Auntie Cheryl's Safety Tips for Schoolchildren
I am intrigued by Board President Cheryl Chow's idea that we don't need to report crime in our schools, we only need to provide students and families with safety tips. --see this story in the Seattle P-I--
"To School Board President Cheryl Chow, it's not just a matter of timing -- she doesn't really see the point in providing crime data on individual schools. "I don't know if that would be helpful," she said, adding that it would be more beneficial to provide parents with safety tips to share with their children."
So that got me thinking about safety tips for schoolchildren and what they might be. I thought of some serious ones ("Auntie Cheryl sez: Keep your head and limbs inside the bus") and some less likely but equally useful ones ("Auntie Cheryl sez: When being kicked by a gang of thugs, roll yourself into a tight ball to protect vital organs; keep your feet tucked up tightly to protect genitals") I thought other folks might also have some Safety Tips, and we could gather them together into a smart little booklet for distribution as Board President Cheryl Chow envisioned.
I'll get us started:
Auntie Cheryl sez: When "snitching" on those who assaulted you, do so anonymously over the phone, alter your voice, and claim to be a witness rather than the victim. This may reduce the liklihood of reprisal beatings.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Carry a small amount of cash for bullies in your pocket. Keep most of your money in your shoe - unless you have nice shoes that someone might want to steal. In that case, keep your money in your underwear.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Avoid unintentional gunfire. Keep your handgun's safety in the "on" position until you are ready to fire. If it is an automatic, do not keep a round in the chamber.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Presume that your school is a dangerous place and be on the lookout at all times for possible threats.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Travel only in large groups - either for safety or for predation.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Avoid open spaces, such as parking lots.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Avoid closed spaces, such as bus stops and bathrooms.
Auntie Cheryl sez: You can pee when you get home.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Sit at the front of the bus, near the driver.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Stay out of the bus driver's lap.
Auntie Cheryl sez: You don't have to be able to outrun the bullies; you only need to be able to outrun your friends. Chose weak, slow friends and abandon them at the first sign of danger.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Surrender your liberties to a strong leader who can defend you in a dangerous world.
Anyone else have some "Safety Tips" for schoolchildren.
"To School Board President Cheryl Chow, it's not just a matter of timing -- she doesn't really see the point in providing crime data on individual schools. "I don't know if that would be helpful," she said, adding that it would be more beneficial to provide parents with safety tips to share with their children."
So that got me thinking about safety tips for schoolchildren and what they might be. I thought of some serious ones ("Auntie Cheryl sez: Keep your head and limbs inside the bus") and some less likely but equally useful ones ("Auntie Cheryl sez: When being kicked by a gang of thugs, roll yourself into a tight ball to protect vital organs; keep your feet tucked up tightly to protect genitals") I thought other folks might also have some Safety Tips, and we could gather them together into a smart little booklet for distribution as Board President Cheryl Chow envisioned.
I'll get us started:
Auntie Cheryl sez: When "snitching" on those who assaulted you, do so anonymously over the phone, alter your voice, and claim to be a witness rather than the victim. This may reduce the liklihood of reprisal beatings.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Carry a small amount of cash for bullies in your pocket. Keep most of your money in your shoe - unless you have nice shoes that someone might want to steal. In that case, keep your money in your underwear.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Avoid unintentional gunfire. Keep your handgun's safety in the "on" position until you are ready to fire. If it is an automatic, do not keep a round in the chamber.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Presume that your school is a dangerous place and be on the lookout at all times for possible threats.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Travel only in large groups - either for safety or for predation.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Avoid open spaces, such as parking lots.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Avoid closed spaces, such as bus stops and bathrooms.
Auntie Cheryl sez: You can pee when you get home.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Sit at the front of the bus, near the driver.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Stay out of the bus driver's lap.
Auntie Cheryl sez: You don't have to be able to outrun the bullies; you only need to be able to outrun your friends. Chose weak, slow friends and abandon them at the first sign of danger.
Auntie Cheryl sez: Surrender your liberties to a strong leader who can defend you in a dangerous world.
Anyone else have some "Safety Tips" for schoolchildren.
