Are there any teachers out there on this board, teaching 5th grade or higher ? If so, please answer this question for me. How much time have you spent in the classroom, teaching kids about THE LAW ? When I was in school (a long time ago), I went through 17 years of schooling (to a year of graduate school), and other than one business law course in high school (an elective), I don't recall a single minute of education about the law, and ZERO regarding criminal law. My kids tell me the same about their educational years. So now, fast foward to the past couple of years of social events in America. A 17 year old kid (Trayvon Martin) gets blown away after throwing punches at a neighborhood watch guy who was observing him. An 18 year old kid, Michael Brown, roughs up a convenience store clerk, and then attacks a cop. And then, thousands of young blacks fight with cops in the street, and throw rocks at them in during what could have been peaceful protests. Are these kids oblivious to the fact that 1) they stand a good chance of being shot to death and 2) being arrested for a violent CRIME ? Do these kids have any idea that what they're doing is illegal ? Strange as it may seem, I don't think they do. And my guess is one of the reasons is the lack of education on the law. Even many adults my own age (69) are still unaware that a minor, physical attack on them (or anyone over 65 in Florida) can result in 5 years of imprisonment in a state prison. (1 yr county jail on people under 65). And what is the law on the charge of battery ? Exactly what constitutes the commission of this crime ? Technically, any unrequested touching is a battery (called "assault" in some states) So what's up, teachers ? Are the kids learning what they need to know to be law-abiding citizens, or are they being allowed to roam the streets like wild dogs, with no idea of what they are going to be held responsible for ? What is going on in those classrooms, or NOT going on, pertaining to criminal law ?
I'm just wondering if even ONE single teacher, in the whole United States, will tell me that he/she taught criminal law to kids.
Of course they do. Rarely is it formal education, it's usually an aside to some other lesson taught. However, parents should be teaching most of that, not teachers. Parents should be teaching their kids that assault and battery is a crime.
Parent should indeed teach that to kids, but most parents don't know the law very well themselves. It just isn't taught in the schools as a rule. But is should. Most people here in Florida have no clue what they are REQUIRED BY LAW to do if they get into a car accident. Lack of that knowledge could land them in jail, very easily. And it's information that teachers could teach in just a few minutes. - - - Updated - - - Post # 5 just obliterated that.
Assault and battery are two different things that usually happen together. Battery is the unwanted touching and assault is the creating the fear of a harm, at least in my state. If I threaten to hit you, it is assault (I just scared you). If I punch you in the nose it is assault and battery (it scared you to see my fist coming and then I made the unwanted contact when it touched you), and if I come behind you to where you don't see me coming and kick you in the butt, it is battery (because you got the touching but didn't see it coming to be fearful).
There’s hundreds of similar examples with multiple complications though – the minutes would soon stack up. Given the state of the education system, I think teachers need to focus on teaching their students to read and count before adding anything else. There seems to be a never ending list of things people demand are taught in schools but then they complain when the kids don’t get the core education. You can’t have it both ways. I would have expected legal requirements in the event of a traffic collision should be included in the driving test. In general, public information about basic legal practicalities should be made easily available by the authorities but you can’t do all the work for people. If they choose not to seek out that information, they’re not in a very strong position if they fall foul of their ignorance.
I think you meant to ask if there are any PARENTS on this board...and then finish out your thoughts to them with what you wrote. Teachers don't have an obligation to teach kids how to not break laws. They teach science, reading, English, math, etc. WE are supposed to raise our children to become adults. Teachers are supposed to teach them knowledge. And parents don't need to "know the law" to teach kids that they will get into trouble for harming others. The penalty shouldn't guide the actions. Teaching them right from wrong should.
What to do if you get in a car accident is in the FL DMV official driver's handbook--the book you use to study for the FL driver's license test. If the kids take driver's ed, I'm sure they learn it. If not, t hey should have gotten it from the handbook. It's on the listed questions at the end of the relevant chapter. The State of Florida, IMHO, is pretty thorough in this. http://www.flhsmv.gov/handbooks/EnglishDriverHandbook.pdf
1. NO, there are NOT "hundreds of similar examples with multiple complications". 2. Reading and counting is taught in the lower grades (1-3). Teaching about battery and car accidents would be for middle and high school (7-12). 3. It's silly to blame drivers for not seeking information (which they don't even know exists). It should be part of core education.
And in Florida, if this battery is done to a senior citizen (65+) the crime jumps from a misdemeanor (1 yr County Jail) to a felony (3 yrs State Prison) Very few people are aware of this.
