Play WoW too much? confiscated! (1 Viewer)

[BlackObsidian]

I found this interesting so I thought I'd share...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5047724.stm

"his confiscation visits damaged the "street cred" of pupils using PlayStations, Xboxes and computers in their rooms." - So basically the kids hate their parents, get the piss taken at school and their lives generally turn to shit...

"It also improved the "self-esteem" of parents who felt they lacked the authority to do this themselves to their children." - Goes to show what fantastic parenting skills people in the UK have...

"The British Dietetic Association poll of 3,000 school children found they spent a fifth of their time - or 2.5 months a year - on average playing video games, watching TV and using computers." - Clearly of the families interviewed, none of them had kids who play WoW or it'd be a LOT higher...

 

[TeachersPet]

If that were to happen in the US there would be a lawsuit VERY quickly.

 

[Tris]

That's outrageous, what if the child had some very sensitive stuff or other things on their computer, I wouldn't trust a headteacher with my computer.....

People don't seem to realise that games like WoW can be good if a kid has a pretty shitty life, it's somewhere to go, somewhere where they can be respected, and they just get dumped back in the real world where the bullies beat them up.

TBH, parenting in this country is utter shite, look at all the 16 year olds running about with kids,a child would like it 10x more if they could talk to you about WoW or whatever and you would listen, maybe parents should take an interest in what their kids are playing before assuming Technology is the work of the devil. Gaming has been proven to help kids with skills, WoW is a social game and also teaches lots of values.

Gaming isnt bad!! for example, I was playing WoW till 2-3am during my GCSEs, still managed to rack up 11 A-Cs

This guy should be locked away!!!!

 

[TeachersPet]

I think the problem is with the grading system used in school. I got near straight D's this year because I didn't do any work (it was my senior year). However, more than half of my classes were technical certification classes and in every single one of them I received the certification. I'm 1 cert away from MCSE, I'm RHCT, I'm an OCP and I have the VB .NET developer cert. Education in general is designed to train people to be reactive instead of proactive to learning and that is a problem. They're being taught that more work always means better work and in my opinion that should be a crime.

But, short of going preacher on you guys I'll stop now. I just hope we're not all screwed when 20+ years in the future everyone who knows how to innovate has retired or died because of the way education works today.

 

[Kreudi]

Well, I think it's a smart idea. Remember that these kids already have behavioural problems. Spending too much time behind a computer will most certainly not help that. You can say about WOW what you want, and I love the game, but it will not help you develop communicational skills other then typing faster. Also the argument that at least now they have a place where they can be repected does not really help. So, they are respected on Azaroth because they can slay Onyxia single handedly. How does that help them in real life? Instead of dealing with a problem they now stray away from it and thus the problem won't get solved. When I was a kid I was looking (and not only looking) to cross every boundary my parents set. And if they found out they would get mad and put me back in my place. If these parents are not strong enough to handle their kids then it's a good idea that someone else does.

 

[BlackObsidian]

"pupils were arriving tired and irritable every morning" - It's nothing to do with behavioural problems, it's tiredness and the fact that they were irritable with teachers...

 

[Kreudi]

"New Woodlands, which deals with primary-age children excluded from mainstream schools because of behavioural problems, was recently rated "outstanding" in all areas by Ofsted."
And I would call arriving at school tired and irritable a behavioural problem.

 

[BlackObsidian]

Clearly you don't know kids nowadays...

"Tiredness" and "being irritable" is a walk in the park compared to what most teachers have to put up with... Kids coming into school stoned off their face, carrying knives and knuckle-dusters, mouthing-off to teachers and threatening them and then getting suspended before mum and dad go down to the school to have a go at the teachers as an example.

Another example would the crap OfSted put them and students through... Speaking of OfSted where shall we start?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4628344.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4330615.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3979797.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/4034945.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4215517.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/3243428.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/3546707.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3673381.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3694581.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3701476.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3694976.stm

OfSted are pretty much a waste of time and money. How can you look at the crap they say and believe it to be true?

Back onto the subject I think teachers confiscating personal property is an infringement of personal freedom. As someone else mentioned if this was the US there'd be law suits galore from it.

Also imagine a situation such as this:-

The kids parents hate each other. They stay together because the mum's scared to leave the dad. The dad beats the mum and the kid knows everything that goes on even though the parents treat the kid like a moron and assume he doesn't have a clue... The kid goes to school and is heavily bullied but the teachers do sod all to help... The parents, to pre-occupied with their own arguements don't think the bullying is an issue and the kid's only release is his computer where he can play games, escape from the "real world" while his parents scream til 2am every night and write down all his inner thoughts.

