Deleted that part because it's just not worth it to use that many words explaining that the obvious is obvious.

It's just that of everything that's occurred to me since I left gradeschool for the vastly less insane worlds of postsecondary education / semi-gainful employments, the water thing more and more stands out as the perfect example of everything completely ridiculous and bass-ackwards about how our educational system is run.

Hey just some food for thought as a recent ex-highschooler myself regarding the whole waterbottle issue.

Sure, we were allowed waterbottles in class. I often forgot mine. Thusly, I was thirsty fairly commonly.

It's not that big of a deal. It's nowhere near as distracting as people are making it out to be, unless you're literally dehydrated, in which case get to a damn drinking fountain.

In general, I agree with your post. The negative effect isn't going to be extremely noticeable to the person experiencing it. However, there is a trend associated with it, and it seems to be statistically significant (assuming I read the article correctly). This is the kind of thing school administrators should be looking at.

Basically, the plural of anecdote is not data.

This post is awful and wrong in so many ways.

Just the fact that you think something not being a big deal for you means it's automatically not a big deal for anyone else and that it's therefore okay to tell them what to go damn do makes it not even worth trying to respond to any of the other basically awful things.

Eric Harris was like this. Klebold was more the traditional depressive type, which is sadder, because Harris was probably beyond hope, but Klebold likely wouldn't have done more harm to others or himself than most teenage depressives do if he hadn't gotten mixed up with a psycho. Which is not to disagree with your point--he's the only one I know of that's been officially labeled as "probably a genuine psychopath"--I'm just sayin'.

They might have. When I went to HS, I wore leather miniskirts and boots and wandered the halls, and nobody cared because they knew I was harmless. Some students I think got annoyed with my excessive "hall breaks," but for the most part high school and I had a pact of mutual non-aggression. (RE: the water bottle thing, we could carry them, though it was up to individual teachers whether or not they would let us drink stuff in class.)

I'm told it got worse; a lot of things changed after I left, including most of the administrative staff. A bunch of search-and-seizure bullshit starting happening in service of a War on Pot, and the administration began monitoring all the stuff that people wrote in their Xangas (yeah, for some reason everyone at my school started using Xanga, I don't get it either). I could kind of see a case if the kids were posting stuff during school hours, but otherwise that stuff is really not any of the school's business. That might just have been my school, but in general it sort of feels like the climate has changed.

Not that there wasn't bullshit in my time, like the stupid "no hats" rule that's been in effect for eons, and no, just because that's how it's always been doesn't mean that's how it always should be.

In fact, if I were to put on my old person hat and start going on about what's wrong with kids these days, I'd argue that what's wrong is exactly that "you can't do anything" attitude they're been given. And it's not like you can just kick them in the ass and tell them to stop being apathetic--I had teachers (English ones, naturally) that were like that, and it pisses me off now even more than it did then, because when you're 15 and have never had anything that wasn't given to you, your reaction to all these "change the world" speeches is, "Okay, how?" They're kids--they've got to learn to be self-motivated, but somebody has to point them in right direction.

I'm not saying it's not totally stupid and wrong of the school to be banning waterbottles from classrooms, because it is. You're putting words in my mouth that I would never say in any circumstance ever and you know it.

That's fair.

Fenris, you can't blame Fifth. You're avatar makes you look like a tremendous douche, and as much as I enjoy being an asshole, I'm telling you out of complete honesty, and not to be an asshole. I just look at that motherfucker smiling and want to punch him.

I'm just glad he decided to go with the face.

Success!

Man, you should be lucky you haven't looked at my profile picture, then.

I was under the impression that the no hats rule was to try to limit gang activity. There are a lot of gangs that share the same colors, but differentiate by how they wear their hats. That kind of thing, of course, is not readily apparent to non-members. Obviously, they can't control what happens outside of school, but it may or may not actually keep someone from getting shanked on school grounds.