Keep calm and carry on

school it can be a bit of a game to see if you can outsmart the teacher and your parents.

I’m not saying it’s okay because for some schools and parents truancy is a huge problem. However, I think the comments from Hamilton’s Fraser High School principal, Virginia Crawford, about the consequences of truancy were a little bit over the top.

I also think that some of the students are now taking advantage of the controversy and walking out of school “in protest” which gets them out of school — is that wagging?

In a speech last week the principal said students who wagged were “highly likely to go to prison, either commit domestic violence or be a victim of domestic violence, be illiterate, be a rape victim, be a suicide victim, be unemployed for the majority of their life, have a major health problem, die at an early age, have an addiction, gambling, drugs or smoking”. She was obviously trying to get her students’ attention — and we don’t know what the truancy rate is at the school — but maybe she could have toned it down.

Students at the school and parents are divided, some supporting the principal while others have staged a mass walkout.

Maybe she was trying shock tactics and if the speech hadn’t been recorded by a student and shared on social media it most likely would have all ended in a few moans and groans from some students and parents.

Instead it has turned into a beast which keeps gaining momentum.

There has been some nasty graffiti about the principal but there is also support with one student suggesting “She [the principal] could have used better context within her speech with the use of consequences and stuff . . . but if she said something like, ‘You wag and you’re gonna get a detention’, no one would care. No one would listen.” Very true.

It seems in today’s world the line between being soft and harsh has widened immensely. While I do think this time the principal has gone overboard I also understand her obvious frustration with truants.

The students have turned the cards on the principal so instead of everyone asking why there is a problem with truancy at the school — because there must be for the principal to come out so strongly about it — people are turning on the person effectively trying to help them.

Maybe it’s time everyone calmed down and got on with their schoolwork.

Q:

Can a kangaroo jump higher than the Empire State Building?

Of course. The Empire State Building can't jump.

A: 1825:

The first locomotive to haul a passenger train was operated by George Stephenson in England.

The first great disaster involving an Atlantic Ocean passenger vessel occurred when the steamship SS Arctic sank off Newfoundland; of the more than 400 people on board, only 86 survived.

Warsaw, Poland, surrendered after weeks of resistance to invading forces from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.

Glenn Miller and his Orchestra performed together for the last time, at the Central Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey, prior to Miller's entry into the Army.

The US government publicly released the report of the Warren Commission, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy.

President George H.W. Bush announced in a nationally broadcast address that he was eliminating all US battlefield nuclear weapons, and called on the Soviet Union to match the gesture.

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner died at the age of 91.

1854: 1939: 1942: 1964: 1991: 2017:

● Actress Kathleen Nolan is 85.

● Singer-musician Randy Bachman (Bachman-Turner Overdrive) is 75.

● Rock singer Meat Loaf is 71.

● Actress Liz Torres is 71.

● Actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is 68.

● Actor Patrick Muldoon is 50.

● Actress Gwyneth Paltrow is 46.

● Rock singer Brad Arnold (3 Doors Down) is 40.

● Rapper Lil' Wayne is 36.

● Singer Avril Lavigne is 34.

1

With what sport do you associate Jana Novotna?

Which sport is the middle leg of an Olympic triathlon?

Which vegetable is the traditional national emblem of Wales? Which US presidential candidate made the campaign pledge Read my lips, no new taxes?

Captain Haddock appears in what series of books? Tennis Cycling Leek George Bush Tintin.

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