IMO: Kids say the darndest things even in the yearbook
OMG. A north Fulton elementary school asked students to sign pledges that they wouldn’t use acronyms or draw pictures while signing their classmates’ yearbooks.
Citing this young generation’s affinity for the acronym, the AJC asked, “No more LOL? Seriously?”
As a parent, I have no problem with the pledge that Birmingham Falls Elementary School asked fifth graders to sign before being given their yearbooks in an effort to foster civility.
The pledge may have been overkill, but I have been a yearbook editor and an adviser and can vouch that kids write questionable comments, both in written comments to their pals and in the permanent text.
As an editor, I had to watch carefully for double entendres in the captions and student legacies. Students will be looking at these yearbooks 20 years from now with their kids.
I don’t think reminding kids to be polite and positive in their yearbook salutations is a bad thing. While parents contend that kids should be able to write what they want in their friends’ yearbooks without Big Brother interfering, I have heard of upset parents calling the school about scrawled comments in their child’s yearbook. (I wonder if there was some incident in the past that led this school to take this precaution.)
According to. the AJC reports:
“It’s like they don’t trust us,” Alyssa, 11, told the AJC. “We’ve been writing that stuff for years now.”
The pledge she was asked to sign Friday didn’t make sense to 11-year-old Roxy, either, but she said she did it so her parents wouldn’t have to come pick up her book from the principal’s office. That afternoon, she told her mom about it. Over the weekend, her friend Alyssa mentioned the signed form to her dad.
By Monday, word of the contract had spread quickly among parents, helped by Facebook. Alyssa’s mom told the AJC she felt like her daughter was bullied into signing the form, which parents did not see ahead of time.
The pledge forms were only meant to remind students at the Milton school to be considerate while signing yearbooks, Susan Hale, spokeswoman for Fulton County schools, told the AJC. “It was a pledge that the students were going to be respectful of one another,” Hale said.
The pledges asked students not to scribble, draw pictures or use acronyms others wouldn’t understand, Hale said. The same pledge was signed by fifth graders last year, she said.
But Principal Susan Matzkin did not see the pledges before they were given to students, Hale said. Matzkin, Hale said, believes written pledges weren’t necessary and could have been handled with verbal instructions from teachers.
Fifth-grade teacher Beth Brock apologized in an email to parents Monday and said the school plans to no longer require the signed forms. “Teachers will lead discussions with students about respecting yearbooks, and we ask for parental support in reinforcing this at home,” Brock stated in the email, obtained by the AJC. “Students will be trusted to choose school appropriate acronyms/language.”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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50 comments Add your comment
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
May 14th, 2012
6:18 pm
Oh good grief. So students are asked to sign a pledge that they will stick to positive comments and suddenly they are being “bullied.”
*head-desk*
Really
May 14th, 2012
6:34 pm
Why is this headline news? Who cares…
Ron Burgundy
May 14th, 2012
6:36 pm
I always wrote…Stay Classy…Ron Burgundy
I would then put an acronym of RHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
tired
May 14th, 2012
6:44 pm
I understood this article to mean that as two kids were sitting in the cafeteria, signing each other’s yearbooks, they must restrict their comments and not allow any acronmymns – nothing that would apply to what was printed in everyone’s yearbook. The editor and the faculty sponsor would catch any acronymns before it went to print.
If that’s correct, this is beyond ridiculous. Do you really think a child is going to give their yearbook to someone who doesn’t like them? I didn’t have such a thing as a fifth-grade yearbook, but I can’t imagine someone keeping it forever. And even if they do, isn’t their own expression in their own words/letters something that makes it all that much more personalized and fifth-grade-ish?
Should the principal feel the need to get all control-freakish, perhaps he or she could simply require correct spelling. That, at least, has value.
Huh?!
May 14th, 2012
7:02 pm
Slow day at the office, Maureen?
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
May 14th, 2012
7:03 pm
@tired “Do you really think a child is going to give their yearbook to someone who doesn’t like them?”
LOL! (Forgive the acronym). Yes they will! Our students often give the year book to as many students as they can… it is about quantity not quality (sort of like Facebook Friends).
“I didn’t have such a thing as a fifth-grade yearbook, but I can’t imagine someone keeping it forever. ”
I still have all my yearbooks, even those from elementary school.
