Some interesting forum topics

Are there country(ies) without a fucked up school system?
Equality of ages
Jobs w/o skill/college
School violence-what's the cause?

Schools want troops to turn into teachers

Troops to Teachers is a federally funded program that encourages qualified military personnel to become teachers, especially in high-need areas, such as math, science, vocational education and special education.
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Why are public schools so bad at hiring good teachers?

Apparently, getting rid of incompetent teachers is really hard, and it seems there's nothing on a prospective teacher's résumé that indicates how he or she will do in the classroom (oh, the irony). They should make new teachers read this guide before they let them teach :)
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Warning over home alone children

UK: Many parents could face prosecution for leaving their children home alone during the summer holidays, a children's charity has warned. The Children's Legal Centre is calling for clarification of existing law, which fails to specify at what age children can be left on their own. Parents who fall foul of the law can face up to 10 years in prison.
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Call for more searches of pupils

UK: Teachers should be able to search pupils to stop them bringing alcohol and drugs into school, says a review on tackling bad behaviour among pupils.
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Alternatives section expanded - 10 new articles

The alternatives section has been divided into categories: homeschooling & unschooling, online schooling, dropping out/GED, and charter schools. Each of those have 3 new articles in them (except charter schools, which only has one so far). Eventually the alternatives section will (hopefully) contain info about anything anyone would ever want to know about alternatives to school :)  ... I'm also working on adding a section for alternative streams of income and interesting jobs, but that's not up yet.
Here are some of the new articles: Unschooling is Quality Time, The Legal Requirements For Home Schooling in the US, How You Can Prepare For Your GED, Eligibility and Requirements for the GED Test.

Bush signs bill overhauling eavesdropping rules

President Bush signed a bill Thursday that overhauls rules about government eavesdropping and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the U.S. spy on Americans in suspected terrorism cases. He called it "landmark legislation that is vital to the security of our people."
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Alternatives to year 11 and 12 in Australia

How to get into university early and skip the last 2 years of high school in Australia.
Forum Post: Alternatives to year 11 and 12? (Australia)

Google ordered to give YouTube user data to Viacom

A US judge has ordered Google to expose to Viacom the video-viewing habits of everyone who has ever used YouTube in a decision condemned by the Internet giant and privacy advocates. US District Court Judge Louis Stanton backed Viacom's request for data on which YouTube users watch which videos on the website in order to support its case in a billion-dollar copyright lawsuit against Google.
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New webchat

We have a new webchat... this one loads faster, doesn't require Java, and has more features. You can still use the old one too, if you want... just select it before you connect. It doesn't matter which one you pick, they both end up in the same place :)

Man dressed as penis disrupts graduation

A 19-year-old man dressed as a penis was arrested for disturbing a high school graduation today at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. He allegedly interrupted the Saratoga Springs High School graduation by marching across SPAC's stage in an inflatable 6-foot penis costume while diplomas were being given out, and sprayed parts of the 5,000 people in the crowd with Silly String.
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Student hacker who upped his grades faces 38 years in jail

Prosecutors claim that he repeatedly broke into Tesoro High School, then used teachers’ passwords to hack into computers and change his test scores. If convicted on all 69 counts, including altering and stealing public records, computer fraud, burglary, identity theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy, he could spend almost four decades in prison.
Forum Post: Guy hacks school computer and gets 38 years in jail
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School exclusions 2,200 per day

More than 2,200 children in England are excluded from school every single school day, show official figures. The annual statistics, showing pupils removed for disruptive and bad behaviour, show short term exclusions have risen to 425,600.
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Students' laxative-spiked cake sends Brooklyn teachers to hospital

Teachers were thrilled when students at a Brooklyn high school sweetly offered them slices of homemade cake last week. But the innocent-looking treat contained a nasty surprise - it was laced with laxatives that sent two educators to the hospital and sickened three other staffers. Now, three seniors at the Brooklyn School for Global Studies in Cobble Hill have been suspended for the prank and barred from graduation - and were under arrest last night.
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More Problems for Homeschoolers in Germany