This is all worthwhile information but guess what. It's incomplete. And it still leaves the driver in a position to be fined and/or arrested on charges of violation of Florida Statute Section 316.061 (Crashes involving damage to vehicle or property.), and Statute Section 316.065. The manual doesn't note that you must call the police if the apparent damage is $500 or more, and conversely the manual also does not note that if the apparent damage is under $500 (and no injuries) you don't have to call the police. The manual also neglects to say that the 4 items that you must show the other driver (Statute Section 316.062) must be shown BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE SCENE of the accident. Just showing them later that day or the next day is not sufficient. If this isn't handled exactly the way the Statute (not the manual) requires, you could be arrested for violation of 316.061, and do jail time (2nd degree misdemeanor - 60 days County Jail). This all is a perfect example of what the OP says, & why this needs to be a core part of school education (required, not elective) http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes...ute&URL=0300-0399/0316/Sections/0316.061.html http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes...062&URL=0300-0399/0316/Sections/0316.062.html http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes...065&URL=0300-0399/0316/Sections/0316.065.html
Why wouldnt there be? There are thousands of laws and regulations and I dont see why these specific ones alone would be of relevance. Then there are all the other things its often suggested that schools should be expected to teach beyond the core academics road safety, swimming, first aid, cycling proficiency, sexual consent/rape, basic financial management, job applications etc. Many of them are good things to learn (including your practical legal knowledge) and some of them will be suited to being taught in school hours, but we cant just keep adding things to the list without taking other things out. And given schools are already struggling teaching the basic academics at all levels, Id suggest more time needs to be focused on getting that right before we start adding even more non-core subjects. Given how many kids graduate high schools with limited basic maths and English skills, there clearly does need to be more attention to those at the higher levels too. Yes, but surely part of the core education for drivers, not children.
well dang, I been confused all these years, whenever I heard someone say someone assaulted a cop, I thought it meant something more then that
` Schools have a perfectly legitimate right to teach students about laws that are public. It used to be called "citizenship". As a parent, I'm perfectly comfortable with that.
May be different in your state I suppose, but what is reported is not always reported correctly even in my state. It is seldom you will have a case with battery (the touching) and not have the assault element as well, though it does happen. They often report burglaries as robberies in the media when those are different as well, at least in my state.
1. You don't get it. There's PLENTY of things that can be taken out. As for " non-core" the laws that we are being held accountable to, are a lot more "core" than a lot of the junk being taught. 2. If a kid can't read or count, he should NOT be promoted to the next grade. He should be left back. If after a second time in that grade, if he still can't count or read, he should be removed from the school. No way should high schools be teaching kids to read and count. That is preposterous. 3. Children (schoolkids) ARE drivers. Drivers licenses are given to kids age 14 - 16, depending on the state. http://parentingteens.about.com/od/teendriving/a/Driving-Age-by-State.htm
When I was in the 7th grade, our teacher set up a mock court with student lawyers, criminal and judge, and went through the process of a trial. Public school. Good teacher. Interesting class. He left the school a few years later and went into construction to make a few bucks.
Lots of people say that, the problem is they don’t say it about the same things. One person says A, B and C should be dropped to teach X, Y and Z while another person else thinks X, Y and Z should be dropped for A, B and C. Someone else might think A, B and X should be included, others all of them and others still none. And then someone comes along as says “What about Q?”. You still come down to the fact that formal schooling is primarily about academic education so it is structured and resourced with that in mind. You can’t just take a list of other things and say “You must teach that!” without any thought for the structure, resources and exactly what is compromised in return. I wasn’t quite being so literal (not quite!). The fact is that the academic achievement of many young people graduating high school is much lower than it could be. The education system is under massive pressure to perform better on this basis in the face of fewer resources and often poor public or parental support. They should be performing better too but that’s not going to be helped in any way by not only demands for them to teach ever more diverse topics but the ever changing fashions of what is demanded of them. That’s when they can start learning to drive, with tailored driving lessons and tests. Why shouldn’t this element of driving knowledge be included in that driving instruction rather at children in general? Alternatively, if you were going to include this single element of driving knowledge in the mainstream education curriculum, why wouldn’t you be demanding the whole of driving to be mandated? And, if you were going to include this single element of practical legal knowledge, why wouldn’t you be expecting every other bit of practical legal knowledge to be included. I don’t want to pry but I can’t help wondering if you’re focusing on this singular bit of information because you’ve been caught out by it yourself.
