Teens build swingset on top of high school

Six high school seniors in Wisconsin built a swing set on top of their high school.

The "swing set six" were originally told they couldn't go to graduation. But on the eve of that ceremony, there was a last minute decision by the school's principal. The six Brookfield East seniors will be at graduation.

Student Zachary Domack is relieved. "He has been very gracious enough to let us walk across the stage and actually attend the ceremony." Something the principal announced Friday afternoon.

The teens were originally banned from that ceremony after building a swing set on the roof of their school. The guys admit it was a senior prank but point out it wasn't destructive. They also meant it as a "thank you" for the principal and teachers for a great four years.

They even left a note and snacks for the staff. Nate Hoaglund said, "We're definitely not thinking we should just be let off the hook or anything. We know that we should be punished."

A construction worker spotted the teens on the roof and called police. All six were slapped with $300 tickets for "prowling." They also served a one-day suspension.

I'm glad that their principal used some common sense when giving them their punishment. They can't encourage pranks, but there is no reason to ruin the kids lives like other principals have done. A $300 fine (which hopefully their parents will make the kids work to pay) and a one day suspension sounds perfect.

Yearbook publishes picture of girl with beer

A picture of a girl holding a beer somehow was placed in the school yearbook in Illinois.

The faculty had no idea the picture was included until yearbooks were handed out to students this week, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.

"It's clearly defiant and subversive and intentional," says spokeswoman Laura Blair.

Principal Linda Yonke did not consider the prank harmless.

"It sort of casts a pall over the whole yearbook," Yonke said.

The snapshot in question is of two girls hugging each other while one of the girls holds a beer can behind the other girl's back.

School officials say they'll take appropriate disciplinary action against those responsible for the prank, the Arlington Heights Daily Herald reports.

New Trier has a long history of senior pranks, says a New Trier alumni.

One year keys to the school were mailed out, forcing officials to change all the locks. In the 1960s, seniors disassembled a car and reassembled it in the first floor rotunda.

That's a prank, but not a good one. They should have been more inventive, and the yearbook instructor should have checked the pictures better.

University deans admits to bike theft

A dean a USF has admitted that he stole a students bike earlier this week. The theft was captured on video and posted on youtube.

In a statement, Rao apologized and said he was trying to help a day laborer who needed transportation.

"I deeply regret this failure in judgment and the unfortunate attention it has generated," he wrote to USF officials. "... I gave a man who does odd jobs for me permission to use a bicycle that was parked at the center. I acted out of compassion for this nearly homeless man; but I failed to consider that the bicycle belonged to someone on our Alzheimer's team."

Rao, who makes $384,000 a year, took the bike on Monday night from a bike parking area on the loading dock of the Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer's Center and Research Institute.

The tape shows a woman riding up and parking her bicycle against a railing at 2 p.m. About 8:50 p.m., a minivan pulls up and Rao and a man get out. They look through some bikes near the railing, pick one and leave with it in the minivan.

Note to Rao, next time you want to do something nice for someone, use your own money or goods to help him.

Stealing an apple from the teacher

An 18 year old Florida student was arrested after he stole an apple figurine from his teacher and refused to give it back.

Officers said the student was playing with a spring and when his teacher confiscated it he took a red, glass apple from the teacher's desk. Officers told him he would face charges if he didn't return the apple.

The student responded, "So what, I'm not leaving without my spring," according to a report.

Officers took a picture of the apple as evidence. The student was released from jail.

Wonder if he thought it was worth it.

New York schools get nicer handcufs

Schools in New York are going to try using more friendly velcro handcuffs to restrain out of control kids.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has approved the Velcro cuffs as a softer alternative to steel handcuffs, the New York Daily News reported Saturday.

School safety officers are expected to receive the alternative cuffs next week and then get two weeks of training on how to use them and when, said Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne.

The alternative cuffs are 22-inch strips of cloth with Velcro fasteners that can be adjusted to fit a child's wrist.

"We would prefer never to use restraints of any kind, but in those rare instances where it may become necessary, we want a softer alternative to conventional handcuffs," Browne said.

How nice of them.

Boy gets his tongue stuck to a pole

A student in Indiana learned a lesson on peer pressure after being dared to stick his tongue to a pole.