Now the teacher takes the PC away he has NOTHING....

He goes home from school hungry and in pain because someone stole his lunch money and punched him in the stomach to watch his dad punch his mum in the face and he goes up to his room where he sits and does nothing at all.
He still can't sleep though cos his parents are still screaming so he goes to school irritable and tired and thus never has his PC returned to him.

OfSted to the rescue I presume???

 

[tartoob]

i agree with obsidian,, for me if i could fill up my time when i was a kid "wow is only example" i wouldnt never start smoking when i was 9

 

[Kreudi]

Of course there is a plethora of other problems teachers have to endure. And compared to some of those problems you mention being irritable and tired is nothing. My fathers girlfriend is a schoolteacher and I had to listen to many horror stories, usually about parents who are violent (hitting teachers apparantly is a sport on that school) and this of course influences the behaviour of their children immensely. Someone should also address those problems. Actually, Solving these problems have a much higher priority.
But I was only referring to the problem described in the article. Looking at the cause of the problem and doing something about it. The teacher does not take the computer away. The parents do that only let someone else do their dirty work. And of course someone should have serious talk with these (bad) parents about what it means to raise a child.
It is sad enough that the situation you describe most likely exists. But chances are the opposite might also be true and this is (or was) a normal, happy kid who got addicted to WOW and now just stays up way to late. I think we all know how addictive any game can be, and I can mention a few people here or on my server who got addicted and got themselves in serious trouble.
Since I live in Holland I don't know anything about Ofsted. So I cannot judge whether they are a lying bunch of weasels or honest people who try to do their job the best they can. Reading the articles you included I presume Ofsted is a rather new department still trying to get their organization in order. This generally takes more then a few years. So we (or rather England) might see results. Or Ofsted proves to be utterly useless and after 10 years of trying the government will find another pit to throw money in. And don't worry, they will. Ask any Dutchmen about "the Betuwelijn" and you'll be listening to a Dutchmen's lament for at least an hour. :o

 

[TeachersPet]

Kreudi you're very wrong and I'm telling you this as someone who has experienced a life of gaming (and by life I literally mean ALL my life, I had an NES when I was 2) and I think I'm much more happy than the alternatives I could have had.

The problem in education lies in the administration system, and the bad part about that is the only people who can fix it are too stupid to admit they're wrong.

 

[The0Eldest]

TP, maybe you THINK you know all, but I can attest to EQ ruining my grades for multiple years in highschool, this didn't happen cause I had bad parents either, my parents were always there asking how my day was, if I had homework, and at that point in my life i would lie and say that I had completed a fair deal of my work in class and that I only have a little bit to do. Then I hop on my computer and play EQ, when my grades would come, my parents would take away my computer and EQ account and what not then, automagically my grades went up.

I was not a social dunce either, I had several good friends, only caught a bit of crap for being a nerd, not enough to make me feel like I was singled out more than anyone else. My real problem was my addiction to my computer. Now I am a computer programmer and can spend all day on my computer doing things I love, so I found a way to cope with my addiction (make money off of it!).

Another thing, BO, I don't know where you went to school, but holy jebus. My school had its deliquents, who of course there were some disciplinary action taken with. I can remember twice in high school where a student was threaten/hit by a student, and school kids like to talk, a lot. There is a lot of stuff like that on the news also, and a lot of murder on the news, and plenty of other horrible things, hell that is 99% of what they report on. That is where people get a lot of their information about the school systems now a days, and they take the worst parts of everything and blow it up. So people only hear about the bad stuff in school, how they are going down in this and that, and how there was a student expelled for having a gun blah blah blah, they don't report on people getting 1600's on the SATs, or 2400(what ever they changed it to Mar2005).

anyway, enough ranting, Ima go play www.silkroadonline.com for a little bit before work, later all.

 

[BlackObsidian]

I left school at the age of 16. From the day I started until the day I left I was bullied, be it in the form of physical beatings, being locked in a locker for 4 hours, being pushed from a 1st floor roof, having lunch money stolen and having no food for the day, having my thumb fractured and having to blame it on "rugby" to my parents for fear of reprisals or the worst thing that happened to me was having hydrochloric acid thrown in my eyes and being rushed to hospital.