“And even if they do, isn’t their own expression in their own words/letters something that makes it all that much more personalized and fifth-grade-ish.”
This I do agree with… I am not sure why they decided to ban acronyms…but they may have had a very valid reason. We have problems sometimes with gang symbols and such.
jess
May 14th, 2012
7:03 pm
How about taking some of the ‘IMPORATNCE’ away from teachers and educators. Acronyms are the new language children use and should be allowed to utilize in their pwn PERSONAL yearbooks.Educators are hired with our tax dollars and should stick to their job description, not police the use of personal messages, including acronyms, in a childs yearbook. SCHEESH !!
Maureen Downey
May 14th, 2012
7:04 pm
@Huh, Actually, today was busy at the office. I think this is an interesting news story. I admit to a special interest in yearbooks since I worked on several.
Maureen
itsme
May 14th, 2012
7:09 pm
LOL @ grownups.
Dr. Proud Black Man
May 14th, 2012
7:26 pm
“Fifth-grade teacher Beth Brock apologized in an email to parents Monday…”
For what? And teachers wonder why THEY are bullied…smh.
My opinion
May 14th, 2012
7:29 pm
BS
Michael
May 14th, 2012
7:42 pm
Thank you My Opinion! – worry about teaching our children and not about the yearbook. What place does a yearbook have outside HS anyway?
TimeOut
May 14th, 2012
7:49 pm
Yearbooks are not a self-supporting enterprise. We pay for the faculty sponsor and other expenses. We have too many real fish to fry to worry about such trivia. I don’t care anymore about these ‘trappings’ of public education. I don’t care about Homecoming, Prom, astro turf or any of the other things to which we give our time, attention, and funding. I want our time and money to go toward academic education. All of the rest of these things could become the provenance of other community bodies. Hey, I know! Let the churches handle the yearbooks! That ought to take care of the concern about content. In short, there is just too much emphasis on non-academic claptrap in public schools.
Kris T.
May 14th, 2012
8:00 pm
OMG….LOL…Who are those people and why are they teaching our children.
YrbkAdviser
May 14th, 2012
8:10 pm
Yearbook advisers get a small supplement for advising. It is an academic elective in high schools that counts towards the HOPE scholarship. Advisers put in an unimaginable number of hours outside of school to make sure the book gets completed on time and underbudget. It’s the only class where late assignments (spreads) have financial consequences for the program. Other than the adviser supplement, yearbooks are self funding. Any computer equipment, cameras, paper, toner, or other incidentals are paid for by the yearbook program and not the school or district.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
May 14th, 2012
8:11 pm
@jess “Educators are hired with our tax dollars and should stick to their job description, not police the use of personal messages, including acronyms, in a childs yearbook. SCHEESH !!”
Fair enough… but why do you think teachers feel the need to do this? Do you think we LIKE having to play “PC police”? We don’t… but if little Susie brings home a yearbook with an inappropriate message or comment written in it, guess whose mommy or daddy is soon on the phone kvetching about how this was allowed, bad-mouthing the teachers and the school, and demanding a “new yearbook” be given to her. Been there. Done that. If all parents would teach their children how to respect others, then inappropriate comments in yearbooks would not be an issue.
When teachers and schools are asked to take on tasks that fall outside the realm of traditional “teaching” it is often because some parents (SOME, not all, mind you) are not doing a very good job of parenting, and teachers are being expected to take up the slack.
Queen Noor
May 14th, 2012
8:34 pm
In this age of cyberbullying and the destruction of the English language, who cares if the school makes up a meaningless pledge. Ch 2 probably interviewed the sweetest girls at the school. The bad girls, and yes there are bad girls in Milton, will find ways to taunt their classmates. The school did a terrible job of communicating this to parents. That’s the real moral of the story. Sigh.
AngryRedMarsWoman
May 14th, 2012
8:35 pm
I love teaching @8:11pm. Exactly what I was thinking. This is all about those silly hovering parents who cannot allow their precious children learn to deal with life without a chaperone. We were using acronyms back in the 80s to leave cute (and not so cute) messages both in print and when signing yearbooks – this is not a new development, it is just that parents today seem to have nothing better to do than snoop through yearbooks and interrogate their teen about “STFU” and “WTF”. Just let them be kids. Let them think they are getting one over on the adults just like we did when we were teens. BTFO! (”back the eff off”, for those who cannot figure it out). Know your kids….know their friends…and you’ll know all you need to know to keep them out of serious trouble.
catlady
May 14th, 2012
8:39 pm
Wait till some of these dammed fool parents have their child’s annual (how many dollars?) RUINED because of obscene stuff other kids have printed or drawn! It is crazy that the school HAS to remind students to be civil, THAT’S what is so bad!
