When do Children Obtain their Civil Rights?- Day 3

The saga continues today on Children's Rights vs. school authority. Ler's comment to Day 2's discussion is a nice lead in to today's discussion. He said:

"How does this teach values such as freedom of speech?"

And I would say this does the exact reverse. If we allow schools, one of the few forms of authority children see at a young age, to censor students to this extreme we are in essence teaching them that government censorship is okay. What is a school, after all, if not an agent of the government? I give greater leeway to private and parochial schools because they are not an agent of the state and therefore not bound by the tight standards of government agencies, but I would not encourage this trend in any organization.

It is a basic psychological principle we are dealing with called conditioned response. In a nut shell, a conditioned response is a learned trait resulting from a particular set of stimuli. As an example, if every time an infant sees a bunny rabbit someone plays a really loud noise in the baby's ear that baby will flinch, cringe, cry, etc. Conditioned response says that, eventually, if you show that baby a bunny rabbit the baby will have the same reaction, even without the noise. Children are extremely impressionable and in this case a child is being conditioned that, if she speaks her mind, she will get in trouble. Specifically, if she speaks out against authority (her school and it's agents in this case) she will get in trouble. Without any interfering influences, this child would eventually stop speaking out in order to avoid getting in trouble. That is the essence of brainwashing.

The child in the original news story is fortunate to have parents who are willing to stand up for her rights and show her that she should speak her mind, but not all children are so lucky. The ability and courage to speak out against authority is an important check on any powerful figure or organization. Children should learn early to observe and question authority, never bow down to its will or be intimidated into silence. That is the essence of freedom of speech.

When do Children Obtain their Civil Rights?- Day 1

Children are people, are they not? Certainly they are smaller, generally less intelligent, hindered by lack of experience and still developing brain chemistry, but they are members of the Homospien species which makes them human and endowed with the same natural rights as each of us. As a civilized society we have established certain cultural standards that says that children, in general, are dependent (i.e. do not have independence) until they reach the age of 18. Until they reach that age their interests and safety are in the care of their legal guardian who is most commonly a biological parent. This custodian is the holder of all of the minors rights and freedoms, which is why police cannot interrogate a child without the presence of their guardian or if the guardian has waived the right to be present.

With that idea established, I find this article from MSNBC highly disturbing.

The article is loaded enough with issues that I've decided to make it into a brief series treating on the following subjects:

Day 1(today): children's rights
Day 2: parenting
Day 3: brainwashing
Day 4: search and seizure
Day 5: right to privacy
Day 6: freedom of speech

Today's topic I have already about covered but I would like make one additional note:

Now that I have established that the parents/guardians are the holders of a child's rights, I'd like to make a pointed observation about the article. It states "The school district doesn't dispute that it obtained the girl's password, but does say it had parental permission." This raises a very important question of how the lawsuit was brought. Are we really meant to believe that a 12 year old contacted the ACLU and is pressing this lawsuit without the go ahead of her parents? Possible, but highly unlikely. The odds are that, when their daughter came home crying and they figured out what had happened the parent(s) put things into action.

If password prying is a "standard practice" at the school, as the ACLU claims, then odds are that either they have informed parents in the past and obtained permission or, more likely, other students have been too intimidated to tell their parents. After getting in trouble at school, kids are unlikely to come home and tell their parents which could result in even more punishment at home. If the former is the case then I have much fewer issues with the circumstances, but if it is the latter as I suspect this school better be seeing a severe reprimand in the near future.