I jumped out of my bedroom window twice, jumped off a railway bridge (twisted my ankle but that's all) and I used to cut myself to try and deal with stuff (all of which I look back at and regret BIGTIME!)

All that crap was the reason I spent 12 years doing martial arts and bulked up from 9.5st to 13.5st and trust me, people don't touch a 5'7" hugely-built metaller...

Have a guess what my release from divorced parents and daily beatings was... My consoles (we never had the internet when I was at school!) so when I see situations where kids "may" be having their one release taken away from them it gets to me.

So now you know what a fucked-up little kid I was lol

(oh and the reason I'm sharing is because it's pretty much a cert that someone reading this will know what I went through or will be going through it themselves so it may help to know that you're not the only one...)

 

[Kreudi]

BO, I read about your horror story in another thread. It's awful what happened to you when you were a kid and I am thankful I never was bullied around. It must have been a lonely childhood and I can imagine having online friends makes someone feel a whole lot better.
Instead of taking away that computer a better solution would have been a time lock of some sort. Easily doable with XP pro. Make sure the kid can't use the computer after his normal bed time would have prevented him going to bed to late.
And it seems to me all our educational systems have their problems. Maybe they'll wise up someday and learn from each other.

 

[TeachersPet]

Maybe they'll wise up one day and completely revamp it. It's way outdated and it's causing people to enter the world with no outlook on life. I doubt it though, most people in positions of power are morons.

 

[Erol-Tob]

If one of my teachers ever called my house saying that they are coming to confiscate my computer and ps2, psp, etc...

I would come to school the next day and beat the shit outta him... or...
Get them fired....

 

[Greenyoda]

They wouldn't Get mine, I would Literaly Flip out. And slam the door in their face. If they persisted and went around back I would take my paintball gun and start shooting him. When he called the cops I would be like "I thought it was a intruder! I was protecting my property!".

 

[Devlin]

LOL GreenYoda, If that did ever happen to me; I think I would do the same... I don't see how this can be possible in the UK, it's utter crap! Like many others have said in this post, Online-interactive games let people get away from the world... away from their drug problems, abuse problems, ANYTHING problems; I don't know... I know id flip out, and maybe sick my dog on them

 

[Elvenfury]

You all have interesting points.

I have a habit of correcting the teachers when they are wrong. And in this, I say it is utterly stupid and they should rethink their life. So what if they can't teach properly because someone is tired or irritable, kids still have to work whether they're tired or irritable, they should do the same. We can't confiscate teacher's ciggarettes or alchohol (most teachers do to escape the children), why should they confiscate our addictions/past-times?

 

[Erol-Tob]

If they persisted and went around back I would take my paintball gun and start shooting him

pfft, i would get my stepdad's shotgun.

 

[DemonicDan]

Some dude in our school who things he's black was mouthing off to his dealer and "nearly" got stabbed according to his mother (I know this has fa to do with the subject but it's close)

One question..how can you "Nearly be stabbed" o.-

Is it like *Whups sorry dude I missed.. can we try that again?*
Or maybe *Ah crap the blade seems to have bent around your body for some reason I can no longer inflict a stabbing chest wounding motion on you, very sorry.*

Fairly off topic but troubles me terrible no knowing the answer to a question like this.

*I also found that the Chicken came before the egg if you go by the scientific theory that an animal adapts very slightely sometimes after breeding, if this is true then something that is very SIMILAR to a chicken but not actually a Chicken, for now we shall call it a..Hicken.. mates with another Hicken but both of their genes are adapted in someway that it forms a new species..a CHICKEN!*

This goes onto the topic of Leeeeeeroy Jenkins, at the end he is supposedly saying "Atleast I got chicken" But maybe he is really saying "Atleast I breed Hicken" Which makes you wonder...

 

[BlackObsidian]

"At least I ain't chicken" is what he says.... :p

Wait I just thought...

Some dude in our school... was mouthing off to his dealer and "nearly" got stabbed according to his mother...

Does that mean his mother knew he was going to his dealer and is cool with it? Maybe she IS the dealer and "nearly" stabbed him? Maybe she's sleeping with the dealer and wanted her son to grow up big and strong so she swapped the dealer's blade for a rubber one from a joke shop?

 

[alucard]

I would take my paintball gun and start shooting him. ".

I agree, but why paintball??

As far the education system goes, school is incredibly inefficiant. I go to the best school in the district and yet all I learn in a year could be learned in a month! If you want intrested kids give us fast learning and show us how amazing knowledge is.