Most high schools have a Law Enforcement course; it covers moot court, legal briefs, legal research, and the law. It generally isn't a required core course, however, it is an elective, and many students take it, particularly those interested in legal careers. Also, schools have police resource officers who conduct seminar's on the law; bullying and violence in school. What you are implying, is the same old saw that put American education in the hole with its liberalism. Everything you asked in your post is the sole responsibility of the parents or guardians to teach their children. Logic; ethics; politics; law - those are specific topics that school's can teach, but if a child has been brought up on confrontation of all authority, lack of respect for their parents; grandparents; police or teacher's, the idea that merely showing up is good enough (read the poem), than their ability, and incentive to learn anything about the law is clouded, and they are not concerned. They will spend their class time texting instead of learning. A more appropriate question would have been to direct your concerns to the parents. How many of them actually teach their children respect for the law and legitimate authority? How many of them are active members of their child's school PTA? How many parents attend their child's school Open House evening, to meet their teachers, learn how their kids are doing; what they need to work on; how their behavior is? How many parents have attended Parent-Teacher Conferences, usually about fighting, smoking, violence, bullying or failure to take classroom education seriously and not question why their kid is failing? No - easier to just blame the teacher's instead of the children. Teachers can only teach the lessons they are assigned. You can't mix up the topics or the methods. Common Core fails huge because it's basis is that each teacher will teach the same lesson in the same subject daily, like all the other members of that department, and each student will be treated as equal in comprehension and learning ability. Any wonder why we have kids dozing off in school all of the time? Ask the parents why they called in and cleared major absences (skips), and tardiness for their children that school administrator's have to accept and wipe from the records as excused. When was the last time you actually heard of a school age student being arrested for being a truant? The crime doesn't even exist anymore because the parents excuse all the absent and tardy days. What used to happen was the school administration, after going through the normal parent-teacher conference meeting, would contact the police when a student was regularly absent and guilty of being a truant. The police would arrest the child - take him or her through the juvenile court process, subpoena the parents - and depending upon the circumstances - put the kid in juvenile jail, or put the mother, father or guardian in jail for failure to keep track of their young charges. You let Mom sit in jail overnight some Friday or Saturday because their kid was skipping school, and they took no action on it, and truancy stops fast. But, now that crime isn't prosecuted - and the parents just dump their kids into school, like it is a holding pen until they turn 18. Don't blame the teacher's or school administration for lazy parents who fail to do their job first. The former can't do a thing with your child unless you have established the correct ethical behavior with him/her to begin with. If not - don't dump them on the school system, and blame the teacher's - it gets old real fast, and is one of the reason's people abandon the teaching profession routinely and consistently. It isn't because they don't care, or don't want to teach your child - your child doesn't want to learn, and you don't have the moral fiber to stand up to your own children and insist they hit the standard needed to be a success.\ Set a high standard, and insist your child meet that standard. We don't do them any favor's by making friends with them (that is the liberal rage of parenting - and every generation thinks they know how to do it better than previous ones - none ever do). In fact, that attitude cripples the child's ability and incentive to learn, because parent's are too soft on them, and dump them into school, and forget about them...........
Language is fluid, and the media are experts in sansationalism. Look at all the thread responses and media statements that were made in the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri. Before he attacked a cop in an armed police unit and got himself killed, he shoplifted some cigars and pushed a salesclerk her challenged him, as big as he was. Seems all of those thread responses and media reports, if I remember them correctly, accused Brown of armed robbery just before attacking the cop, when in fact, all he committed was petty larceny- shoplifting.............
Yes the media likes to sensationalize things. There was an old movie I saw once, maybe it was called The Shipping News IIRC, whose main character worked for a newspaper in Newfoundland, that always wanted a car wreck on the front page whether there had been one or not because car wrecks sell copies. There is, however, a lot of quirks between laws and legal terminology from state to state, so I wouldn't want to presume to say that I know what it is in every state. Hell apparently even in my own state the Courts will decided that explicit words in laws don't mean what they mean in plain English if the result is one they do not like--like letting someone walk on a technicality. Day can mean Night, East can mean West, Up can mean Down if that is what it takes to keep em locked up.
I do remember the case of basketball star Alan Iverson. As a 17-year old teenager, he, along with a bunch of buddies, got in a bowling alley fight with a group of others in Hampton, Virginia. It turned hugely violent - was actually videotaped, and Iverson is show clubbing another teenager over the head with the side of a metal chair. He was convicted, and sentenced to seven years in jail and sent there with the others. Of course, Iverson was also the first round draft pick of the Philadelphia 76'ers, I believe, in the NBA, was a tremendous talent the next year, so Virginia Governor Wilder pardoned him, released him from jail, stating the sentence was too harsh (his victim spent a few months in a coma, but nothing serious), and Iverson was released from prison, and went onto a Hall of Fame mega-million dollar career in the NBA. The other kids jailed? They served their sentences, so yes, the legal system was bent by the Governor's totally biased opinion, so Iverson could play professional basketball. So, yes, the legal system can be, and is, routinely bent, despite the fact that legal terminology and generic terminology are confused all of the time. One notices it particularly with the media, when their so-called "experts" appear and confuse robbery with burglary; assault with battery; armed robbery and larceny.