I think schools should just drop having annuals–such a hassle!
Queen Noor
May 14th, 2012
8:40 pm
Pardon me, I should have written, “…who cares whether the school makes up a meaningless pledge…” Thank you.
TimeOut
May 14th, 2012
8:40 pm
I understand that this class counts toward ‘HOPE.’ I think this is wrong. Students miss class to take pictures for the yearbook. Students miss class to interview other students. Students miss class to distribute yearbooks. While some yearbook programs may be self-supporting, it is not a fact that all such programs do not require funding from the system. We have courses in publishing in our CareerTech program that do not pull students from other courses, require an entire day of shortened class periods to allow distribution, etc. There are lots and lots of stakeholders who would prefer to fund only the academic core, vo-tech, and those electives that do not interfere with instruction of either of the previous types of courses. I have listened, for years, to teachers and parents bemoan the amount of time students spend outside of the classroom while instruction continues. Every cause is, supposedly, a worthy cause–and it merits missing instruction in Science, Math, History, Languages, English Lit, etc.. I say……..no more!
Good Mother
May 14th, 2012
8:48 pm
I have my yearbooks all the way back to the fourth grade. I would have kept K-4 if they existed. When I open my yearbook, it is like a time capsule. The clothes, the expressions, the language we used is a precious piece of time. My yearbook takes me back to innocence and childhood. In the comments written by my friends are acronyms and expressions such as “Turkey” (a Happy Days sitcom expression) “Nanu Nanu” from Mork from Ork and so on. What if those weren’t allowed? A little piece of my precious memory would have been lost.
We have big fish to fry: teachers cheating, superintendants stealing, children failing to graduate and learn. Let’s make sure our adults have their eye on the ballof what is really important instead of wasting everyone’s time and money invading our private lives.
Bonnie
May 14th, 2012
8:50 pm
It is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. Talk about dictatorship. Maybe the school would like to reimburse the kids for the $ they paid for them since they aren’t allowed to do as they please with them. It’s unfair and I think that the parents all need to approach the school board about this.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
May 14th, 2012
9:23 pm
Typical.
As usual, teachers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
If they try to get students to write only respectful comments, then they are dictatorial bullies who should reimburse students for the cost of yearbooks since the students could not write what they want. And if they allow the students to write or draw what they want (including profanity), then they are not doing a good enough job of protecting the students from inappropriate commentary and should reimburse the students for the yearbooks because they were defaced by other students.
I give up.
Mikey D
May 14th, 2012
9:52 pm
Alyssa’s mom needs to get a life and stop being a drama mama.
More and more, I believe that there should be an IQ screening before people are allowed to procreate.
V for Vendetta
May 14th, 2012
10:21 pm
I remember a kid writing in my sixth grade yearbook GFTS, which stood for “Get F#$ked This Summer.”
You know what happened? Nothing.
The school needs to get a life. So do the parents. Much ado about NOTHING.
Atlanta Mom
May 14th, 2012
10:31 pm
Those kids were bullied into signing that ridiculous pledge. Apparently if they didn’t sign, they didn’t get their yearbook during the day when everyone else got them. AND, even better, they didn’t get them at the end of the day either. Mom or dad had to take off work and go pick it up from the principal’s office. That’s being a bully.
William Casey
May 14th, 2012
10:53 pm
Most of the time, from the kids’ perspective, yearbooks aren’t “ruined” by stuff other kids write. That’s almost always a “parent thing.”