Homeschool families continue to be aggressively pursued by school authorities and youth welfare officials. In addition, homeschoolers in Germany have more cause to be concerned than in the past because of action by the federal parliament that has made it easier to take children from homeschooling parents. Under the old law, government officials had to show that the child was in danger because of abuse by the parents. All that is required under the new law is that the child’s welfare is in danger, a vague requirement that is undefined by the current law.
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How to access blocked websites from school

New guide up: How To Unblock Myspace At School (I only called it that because lots of people search for Myspace). Has a short list of proxies, and a whole bunch of other methods you can use to unblock websites.

'Coward teacher' deprived of certificate

China's education authorities have revoked the teaching certificate of a "coward teacher" who left his students behind as he escaped during the May 12 quake. He later defended his behavior which triggered heated disputes on the Internet. Fan Meizhong, nicknamed Fan Paopao by netizens who condemn his escape in the May 12 quake, defends himself saying he would sacrifice everything, including his mother's life, for his survival.
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Students told attendance at religious ceremony was mandatory

Attendance at the May 19 baccalaureate at Immaculate Conception Church in Las Vegas was listed as mandatory in three separate written notices the administration sent to students. The notices also promoted a senior Mass at Immaculate Conception, but that was listed as optional. Robertson principal Richard Lopez said that despite the notices, going to baccalaureate was optional and students could opt out by talking to him. The Las Vegas Optic reported that Lopez did not call back when the newspaper asked how students would know they could opt out and why the event was listed as mandatory.
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An article dedicated to all readers of School Survival

Steve Hein wrote an article specifically addressed to everyone on SS:
"My purpose is to talk about teenagers who think differently than the mainstream. To talk about teenagers who have thought about killing themselves, or who have tried. Or who are now dead because they could not stand the pain of society. [...] Some people can't understand why a guy my age cares about teenagers, especially the teens that no one else cares about. And maybe that is one reason I do care about them - because I know that no one else does - or almost no one."
Related Forum Post: Internship position available for helping people

New poem: Untitled

Untitled, by BobManPerson.
"He wanted to be an artist so the world could see his creativity.
But soon he was forced to attend school."  (more)

Dolphins and Teachers

New article: Dolphins and Teachers, by Steve Hein.
"If someone gave me control over a dolphin in a place like sea world, I would take the dolphin to the ocean and set it free...IF... if I were not afraid of someone else punishing me for doing that. [...] How many teachers would set you free if they could?"

How to get people to think

3 closely related forum posts: Students (how to get them interested in anti-school things) | Winning an anti-school argument? | Brainwashing-Pills, obedience-increasing medicine...
liq3: If they are giving people medicine to put them in the "no thought" mindset, doesn't that suggest that everyone else already isn't thinking? I suddenly think the reason that school has not been abolished yet, that the government is corrupt and getting away with it, is not because people are stupid, but because 90% of the population does not think.
This also suggests, that if we want to win, and stimulate change, we do not need to tell them the truth, we do not need try to convince them. What we need to do, is get them thinking again.

Arkansas Schools Consider 4 Day School Week

Instead of going green or using more fuel efficient buses, two Arkansas school districts may go a different route to save money and the environment. The Mansfield and Hartford districts are considering cutting back classes from 5 days a week to 4.
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2012: The Year the Internet dies

Every significant Internet provider around the globe is currently in talks with access and content providers to transform the internet into a television-like medium: no more freedom, you pay for a small commercial package of sites you can visit and you'll have to pay for seperate subscriptions for every site that's not in the package. Almost all smaller websites/services will disappear over time...
Forum Post: 2012: The Year the Internet dies
Save the internet!

Cop traumatizes teens to teach them a lesson.

The police arrive at your workplace and ask to see you. They solemnly tell you that your husband/wife/partner was viciously murdered in your home a short while earlier. Apparently your loved one forgot to lock the door properly and a psychopathic killer managed to walk in and commit this heinous crime.
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