NationStates Jolt Archive

I just don't get why schools have banned a lot of things in schools. I mean if they're distractions from learning it's one thing, but to ban stuff because "It's a form of gambling" is stupid.

Pogs
Card games
trading cards
the game Pennies

I just don't get it. I mean, they aren't usually using money really. When I traded my Pokemon cards or played Poker at lunch, it was for fun, not money. (We were allowed to play until my Junior year).

I mean, I remember them banning even those slapper bracelets that were so popular at one point, because they thought it could kill people.

Couldn't they at least tell us the real reasons? I mean we may have been kids, but we weren't THAT stupid.

That's new. I've never heard of a school banning card games and the like. At my school they ban unnatural hair colors (even if one of the teachers dyes her hair hot pink and stunning colors like that), all piercings excluding ears and nose and other jewellery (but that isn't enforced). It also bans skirts more than three inches above the knee (for good reason /: ) as well as wearing a long sleeved shirt that is not white under our school shirt. Oh. and scarves.

Now THAT is stupid.

Actually, their excuse during my kid days was that it caused playground violence/theft/tension.

Actually, their excuse during my kid days was that it caused playground violence/theft/tension.

That's like saying sex causes your penis to fall off.

Well, kids are quite gullible so it's quite easy for the smart ones to cheat the dumb ones out of their cards or whatever. And those hobbies are EXPENSIVE. I can see that banning it completely is easier than having a teacher check on any instance of possible cheating.

My school banned:

The colour red - apparently causes "tension" because it's a "mood colour of rage."
Denim, including jackets - apparently because the little metal rivits are a health and safety hazard,
Polo mints - because people were throwing them,
Kissing within school grounds,
and, stupidest of all: locks on bathroom doors, to prevent people smoking inside.

My school banned:

The colour red - apparently causes "tension" because it's a "mood colour of rage."
Denim, including jackets - apparently because the little metal rivits are a health and safety hazard,
Polo mints - because people were throwing them,
Kissing within school grounds,
and, stupidest of all: locks on bathroom doors, to prevent people smoking inside.Dang... my school only banned smoking, partly because of a Germany-wide campaign for smoke free schools...

Actually, I think they only said they banned locks because of smoking. In reality iirc they banned it shortly after two guys were caught performing oral sex in a cubicle by a janitor.

What school allowed gambling in the first place? No school I know of would allow it. Of course, we all gambled anyway, but that's a different story.

I occasionally play TexasHold 'Em or Black Jack at school. I've won like $60 in the last few months.

me and my friends always used to play poker in form time, we were never told not to....

Weird.

FairyTinkArisen, your post was there before I hit reply the 1st time, and my post shows up before yours. Weird.

It goes like this.
Kid loses pogs, money, cards or whatever in a fair game.
Mummy says "where's all the crap I paid for?"
kid bottles it and says it was taken unfairly.
Mummy shouts at teacher.

Teachers aren't paid to sort that shit out so they ban everything.

If stupid parents stopped believing everything their little angels tell them life would be easier and stuff would be allowed.

Health and safety is a great way to ban something you don't like.

Don't like shoe laces; ban lace up shoes on the grounds that someone may trip over a loose lace. Parent sue schools for not looking after their kids so it's easy to rationalise even if it is crap.

Put up with it, get older, become a teacher, enforce your own unreasonible pedjudices

My school banned:

The colour red - apparently causes "tension" because it's a "mood colour of rage."
Denim, including jackets - apparently because the little metal rivits are a health and safety hazard,
Polo mints - because people were throwing them,
Kissing within school grounds,
and, stupidest of all: locks on bathroom doors, to prevent people smoking inside.

My school did the exact opposite. Now all the eight or so bathrooms in my school are locked to prevent smoking and/or sex. Occasionally they let one open, on the off chance one of the 1500 students might have to use the washroom.

While gambling is a terrible vice that necessitates a ban, forbidding the trading of pokemon cards is a bit extreme...as is possessing pokemon cards in the first place :p

Well, gambling is banned at my school. Although this past year, me and my friends would bring in large quantities of change and play poker during lunch and after school in the Inter Departmental Studies (IDS) room. Although IDS is prettymuch a student run club where you can go and socialize, eat lunch, store your stuff (many lockers are inconvenient, the IDS cubbies aren't too inconvenient, and people don't normally steal from there)...so it's generally just students there with the teacher who runs it in the next room. Year before, me and my friends played cards in science class because we never learned anything. It ended up being a stupid, pointless class.

Edit: TIME WARPED! Jun's post appeared below my reply-writing-boxy-thingy and my post is before it!

I just don't get why schools have banned a lot of things in schools. I mean if they're distractions from learning it's one thing, but to ban stuff because "It's a form of gambling" is stupid.

Pogs
Card games
trading cards
the game Pennies

I just don't get it. I mean, they aren't usually using money really. When I traded my Pokemon cards or played Poker at lunch, it was for fun, not money. (We were allowed to play until my Junior year).

I mean, I remember them banning even those slapper bracelets that were so popular at one point, because they thought it could kill people.

Couldn't they at least tell us the real reasons? I mean we may have been kids, but we weren't THAT stupid.The Idea is the act, not the actual exchange of money. and we played cards in school... in the classroom, and it wasn't for money.

Pennies... its that the one where you toss pennies at the wall and the closest wins?

Pennies... its that the one where you toss pennies at the wall and the closest wins?

No. I can actually see why they'd ban this game. It's also called bloody knuckles. You like flick a coin into a person's closed knuckles which are on a desk. Person who holds out the longest wins.

Gambling is illegal in the vast majority of the US. In the places where it is legal, it is heavily regulated. I dont see why schools should be the one place where unregulated gambling is allowed.

It is too difficult to monitor everyone playing cards to see if any money changes hands, so its just easier to ban it completely. As for pogs and other things, that's just stupid.

My old school was pretty bad with the cards thing, except for some teachers who didn't care. Also, people actually gambled during extracurricular activities, and they didn't get caught. Although my old school was a bit prestigious so we had some tight rules. I have no idea what my new one is going to be like. Considering they don't really have a dress code, it'll be... different.

It's not the teachers that ban things, guys. It's (most of) the administrators. And the school boards. I've found teachers side with "us" on almost everything.

We had our bathrooms locked up for a week or two. I'm a Heinlein-ite. I hate losing my privleges because of some loser that decides to write fake bomb threats on the walls of a bathroom stall. And I'm pretty sure gambling is banned, but it is definetly left unenforced.

Gambling is illegal in the vast majority of the US. In the places where it is legal, it is heavily regulated. I dont see why schools should be the one place where unregulated gambling is allowed.


Well that's the point. Gambling has a different meaning here. Gambling between two people is not something the state should keep it's snotty nose in, unless someone's betting their kids or something. Ever seen guys go to play poker together? That's legal. This is the same type thing.

I think this is just a way of schools trying keep kids learning instead of playing, which is okay, but who cares what they do at lunch or recess?

Why do they have to be so anal about things? I mean, my public high school, which was 8-12th graders as the county was too small population-wise to have a middle school, has only 300 students. The last few years of school, they forced us to tuck in our shirts, we couldn't play cards, we couldn't have CD players on the buses, and we couldn't go to the bathroom during class. No exceptions. People got suspended for not tucking their shirts in. They even suspended a girl who had a doctor's not saying she had to keep her shirt untucked. Some intestinal thing. Thankfully the girl sued the school.

But isn't that a bit overkill?