TimeOut
May 14th, 2012
11:08 pm
Our schools represent our inability to decide as a nation what we want our schools to accomplish. We are so busy trying to be all things to all people at all times and in every possible way that we do not meet our primary objective: academic education. I wonder what would happen if we pared back the entire system to just academic education and then added back all of those other things when we finally managed to meet that first, most important objective. Maybe we would choose to define more narrowly the purpose of our schools. Maybe we would focus our time, energy and all other resources toward the pursuit of academic excellence. This would require that decision-makers and stakeholders alike equally value academic education as the primary goal of public schools. This is not the current state of affairs. Many people think that the sports or music programs or other extra-curricular activities are more meaningful than the academic core courses. If they are right, why do we penalize failing students through their removal from such activities? Maybe one day, we will decide, as a nation, what we really want from our schools. Until then, we’ll lumber along, minimally, sporadically, and unreliably successful from place to place, generation to generation. We’ll continue this way until we’re overtaken by the peoples of the world whose decision-makers value education. I don’t admire China’s Tiger Moms but I’m sure tired of those who devalue a higher level of literacy than what we currently display.
Dr. Quiet
May 15th, 2012
5:30 am
WTF? (What’s the Focus?) Several key main points of this debate were missed in the story – that many adults don’t know what the kids’ acronyms stand for, thus the suspicion that something inappropriate might slip by. The rule is still silly as kids always have been able to write anything and everything, especially after school. And, acronyms can have multiple meanings (CD, IRA, ERA, etc.) That’s one reason the convention for writing about acronyms is to spell them out the first time they are used (SMH, IMO) for the uninitiated reading the AJC (Always Juvenile Commentary). OK?
Howard Finkelstein
May 15th, 2012
7:39 am
This is extortion, plain and simple. Whomever developed this pledge and began forcing students to sign should be terminated with extreme predjudice.
teacher
May 15th, 2012
7:39 am
Yearbooks seem passe’ especially with the digital age. Here is a way to cut money
mystery poster
May 15th, 2012
8:14 am
Why not just give kids a list of messages to choose from? After all, teachers have scripted lessons, why not let students have scripted yearbook messages.
/sarcasm font.
A Conservative Voice
May 15th, 2012
9:06 am
Birmingham Falls Elementary School asked fifth graders to sign before being given their yearbooks in an effort to foster civility.
Hold everything……what?????what?????? An Elementary School has a yearbook? What are we thinking about, people? No wonder kids are reaching high school without being able to give correct change……without being able to read……Their “teachers” should be teaching them their Reading, Writing and Arithmetic instead of how to put a yearbook together. Gawd, shut ‘em all down and let’s start over…….this isn’t (that’s for you, catlady
) working.
Milton Dad
May 15th, 2012
9:39 am
As a parent of one of the fifth graders forced to sign this agreement, everyone posting should be aware that these 11-year-old children signed this agreement at school as the stack of parent purchased yearbooks were in front of them. No signature = no yearbook. What happened to teaching curriculum, cultivating creative expression, and preparing them for middle school?
I also find it interesting that the administration is saying it was the teachers fault…who’s running the school? If this is a business the CEO is required to know everything that’s going on with their business, guess the Principal is locked in their office no minding the shop…time for them to go.
tired
May 15th, 2012
9:44 am
Maybe they could seal the books with a strip of paper that says “This yearbook has been sanitized for your protection.”
“@tired ‘Do you really think a child is going to give their yearbook to someone who doesn’t like them?’
LOL! (Forgive the acronym). Yes they will! Our students often give the year book to as many students as they can… it is about quantity not quality (sort of like Facebook Friends).”
Understood. But if little Austin or McKenzie should have to live with the very minor consequences of asking someone known to write profanity to write in their yearbook.
resno2
May 15th, 2012
9:52 am
I really feel for the 5th grade student of today, who opens their yearbook 30 years from now only to find a message from a former classmate that wasn’t very positive or uplifting, and they actually have to grow up and deal with it.
Warrior Woman
May 15th, 2012
10:10 am
Atlanta Mom and Milton Dad are right. The kids were forced to sign a pledge to get the yearbook they had already purchased. Further, if the principal is being truthful now, the school administration didn’t review or approve the pledge in advance. Both of these practices are problematic.
catlady
May 15th, 2012
10:13 am
I never had anything bad in my yearbook (my mom was a teacher and the kids were scared of her–wouldn’t that be something nowadays?) but a girl wrote in my friend, Marcy’s, yearbook that she was a “real sweat girl.” We still laugh about that, 40+ years later.
catlady
May 15th, 2012
10:16 am
Perhaps the PARENTS should sign a pledge when they purchase the yearbook, “If my child allows another child to write in her yearbook, I will NOT hold the school responsible, nor will I expect a replacement yearbook. What happens to the yearbook after receipt by the student is between the student and his parents.”
still trying
May 15th, 2012
11:18 am
slow news day
Once Again
May 15th, 2012
12:41 pm
I didn’t think kids actually learned how to write anymore. Arent’ all these acronyms just the new “easy writing” that some “learned educator” proposed as another experiment on a generation of kids like “new math” or ‘look-say?”