 

[Learningcurve]

He goes home from school hungry and in pain because someone stole his lunch money and punched him in the stomach to watch his dad punch his mum in the face and he goes up to his room where he sits and does nothing at all.

Nothing at all. hmm sounds like he deserves it then? Why?

Guess he doesn't love his Mom or his Dad. Call the cops, tell a counseler at school, child protective services, for pete's sake call someone! Get the problem fixed. I know for a fact that if I punched my wife my daughter would let someone know. If I punched her she would let someone know and my wife would let someone know. There are help lines and web pages all over the place. Instead of putting "Big Knockers" in your google search engine try "Teen Helpline"

If they have threatened you with harm to keep you silent guess what. It will just go that much worse for him. By the time he gets out of jail you could be beating on your own wife and kids. Break the damn cycle!

When you harbor a peice of shit you become one also. If it's old news try to break the cycle and don't visit the same horror on your children. It is not as easy as you think.

[Law Enforcement officer since 1987. Victims have rights too. Ask for your rights as a victim to be explained when you take the scumbag down. I don't take scenarios like the one you described lightly. It is usually a sign of someone real close to a scumbag just like they described. If it's someone you know they are counting on you to get them help. If it's you you are asking for help and I am telling you where to get it. If any of you reading this ever need help feel free to PM me and I will help you get the help you need.]

 

[Learningcurve]

Hmm just read some more of your posts BO. Sorry that it was you that you were talking about. I knew it would be you or someone close to you. I have dealt with alot of domestic abuse cases. The laws are changing rapidly. Not really to where they are fair anymore. But changing more to protect the wifes and children. Automatic seperation of the spouses with someone being cited regardless. Children present anywhere in the home increases the charge. Family Advocacy or Child Protective service will also be notified in any of these cases. People have become to believe that informing the law of a wrongdoing is "Snitching" Used to be it was being a good citizen or neighbor.

Hope you are where you can make a better life for your kids when/if you ever have any.

I realize there is strong language in my first post to this and I must say it was made to illicit a response. I hadn't read the following posts and known that you had allready come out with the story. Hopefully it will help someone else not sit idly by and let it happen to them and thier parent that they love who is being abused. The cycle is a hard one to break, children of abusive parents often become abusers themselves even when they want the furthest thing from it. It's helps to know ahead of the game that even withthe best intentions to not follow the same path you may find yourself on that very same road. Recognizing this is a major first step in keeping it from happening to your children. The other end of the spectrum is not disciplining your children at all because you are afraid it is abuse.

I feel strongly about this but don't want this to start a flame session. I do want it to help someone, somewhere, sometime.

 

[BlackObsidian]

Learningcurve, I completely agree with you that people need to know in those circumstances but unfortunately the same thing which keeps the child cowering in his/her room is the same thing stopping people finding out; Fear.

"What will dad do if he finds out I told the police?"
"The police won't believe me anyway, I'm a kid."
"Even if the police DO come round to investigate, mum will just tell them they had an arguement and it doesn't happen often and then they'll leave and I'll get beaten for it"

etc etc yada yada.

Plus the other thing about being born in '78 is that during the first 15 years of your live you don't have the internet, a mobile phone or access to transport to go and find people to talk to anyway...

Things are different now though for kids if they can break the fear-cycle and speak to someone.

As for my own fiancée and potential children, she'd be the first one to tell you what I'm like. Because of the crap I went through I tend to be VERY confrontatinal with guys getting agressive with girls or people smacking their kids harder than a warning "tap". By no means am I saying I look for fights but if I'm in our flat and I hear a girl scream outside I'll put my trainers on and go straight out there (although normally it's some drunken teenage slapper screaming because she's being chased by her boyfriend and they're now kissing)

I'm almost certain I'll be one of those "man dies while stopping a domestic arguement" blokes.

 

[Learningcurve]

Yeah I hear ya, born 10 years before that. I remember my favorite shows going from black and white to color. There is a lot more ways to get the info now. So that scenerio you gave I hope doesn't come to pass any longer. As far as being believed goes, alot more is believed now tehn way back when. It's almost getting to the guilty until proven innocent stage now as far as child and spouse abuse goes. Better for the kids and battered wives, not so good for the husbands of crafty manipulitive women

 

[Greenyoda]

Paintballs more fun, It utterly humiliates him and you dont have to explain to the cops why you just blew a guys head off with your shotgun. And he shows up at school with big red welts. ^^