I'll take the mix CD and the headless Mr. T
November 28, 2013 8:44 AM   Subscribe

 
Aren't they supposed to give this shit back? The first item you see is a Sega Game Gear. You can't keep that!
posted by cincinnatus c at 8:47 AM on November 28, 2013 [10 favorites]


Is there even the occasional issue of Crazy?
posted by The Whelk at 8:47 AM on November 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


Sorry, I missed: "Did not retrieve as he boasted he was getting a Gameboy Color."
posted by cincinnatus c at 8:48 AM on November 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Ahem, Illhaveyouknow that "finger skateboard" is a Tech Deck. Hmph, teachers.

Wait, though: if a kid was attached enough to bring the thing to school against policy, don't you think they'd go back and get it later? Wow.

Also, this: I work at a school with a strong Culinary Arts program. One of the chef-instructors collects all the students' cell phones in a big plastic tub at the beginning of class and gives them back at the end. Every day, no exceptions. I understand that he's stern but fair, and the students like & respect him.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:52 AM on November 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Mrs. Hickle never gave back my MAD paperbacks that I was reading IN READING CLASS BECAUSE I'D ALREADY FINISHED ALL THE READING.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:54 AM on November 28, 2013 [4 favorites]


Oh, hell. When I was in high school, the administration would simply search through our lockers while we were in class and take what they didn't approve of. I lost a fine stash of Freak Brothers comix that way.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:23 AM on November 28, 2013


Like Wolfdog, I usually finished the reading early, so Sister Maurice let me read MAD just to shut me up. This was an explicit agreement.

One day we had a substitute. She would not accept my story that "Sister lets me" and kept my MADs. The sub told me that she would leave the magazines for Sister to decide their fate. Taking her at her word, I remained quiet.

She threw them away. I learned not to trust adults, and I never behaved even a little for that sub again - mostly by asking questions that were way over her head.
posted by notsnot at 9:25 AM on November 28, 2013 [19 favorites]


I just went into Mr. Wingie's desk at noon and took back my copy of Count Duckula #9, tyvm.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:26 AM on November 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Confiscating a Sikh dagger as a 'toy' seems like it should fall into the same category as confiscating a yarmulke, namely the 'not cool' category. I guess we don't know the back story though - kids running around poking their friends with it? I'd totally do that if I had one when i was in 3rd grade.

In conclusion, schools are a land of contrast.
posted by Reversible Diamond-Encrusted Ermine Codpiece at 9:50 AM on November 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


RDEEC, I assume the teacher saw "dagger" and took it. Not that that excuses it in any way. From my understanding, poking your friends with a kirpan is just about as ok as smacking them with a cross, of perhaps the Catholic crucifix with Jesus writing in pain on it. (Although if I'd had a cross as a 10 year old and knew enough about vampires, I would have run around smacking friends with it playing vampire or some such. But then again, I was raised without religion and was an irreverent little kid. I can't imagine a Sikh who was devout enough to wear a kirpan actually using it for anything other than a clothing accessory.)
posted by Hactar at 9:56 AM on November 28, 2013


I had a G.I. Joe confiscated with a "I'll give it back to your parents if you tell them I have it."
Not even close to worth it. You can keep the toy, asshole.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 10:06 AM on November 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


@cincinnatus c: Aren't they supposed to give this shit back?

That's an interesting point. Many of these items look of sufficient value for permanent confiscation to be considered as theft. I guess it's down to what exactly the school policy says.
posted by raygirvan at 10:13 AM on November 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Aren't they supposed to give this shit back? The first item you see is a Sega Game Gear. You can't keep that!

(American teacher here:) One would think. The only times I've ever confiscated anything without returning it at the end of class, the item was a cell phone and school policy (back then... sigh) dictated that the phone had to go to the office on the second or third offense, where the parent had to pick it up.

Cell phone bans have gradually weakened over time as the phones have become more ubiquitous and as some teachers have found the internet access capabilities helpful in class. It's a teacher's prerogative if they want to ban them in class, but at this point enforcement is a huge battle when the rest of the teachers in a school aren't on the same page.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:13 AM on November 28, 2013


Man, that sad little folded paper boat was the only toy Year 4 Inner London Girl had?

And you took it away?
posted by Sphinx at 10:23 AM on November 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


Sorry, I missed: "Did not retrieve as he boasted he was getting a Gameboy Color."

ugh I hate this kid
posted by Hoopo at 10:31 AM on November 28, 2013


In conclusion, Mrs. Hickle was a land of asshole.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:43 AM on November 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Aren't they supposed to give this shit back?

Most of the stuff is pretty inconsequential, so I would assume the kids would rather forget about them, rather than receiving the inevitable lecture from the teacher.

The electronics, though, are another matter. Probably spoiled shits who don't care one way or another. Mummy and Daddy will buy a replacement.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:19 AM on November 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


I know it's just the British English word for that item, but I had to have a giggle at the confiscated rubbers among all the girls' things.
posted by radwolf76 at 1:07 PM on November 28, 2013


Double-ended dildos, concealable stabbing knives, and SuperCrack pipes. Just as I suspected, thanks to the media telling me.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:42 PM on November 28, 2013


In the winter of 1966 Sister Mary Jehoshaphat (real name!) confiscated my meager collection of Batman trading cards, about 30 in all. On the last day of school she returned everything she had amassed during the school year to their respective owners. My friend Dave got his squirt gun, John was reunited with several comic books, and I was given a brown paper sack containing something like 400 Batman cards: Enough to make several complete sets. Having no way to deduce who the other cards were taken from I simply looked at it as my first experience with the concept of compound interest.
posted by TDavis at 7:56 PM on November 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Man, I feel bad for the kid who got his 39'er taken away. I'm not even British and I'm feeling sympatheric heartbreak over it.

Also, is it just me or all the photos weirdly out of focus such that the little labels are almost impossible to read? Seems like a rather odd oversight, that.
posted by Scientist at 8:04 PM on November 28, 2013


I learned not to trust adults, and I never behaved even a little for that sub again - mostly by asking questions that were way over her head.
posted by notsnot at 17:25


epontradictory
posted by solotoro at 8:34 PM on November 28, 2013


I've taught a lot of Muslim kids, and I regularly took away* the keffiyeh-type things my boys would wear on their heads during prayer. I took them away when they were choking, whipping, or tickling each other with them. Or wrapping them around their entire faces. I've seen Muslim women take hijabs away from little girls who were fooling around with them in similar ways.

Kids are gonna kid, even with religious objects. And now I need to go wikipedia that dagger, because maybe my anecdotes aren't analogous.

*There was almost always the warning "If I see it again, it's mine" before I took anything. Sometimes an "Isn't that for praying? What would your mom think of you using it that way?" Fair enough, I think.
posted by MsDaniB at 2:18 AM on November 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


Aren't they supposed to give this shit back?

It is interesting to me the different cultural expectations that there are regarding confiscating things in schools. In America, at least in my experience, it was typically understood that if you had a toy in class and were playing with it, the teacher had every right to take it from you, but at the end of the school day, you would get it back. The teacher was removing the distraction, as it were, but not taking your stuff.

In Spain, when my students were playing with toys in class, and I confiscated the offending items, the reaction was SHOCK and BETRAYAL, followed by, "But . . . that's MINE!!!!!" Only after I explained that they could have the thing back later did they calm down, although they eyed me suspiciously for the entire class.

I hadn't known that there were school cultures in which confiscating for a time, then giving back at the end of class, wasn't a thing!
posted by chainsofreedom at 4:00 PM on November 30, 2013


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