Ole Guy
May 15th, 2012
5:46 pm
What’s next? Pre-soiled toilet paper so that they don’t do anything deemed “not nice”? To begin with, it’s a GD shame/an indictment on the generation that they have to be told to “be nice” when sharing thoughts within the memory lanes of their class yearbook. Any attempts at correcting this trend, at this point in time, is nothing but FUTILE. If discipline and self-respect (you know, those “ole fashioned” ideals which left the educational building a long long time ago) were INSISTED UPON, this would probably not even be an issue of consideration.
Respect Teachers
May 15th, 2012
7:08 pm
Please respect your teachers parents ITS NOT A FREE RIDE HERE. This video clip says it all parents as most of you don’t know how to raise you kids and leave it up to the teachers to do EVERYTHING !! http://youtu.be/9T8ovblvQM0
Respect Teachers
May 15th, 2012
7:10 pm
Jimmy Kimmel and his team say it best with this video http://youtu.be/9T8ovblvQM0
Maybe parents will finally learn something !!
ToTimeOut
May 15th, 2012
7:54 pm
Maybe we should also get rid of sports and pep rallies since the involve students missing classes?
3schoolkids
May 15th, 2012
9:39 pm
I don’t think the idea behind the gesture was wrong, they just never should have put it on paper. When my girls were in elementary school they did not receive their yearbooks until the last hour of the school day (during the class party with parents present). Not much time to get signatures, but it kept things nice. Most guys would not get that elementary age girls can be very mean to each other, especially starting around 3rd grade. Yes, kids need to develop a tough skin, but it would make you mad as a parent if it was your kid witnessing another student cross their face off the yearbook page or write something nasty in front of them. The acronym banning would have been to prevent profanity abbreviations and believe me the same parents that complained about the pledge would have complained just as loudly if their kid came home with inappropriate writing in the yearbook (that took place AT school).
Observationist
May 16th, 2012
10:26 am
Why hasn’t ANYONE noticed that the school is misusing the term “acronym”, including the writer of this post?
Numba One Educrat
May 16th, 2012
11:59 am
Oh…MY…GOD! I hate it when students are instructed to think about spelling things out and using proper grammar. That is the absolute worst! Disgusting. What “you people” (by “you people” I mean the ignorati) fail to understand is that the proliferation of acronyms (and initialisms, you’re welcome @Observationist) is starting to find its way into higher education. I applaud the teachers that made the students sign this pledge. As an AP teacher, it made me die a little on the inside when I read a statement from The College Board that using acronyms (and initialisms) is acceptable on tests. We are dumbing down America and making it acceptable to be lazy and take shortcuts. As a teacher with actual high standards, I do not allows my students to use contractions and acronyms (unless it something like POTUS -President of the United States-) because it is not part of formal writing.If you want anyone to take you seriously, would you write things like “IMHO, you should hire me because YOLO?” Why not start kids out early? What is the harm? Also, we should just let kids use calculators on all math problems instead of figuring it out and doing the work.
@Finkelstein you ought to be ashamed. Extortion. You probably also complain that teachers make too much money, right? Wait, J/K, right? LOL and BHO and UYB
Observationist
May 16th, 2012
3:47 pm
@Numba One Educrat, I thank you for the “shout out”, but I hardly think putting initialisms and acronyms in a yearbook is tantamount to using them on tests or anything used for academics. Yearbooks are fun. Let the fifth graders draw a smiley face or write “LYLAS” for Pete’s sake! I agree with Milton Dad. Parents shell out quite a bit for these books and their kids shouldn’t have them held hostage until they sign a pledge form stating they won’t use “acronyms” and draw pictures in them. Certainly, if an educator notices the use of profanity or an initialism meant to represent profanity, then it should be dealt with on a disciplinary level. Quite frankly, this entire thing is, IMHO, ridiculous.