I'm not going to spend much time on the spoiled little rich kid from Newton, sorry.
"Newton student penalized for democracy notes in China; Messages are called out of bounds" by Ellen Ishkanian | Globe Correspondent June 06, 2014
Newton North High School senior Henry DeGroot was visiting a school outside Beijing on a semester abroad this year when he decided to have some fun and also make a point by writing prodemocracy messages in the notebook of a Chinese student.
“Democracy is for cool kids,” he recalls writing. “Don’t believe the lies your school and government tell you,” said another message, and “It’s right to rebel.”
Not only is the hypocrisy astounding, the first part I emphasized is true here at home.
But when Chinese school officials found out, he had to serve five hours of detention. And when he returned home, it got worse: Newton school officials barred DeGroot from his prom.
Newton school officials say he violated semester abroad rules, embarrassed the principal of the Chinese school that was hosting Newton students, and showed so much disrespect for the Chinese that the longstanding relationship with the school may be harmed.
DeGroot sees it differently.
He says his rights were abridged by the Newton school system. The school system, he says, taught him the importance of civil disobedience and speaking his mind, but then punished him when he practiced what he learned.
He didn't understand the lesson, because many of us have understood this for a long time. It's the AmeriKan ejewkhazional $y$tem in the 21st-century.
And remember, we have administrators here trolling the web to see what kids are Facebooking and so forth, with shul systems then disciplining kids.
Instead of the prom, DeGroot said he and his date, dressed in formal attire, went to Five Guys, the local burger restaurant. “I’m missing a lifetime of memories,’’ he said.
Boo-hoo-hoo.
The controversy over free speech is taking place against the backdrop of the 25th anniversary of the events in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, where Chinese government troops opened fire on student prodemocracy protesters who had occupied the area.
Yeah, yeah, the agenda-pushing media is going to flog that for a week, but our own Occupy kids have had a more recent experience.
Honestly, folks, this self-centered slop gets tiring, I'm sorry.
Newton School Superintendent David Fleishman said the problem is not that the 18-year-old expressed his opinions but that he did so on a school-sponsored semester in China, violating a code of conduct clearly spelled out to students before they left.
“We certainly want our students to be thoughtful and critical thinkers,” said Fleishman. “We encourage that, and we pride ourselves on giving students that opportunity. But this is not about free speech.”
DeGroot was among a group of eight Newton students on a four-month study abroad program, under a longstanding partnership between Newton and the Beijing Jingshan School. The episode happened when the Newton group visited another school, in a small town outside of Beijing.
At the end of a two-hour visit with the Chinese students, school officials asked the Newton group to write their e-mail addresses in the students’ notebooks so they could stay in touch. That’s when DeGroot said he wrote the prodemocracy phrases in one of the notebooks.
“It was definitely stupid, but I hoped the kids would read it and think about why this foreigner was writing this,” he said. “And hopefully they would be critical, or at least think about how their school and government interacts with them.”
But a Chinese teacher who reads English saw the phrases and told principal Fan Luyan of the Beijing Jingshan School, host to the Newton students.
The principal was highly insulted, according to DeGroot.
Fleishman said the phrases DeGroot wrote in the student’s notebook have nothing to do with speaking his mind or free speech.
“What he did chilled the rest of the entire trip. It put a strain on the visit,” Fleishman said. He said students are taught the intricacies of Chinese culture and social norms before they leave for the exchange, and they sign a detailed code of conduct, which he says DeGroot violated.
Consequences of students breaking the code can include being sent home from the student exchange at their own cost. Fleishman said that option was not considered for DeGroot because there were just two or three weeks left in the semester abroad when the controversy played out.
Fleishman said writing the phrases that insulted his Chinese hosts was a clear violation of the standards of behavior that DeGroot agreed to before leaving.
“It’s about adhering to the program standards,” he said.
While in China, Newton teachers had instructed DeGroot to write a letter of apology to Fan, principal of the Beijing Jingshan School.
He did, but he included an explanation of his reasons for writing the prodemocracy message. “I felt as a human being on this planet I have an inalienable right to free speech if I’m doing it in a non-vulgar, appropriate way, as this private conversation was,” DeGroot said in an interview.
He said he eventually agreed to rewrite the apology letter, but he refused to deliver it in person to the principal. “I wasn’t going to go out of my way to take a 30-minute train ride to deliver the letter,” he said.
I would bar him from the country if I were China.
Because of the prodemocracy note, he said, the US and Chinese school officials made him stay in detention for five hours while his classmates went on another trip. He was later told he could not attend the prom, a disciplinary action Fleishman said high school administrators chose because of the lateness of the school year.