Police were called to the 3900 block of Hohman Avenue shortly after 8:30 p.m. and found the 10-year-old with his tongue stuck to a streetlight pole.

The Field Elementary School fourth-grader managed to mumble to police that a friend had dared him to lick the fixture.

By the time an ambulance arrived, the boy had managed to yank himself away from the light pole, police said.

Medics explained to the boy's mother, whom they described as "pretty upset," how to care for his bleeding tongue.

So, if you're the parent, do you get mad at your child or the child who dared your child? Perhaps we should be teaching our kids to just say no to dares?

Teenager arrested for stealing two brownies from school cafeteria

A high school student was arrested and charged with theft after stealing two brownies (value $1.00) from the school cafeteria.

Jan Richey said her son, Trey, 15, was charged with fifth-degree theft Jan. 8 after administrators at Mason City High School contacted police with the theft allegations, the Mason City Globe-Gazette reported Wednesday.

"I was very surprised," Richey said of the charges against her son. "I think they're being a little extreme. A brownie costs about a dollar. I could see a few days or a week of detention, but charging him like this ... it doesn't seem right."

The school says that they had him arrested to deter future thefts and to teach the child a lesson. Seems like a waste of taxpayer dollars to me. I can't imagine that a judge is going to give a punishment that's much different than what the school would have given.

We have a winner for worst boyfriend

By a small margin the man who threw McDonalds at his girlfriend beat out the lady who made up the fake kidnapped baby.

Our new poll will be for the school policy that's the most idiotic.

First we have the new policy in England that tells teachers that they can be disciplined for out of classroom behavior (like being drunk and disorderly) even if there are no students present.

Second we have teachers in Australia who have been told not to mark up student papers with red pen because it will make them sad.

Third we have the teacher in the UK that was suspended for making his students do pushups as punishment.

Last, it's not a school. It's a "place for learning"

It's not a school, it's a "place for learning"

A school in the UK has decided to stop calling itself a school because the word school is too negative. They're now going to call it a "place of learning."

Watercliffe Meadow, which opens Monday, also will ban whistles, bells and locked doors, said Kingdon, noting children will be encouraged to wear soft shoes indoors to feel more comfortable, The Telegraph reported Sunday.

"We wanted to de-institutionalize the place and bring the school closer to real life," she said.

Now that's an idea. I will stop calling it work, I will call it "a place for moneymaking" instead. I should ask my boss to encourage us to wear PJ's so we'll be more comfortable.

Do your homework OR ELSE

A teacher in Egypt killed his student because he didn't do his homework.

Haitham Nabeel Abdelhamid, 23, is accused of beating Islam Badr Ibrahim with a ruler before taking him outside the class and hitting him savagely in the stomach.

The boy then collapsed in a faint and was taken to hospital - but he died of heart failure.

I bet his classmates will be sure to do their homework from now on.

School mispells sign for spelling bee winner

A middle school student in North Carolina returned from his spelling bee to find a sign congratulating him, and immediately noticed it was misspelled.

Joe Smith said when his son, Michael, returned to Carmel Middle School Wednesday after his involvement in a spelling contest, he quickly noticed a pair of misspelled words on the school sign congratulating his efforts, The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer said.

Smith said the sign not only misspelled congratulations, but even offered an incorrect spelling of his son's first name. The misspelling of Michael was not reported and the congratulations error was tentatively blamed on scrunched signboard letters.

The student thought the misspellings were funny and the school blamed the misspellings on a student who had made the sign and corrected the problems.

Pre-chewed pencils?

A company in the UK is selling pre-chewed pencils. The company which calls itself concentrate markets their pencils as a tool to help kids concentrate. That students will not put the pencils in their mouths because they are pre-chewed.

And they say this is a cheap but effective way of encouraging youngsters to get their teeth into their lessons instead.

Concentrate specializes in products to help kids at school and identify why they get distracted or are unable to focus in class, claim the chewed end encourages them to get thinking straight away.

I don't see how a pre-chewed pencil or even a pencil that can't be chewed is really going to help a kid concentrate. Chewing on a pencil (however gross) is a behavior often used by kids when thinking or listening. More of an outlet for the excess energy than a behavior that distracts kids from their work.

Deer visits fourth grade students

A fourth grade class in Michigan had an unexpected visitor in their classroom when a six point buck crashed through a window and into their classroom.


