?

and I make the door out of steel?

or make it out of Titatium?

My argument isn't that RFID is locking the door. My argument is that it locks the door, adds a deadbolt, a chain, another lock, and making the door out of steel. If people are still braking in and taking that $5 bill, then mabey another approch needs to be taken. One that involves asking the parents.

Note, in the origanal article the parents weren't consulted. I have a feeling the principal knew this was a posable reaction and decided to not involve them.