Comments
SCTV's decades-old, over-the-top spoof Captain Combat advises to never be in the same room with a loaded gun unless you're the one holding it. Also, kids, don't eat cookies over the open breech of your machine gun.
This brings the blog down a notch (or two..)
Charlie, this is unlike you. You are usually so thoughtful and positive. What were you thinking on this one? Did her direction on this issue really deserve this type of mockery?
It's just easier to aim at Charlie.
I really can't believe that you would defend this cheap shot at one of our board directors.
The previous poster was right, this blog has been taken down a few notches. Yuk.
Second, this is not a school intranet site. It isn't held to that standard and neither are we.
Third, I'm not too worried about losing Cheryl Chow's participation on this Board.
Fourth, what in the WORLD made you think that Cheryl Chow would ever take a meeting with me BEFORE this?
Fifth, if she is so thin-skinned that she can't put something goofy like this behind her, then she doesn't belong in the public space.
Could you imagine the School Board President saying that she doesn't really see the point in providing academic data on individual schools? Can you imagine her suggesting that it would be more beneficial to provide parents with study tips to share with their children?
This was a statement that deserved ridicule because it was ridiculous. Let's loosen up a bit, okay?
In addition to everything else, I should probably advise you all, if you haven't figured it out already, that I am not a nice man - never claimed to be.
What am I missing here???
Cheryl Chow has never once responded to me. She refuses to make decisions based on data or throughly examine either the West Seattle Schedule decision, math adoptions, etc.
The fact that again she does not want to share statistics or even allow the public to view them involving an extremely serious topic like this; well I would find it unbelieveable except it happens all the time.
There seems to be no way to communicate with the school board that has any effect.
Charlie has written a few excellent pieces on correct decorum, which will enable you to accomplish absolutely nothing with the school board, but do it correctly. Now we have literary critics informing Charlie how to write correctly so as to accomplish nothing.
Granted I could be that Ms. Blanchard may not have recorded all this precisely, but it sounds pretty authentic to me.
The number of people taking issue with Charlie rather than Director Chow perhaps explains why this board feels above the people, when it comes to decisions.
The statement.."I don't find this at all humorous. I'm sorry. I find it unproductive and degrading." Is a really interesting statement. My question is so what has proven to be productive other than fights, disruptions, and law suits? I really do not think that poor writing style is the source of our communication problems.
The idea that something Charlie would write in this blog, would alter the way this school board makes decisions is really far-fetched.
We are operating in the abnormal setting know as the Seattle School District. Do Not assume that normal processes apply here.
Dan
What is this type of blog?
I may not agree with what Cheryl said? Cheryl said nothing to agree or disagree with; she just gave the reporter a sound bite.
That's leadership? That's making parents feel that they are being listened to? Maybe Marni Campbell should be School Board president because she has made forward progress on this issue.
Yes, you are being harder on Charlie than on Cheryl and she's the one you should be really worried about (she's a lot more powerful than Charlie as he would readily admit).
I think your accusation that Charlie, Melissa, and I have, all smoked too much of our own dope, has brought the credibility of this type of blog down a notch or two.
I believe that brings the blog credibility down a total of about 4 notches in only 13 comments.
Dan
Hello, this woman was a principal in a very challenging middle school. It's not like "auntie cheryl" wandered in after having a latte in Madison Park.
If anyone actually knows what it is like to be on the front lines, my guess is that it would be Cheryl. Laugh all you want, but she knows a ton about education and kids.
a respectable blog that people come to to be better informed on school issues. While it's not a school intranet site as Charlie quickly pointed out, I would hope that the contributors to this blog uphold a high standard too.
Now THAT was an interesting and valid point.
Would someone who reads this blog and who was a student at Garfield, teacher at Garfield, or the family member of a student at Garfield when Cheryl Chow was principal there, care to describe her leadership at that school?
And THANK YOU for the permission to laugh all I want. Some others weren't granting that.
Look, I don't pretend that this thread hasn't been tasteless. Of course it has been tasteless. I'm just okay with the occassional bit of tastelessness. Don't like it? Don't read it. You're under no obligation just as you don't have to see tasteless movies like Borat or American Pie - I didn't.