The six-point buck sent chairs, desks, books and shards of glass flying. A boy suffered a small cut to his head, but there were no serious injuries


The buck left quickly after he realized that he was not in the woods anymore. No word as to what led the buck to think that the school was worth bashing into. He left part of his antlers behind in the classroom which I'm sure the fourth graders thought was super cool.

The teacher stayed calm and told her class to get to the floor and then got them out of the classroom quickly.

No red pens teachers, it will make your students sad.

An Australian state government has come up with a set of strategies that teachers should use so they don't harm the self esteem of their students.

The "Good Mental Health Rocks" kit, which was distributed this month to about 30 schools in Queensland state, offers strategies such as "don't mark in red pen (which can be seen as aggressive) - use a different color."

Other tips include structuring time for peer tutoring every day, apologizing to students when necessary and asking students to conduct a "personal skills audit" where they focus on their individual strengths rather than their weaknesses.

Apparently the Australian's missed this study earlier this week that said that teenagers have too much self esteem and really can handle their papers being graded in red pen without feeling like they've been violated.

Teacher suspended for requiring pushups?

A teacher in the UK was suspended because he made late students do pushups.

The Derby Moor Community College secondary school teacher, who was not identified, was suspended by head teacher Wendy Whelan pending an inquiry, after it was disclosed that 11- and 12-year-old students who came late to his class were punished in a variety of ways -- including being forced to do pushups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, and to tell jokes in front of the class.

Of all the things a teacher could be suspended for they suspended a teacher because he was suspected of making kids do pushups or tell jokes? To make it even more absurd the students themselves chose and agreed upon this list of items and were allowed to choose which one they did. The administrators that I've worked with in schools would have praised my originality if I'd used punishments such as this, they sure wouldn't of disciplined a teacher for original discipline.

One parent, who requested anonymity, agreed with Jennison, saying the children in the class did not feel the punishments were inappropriate.

"It's ridiculous. The kids thought it was fun."

Hopefully the teacher will be reinstated soon.

Next lesson: Witchcraft

Schoolchildren in India will now be learning about witchcraft (and the superstitions and untruths about it) to try and prevent the murder of hundreds (mostly elderly grandmotherly types) of suspected witches.

In one the most horrific recent cases, a family of four of the Santhal tribe in Assam were stoned and buried alive for allegedly cursing a relative of the village chief. At least one attack in Assam culminated in the severed heads of two “witches” being taken as trophies and paraded in the streets.

The program is being instituted by people who believe that if attitudes and beliefs are changed then these women can be saved. That the way to change is to squelch a belief in black magic. If the community does not believe in black magic then the problem won't exist.

Sounds logical.

However, some academics feel that giving these women pensions would do a better job at getting rid of this problem. They point twards evidence that shows that more people are accused of witchcraft and killed for it in times of hardship.

Raymond Fisman, a professor at Columbia University, told a recent seminar: “In Meatu, there are veritable witch epidemics now and again – certainly any time there is a bad crop year. Witches are the scapegoat of first resort. He suggested that “witches” were killed to make resources stretch farther. “Who are you going to knock off? You want the person who is the greatest consumer of household resources relative to that which they produce . . . it turns out that it’s grandma.”

Thus, the quickest way to eradicate witch-hunts is to introduce pensions for elderly women – to transform grandma from an economic burden to a wealth generator.

Don't kill Grandma!! She's not a Witch, she's old.

Education seems to me to be a good option, but telling someone that something they've always believed is wrong doesn't always work. There are well educated Americans that would tell you that evil things happen because of "dark forces" at work,

This test is brought to you by. . . .

A teacher in California has been selling advertising on his tests to pay for paper to print the tests on. Most of the advertising has come from parents of students in his class who send their kids inspirational messages.

"Tom Farber, a teacher at a Rancho Bernardo high school, said the district cut his annual copying budget to $316 when he needs more than $500 to print enough tests to ensure students receive adequate practice for tough tests they'll take in the future."

Now most teachers as badly paid as they are would just buy the paper themselves. Is there any other job where employees buy their own office supplies?

Mr Farber seems to be a very imaginative teacher when it comes to funding. It's just sad that the state of funding for education is so bad that a teacher has to fundraise for paper.