Was the entry unproductive and degrading? I would say so. I don't deny that at all. I'll own "unproductive and degrading" in a heartbeat. Let's be clear, however, what was being degraded. It wasn't Board President Chow - it was an utterly stupid and careless thing she said.
I have lived in Seattle for over twenty years and I have, from the first day, felt perfectly at home in the local culture - except for two things. One of them is the humorless earnesty and lack of appreciation for sarcasm. Say what you will, the whole Auntie Cheryl sez thing wasn't obscene or libelous; just satirical. Despite a lot of people's best efforts, Seattle is not an irony-free zone.
Did it bring the blog down one notch? Two notches? Four notches? I couldn't say. I didn't think we had that far to fall.
I have no pretensions about this blog being important or influential. The blog isn't anything "official". There is no government or corporate parent with a reputation we need to protect. I think that if I wanted to blog for the P-I I would have nominated myself to take that gig. I didn't. You think I'm a jerk, then go ahead and think that. A lot of people do. Neither I - nor any of the anonymous posters - have agreed not to offend anyone. I think the expectation is that we are going to offend some folks, that we are going to shake them up a bit. Sometimes we'll do by providing data, sometimes we'll do it by providing analysis, sometimes we'll do it by providing a new perspective, and sometimes we'll do it this way.
Are you going to throw out a case of apples because one of them has a bruise? Are you going to sell your stock portfolio because one of them went down one day? If so, that would be wasteful and it would be your loss. Do you really cancel your subscription to the newspaper when they publish one editorial you don't like? Whom does that hurt?
If you don't want to watch the Sarah Silverman Program, or Mind of Mencia, then don't. If you want to skip these sorts of threads, then skip them. I can't make you like rough humor, but I would hope that you would allow it for those who do.
not at all humorous, frankie, and various anons, you would all make the Seattle Weekly's Uptight Seattleite proud as a new father distributing cigars.
It has always struck me as ironic that for as politically passionate a town as Seattle is, the tolerance for satire here is near zero. Every other place I have ever lived or even heard of that has a lively political scene also has satirists who have turned satire into a highly polished art form.
I think I'm going to start using more sarcasm in my comments . . .
Auntie Cheryl sez: Just learn to ignore them. Never respond to their concerns or requests as they will never be satisfied.
Auntie Cheryl sez: If the good citizens of humorless Seattle thought either Charlie or Dan worthy of a seat on the board, they would have it. Since they were both defeated, and I wasn't, I'm the one with the last laugh.
Auntie Cheryl sez: I will let these bullies (Charlie, Melissa, and Dan) rant and rave on the SOS blog, and I won't suggest using data to track it. I won't even make a policy to try to prevent it. I will remember that they are just WACKO.
Auntie Cheryl asks: How many of you have been principal of Seattle's highest achieving HS?
Auntie Cheryl sez: I hope you all appreciate a bit of humor, this is just a joke. HA HA HA HA HA
So here's the other element of Seattle culture that I can't assimilate - a dedication to protecting victims from blame to an absurd degree. We hear a story of a person who was hit by a car on Aurora Avenue and we are all saddened. Then we learn that the person was trying to cross the highway at 2:30am, mid-block, wearing all dark clothing, and without checking for traffic. Is this victim still blameless or, as anyone from any other part of the world would say, "He had it coming."
Cheryl Chow has this position of authority which she actively sought and displays this sort of callousness to the public she is supposed to serve, and she is supposed to be held inviolate from satire?
Anonymous at 9:27am discredits not just my little joke but ALL OF SATIRE. Where are the angry letters of complaint to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report? They have been bullying the President of the United States and members of his administration. Or are we okay with that?
What we are saying is two rights don't make a wrong.
You can't call Cheryl Chow out for not protecting a student from bullying, and then you, yourself bully her. The leadership of our district should be respected and not made the brunt of a joke. If you don't like her policy, or comment, take her to task on it. If I saw my son write something like this about a friend he was having an issue with, we would have a long talk about the implications of treating someone in this manner. Even someone that you feel deserves it.
You are the absurd one.
Think about it.
Both Charlie and Melissa keep asking why nobody else is taking Cheryl Chow to task on her comments. Melissa and Charlie complain they are the only ones challenging her.
I would imaging that if you are the only ones taking Cheryl to task on this, then you my friends, are the only ones who think it an issue. I personally don't think it is as important as many other issues that I expend my SPS energy on. Apparently, neither do many other people since NOBODY, according to you, is doing anything about it.
You are apparently in the wee minority.
And, once again, no one signs their name.
What safety tips do you think Seattle Public Schools should provide families to share with their children?
When I was working there this summer I had two favorite words --- "wee" and "fab" --- that I have tried to bring home and use here.
In any case, I'd love to see discussion on this topic brought to a close. my opinion and wish; not a demand or requirement
My goal for this blog is to be a place for cross-community communication (discussion among those living in different areas of the city, with different income-levels, involved in different types of schools).
But I also hope that, whenever possible, the communication can be constructive, and focused on things we can work together on to change and improve in the Seattle School District.
This kind of thing is what makes many parents look at this blog and shudder.
I disagree completely that Charlie has "gone too far" - it seemed a fair response to a pretty patronizing remark by an elected official in a public forum, which in my opinion was fair game for "this kind of mockery".
As a parent and a citizen, I am happy to tell Director Chow that crime data on individual schools is, in fact, "helpful" to me.
Since she wasn't sure.
We find ourselves in a School District that many (including state legislators) are trying to change from the typical poorly led large urban school district into something better.
You stated the following in regard to Charlie:
"..when you choose to express yourself with these kinds of outbursts, you make yourself less effective. Nobody with any authority will want to have a discussion with you about anything."
It seems that you believe that discussion with the authoritative higher powers could bring about positive change. In a school district that will not even follow their school board policies and repeatly ignores relevant data, while rarely even responding to school board testimonies, I have little hope for discussion bringing about successful changes anytime soon.
The past may well be the best predictor of the future. Fights, disruption, law suits bring change. Discussion does not have a high probability of success.
Ignore an ethnically discriminatory textbook adoption, move to greater centralization with one size fits all planning, dismantle an effective schedule at West Seattle, keep the center school as segregated as possible, new student assignment plan that will partially resegregate Seattle; there is a plan but it does not involve discussion, openness, or transparency.
Try finding a record of the May Everyday Math adoption. No video, no report on the web-site - who will believe that discussion is taken seriously in this corrupt setting??
Let the smarter more informed Authoritative higher powers mandate us on to greatness.
Clearly no discussion is necessary.
Dan
As a professional who works on child safety, I know from research that often people’s perceptions of risk and violence in their communities do not mesh with reality (they often overestimate the rate of crime). The only way to know the truth is to have the data available. The most successful way to address violence in schools is to have an accurate scope of the problem that is shared between the school and community partners, including parents.
If it takes satire to get there, so be it.
BTW, I consulted my favorite source, Wikipedia, on satire and found the following:
From Wikipedia
Satire (from Latin satura, not from the Greek mythological figure satyr) is a literary genre, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to bring about improvement.
...
Because satire often combines anger and humour it can be profoundly disturbing - because it is essentially ironic or sarcastic, it is often misunderstood.
Common uncomprehending responses to satire include revulsion (accusations of poor taste, or that it's "just not funny" for instance), to the idea that the satirist actually does support the ideas, policies, or people he is attacking.
For instance, at the time of its publication, many people misunderstood Swift’s purpose in "A Modest Proposal" – assuming it to be a serious recommendation of economically-motivated cannibalism.
Some critics of Mark Twain see Huckleberry Finn as racist and offensive while others claim it is one of the most powerful anti-racist works ever written.
Anonymous who wrote "in the wee minority" here...
No, we aren't from Scotland, we're Italian actually (2nd generation). Our kids went to the Waldorf school for several years, and the Waldorf school is heavily influenced in the European culture, as this is where the school's roots come originated with the philosophies of Rudolf Steiner. They used the term wee often, and I, like you, appreciated it. I try to keep it alive, even now, many years later!!
What safety tips do you think Seattle Public Schools should provide families to share with their children?
The serious response to this is that if I need help teaching my kids about personal safety at school (or in the rest of their life), then it's debatable whether I should even be a parent.
Since the original comment was so clearly patronizing, I concur that the most useful response was, in fact, sarcasm.
I would hope that the contributors to this blog uphold a high standard too.
I concur. Charlie, you need to retract your satire - after all, it wasn't nearly good enough satire for a blog with high standards like this one.
I believe that brings the blog credibility down a total of about 4 notches in only 13 comments.
How many notches did we start at?
What board member in their right minds would have anything to do with this blog after this post?
Let's turn this upside down: what member of the public would vote for Cheryl Chow again after such amazingly patronizing remarks as started this discussion and such blatant disdain for legitimate concerns of parents for the safety of their children?
Beth maybe you should step in here, and end this thread.
Yes, censorship will definitely raise the credibility of the discussion here.
I don't want to waste my time reading this nonsense any longer.
Is somebody forcing you to? If you don't want to read it, then don't.
Reliance on self satisfied sarcasm says more about the authors than it does about Seattle.
True. However, the response that sarcasm invariably gets in this city definitely says something about the city.
Charlie, as you suggest, you have every right to use satire and ridicule. It's a fine tradition in American politics. But the targets of your venom are likely to despise you, which is the other part of the tradition.
So true. You reap what you sow. My sneaky little suspicion is that Charlie doesn't much care what Cheryl Chow's opinion of him is.
Charlie, in all seriousness, thank you for sparking the most interesting discussion that has appeared on this blog for a while. Many of the issues surrounding our schools are highly contentious, and when debates are contentious, occasionally there is a spill-over into behavior that some folks might find less than appealing. To pretend that we can discuss, much less resolve, these issues without that contentiousness entering the discussion is a bit of self-delusion we are better off without.
If anybody wants a forum where they will never read anything they find offensive, wrong, or distasteful, they are probably better off not reading this blog, or any other forum that deals with controversial subjects, for that matter.
Whenever I see The Daily Show, and Jon Stewart strings together all those video clips of certain political leaders saying the same thing over and over but with different wording, etc, I always hope (irrationally) that those leaders, or at least their speech writers are watching so they can see how absurd it is.
I am fairly certain that Cheryl is not reading this blog, or planning to respond to it (I have emailed her about various issues in the past and never heard from her). HOWEVER, maybe someone she knows will stumble upon it, and be able to point out to her the absurdity of her words the other day, and how people interpreted them as callous and uncaring.
A gal can hope, anyway...
Oh, and Roy Smith, AMEN to your last paragraph there.
I've started a new thread where I hope we can discuss the issue rather than the style.
Auntie Cheryl has something to hide if she's offering safety tips instead of hard numbers.
She’s the perfect SPS hack. You can drop her into any school. She won't bring anything new or improved, but she’ll keep the lights on until SPS wakes up and figures out how to replace a deadbeat principal with a new candidate without a record. (Calling Mr. Garfield, calling Al Jones. The best you can say about Chow is that she doesn’t have a criminal record.)
Now that she's leading the board, she can perfect the art of saying one thing while doing another.
When my son was bullied at Hamilton, his counselor’s #1 safety tip was to call the police! She knew the group that bullied him at school was following him home. That’s the only advice she offered. It took a 911 call from a barrista at Wallingford Center, after she saw one of the bullies try to push my son in front of a bus. That's what finally got the kid expelled.
Great tip. So I wonder, would calling SPD while – inside - school be the way to go? Normally, I'm opposed to cell phones in schools, but the camera phone is the perfect tool in cases like this. It provides evidence.
Cheryl, what do you think?
Chow would have instilled more confidence, or at best, common sense, had she just admitted that our schools are failing to stop attacks at school.
I really do expect power mongers to offer honest answer on occasion, but I'm also an eternal optimist.
Power Monger - interesting word choice.
No wonder we have so few rational decisions based on relevant data.
This passes for leadership in Seattle, how pathetic.
Thanks,
Dan
while it is really nice that seattle is nice and places like the east coast, l.a., or most of eurasia are not nice
(pretty cut throat)
this nice thing really reflects a complete cluelessness about the rest of the world, and that the rest of the world is
NOT nice.
If you do NOT like what charlie said, read something else.
this is one blog of zillions of blogs.
this is 1 diary of scores of diaries.
if it isn't nice enough for your sound of music world view - love and singing will beat the nazis - don't read it.
no one forced you to read it, grow up.
anon at 11:22