Fleishman said he is concerned that DeGroot’s actions could have an impact on the entire exchange program. The Newton schools have had a relationship with Fan and his school since 1979, and have been involved in the school exchange since 1988.
“I applaud kids who want to be politically active, and I believe this program helps kids be active citizens of the world,” Fleishman said. “I don’t want to jeopardize that goal by one student doing something that could end one of the longest-running exchange programs with China.”
Ken Hamilton, chairman of the school exchange committee, said the Beijing Jingshan School is considered an elite institution.
“For something like this to happen, it’s embarrassing for principal Fan,” Hamilton said. “It’s losing face for him, and in Chinese culture that is like losing your reputation.”
Hamilton likened what DeGroot did to embarrassing someone in their own home, and then refusing to apologize.
“Had Henry apologized as he was requested to do, we easily could have repaired the problem. Now it is a little harder,” he said.
Hamilton said Fleishman and representatives of the Newton school exchange have a scheduled telephone meeting with Fan on June 12.
“I’m sure Henry’s behavior and the consequences will be discussed,” he said.
For DeGroot, who is heading to UCLA this fall, the incident left him with a feeling that the Newton school system he’s loved for the past 13 years has let him down.
Get used to it, because I've found that every thing and any thing I once believed in has been a catastrophic lie.
“They refused to take any stand to support the principles they taught us,” he said.
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Someone gonna take a stand for the kid:
"Student’s China protest: Re-education at Newton North" | June 07, 2014
Newton North High School senior Henry DeGroot probably shouldn’t pursue a career in the diplomatic service. He’s the feisty, red-blooded American kid who was barred from his own prom for writing prodemocracy messages on a classmate’s notebook while attending a four-month, school-sponsored study program in China. The punishment was an overreaction on the part of Newton school officials and a bad lesson all around.
DeGroot was visiting a school outside Beijing when he penned some phrases in a Chinese student’s notebook, including “Democracy is for cool kids” and “It’s right to rebel.” Chinese school officials took great umbrage upon discovery of the messages. An in-school suspension and letter of apology weren’t sufficient. When DeGroot returned home, the Newton school department barred him from attending the prom for violating the code of conduct for students spending a study period abroad.
DeGroot’s actions were a bit childish. He probably deserved a lecture about the fallout of ignoring social norms and cultural complexities in foreign lands. Apparently, the principal of the Chinese school felt deeply shamed by DeGroot’s boldness. But cultural exchanges are supposed to work in both directions. The Chinese adult hosts should recognize that their young American guests come from a culture where challenging authority is a tradition with deep roots. They shouldn’t expect immature young people from the United States to suddenly adopt the personas of students who live in a society that places severe restrictions on their civil liberties.
This week marked the 25th anniversary of the Chinese government’s crackdown on a protest in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square that was led by Chinese students not much older than DeGroot. The White House has called on the Chinese government to account for the protesters who were killed or went missing during their peaceful quest for democratic reform. But the Tiananmen Square protest is a taboo subject in China, and virtually ignored by textbook writers and state-controlled news organizations.
I'm wondering if the Globe recognized themselves in that mirror.
DeGroot may have violated the student conduct code. And he damaged his school’s relationship with a Chinese counterpart in a worthwhile exchange program. But Newton’s decision to resort to formal discipline went too far. For a moment, school officials seemed to forget which country tolerates free speech and protest.
That's really funny.
Now back to the NSA spying program.
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Others not so much:
"Chinese exchange program’s founders criticize Newton North student; Rip student’s words plugging democracy" by Ellen Ishkanian | Globe Correspondent June 08, 2014
Founders of an exchange program between Newton Public Schools and China said the program they have worked more than 30 years to build has been jeopardized by an immature student who didn’t understand the ramifications of his self-serving actions.
Claire and Dick Kanter said Newton North senior Henry DeGroot should have been sent home from Newton Beijing Jingshan School Exchange the moment officials found the prodemocracy phrases he had written in the notebook of a Chinese middle school student.
The Kanters’ comments follow critical remarks by Newton school officials in a Globe article that reported the incident Friday.
“Until this week, we have never had an incident with a student disobeying the written code of conduct that they all sign,” Claire Kanter said from her home in Florida. “And then he refused to apologize in person. He refused to take a 30-minute train ride to apologize. I can’t tell you what I feel about this, we are an educational exchange, not a political exchange.”
DeGroot was not sent home; instead Newton North administrators barred him from attending the senior prom after returning home from the semester-long exchange. He was also given a five-hour detention at his school in China after writing “Democracy is for cool kids,” “It’s right to rebel,” and “Don’t believe the lies your school and government tell you” in the student’s notebook during a visit to a school in a small town outside of Beijing in the spring.
Don't worry, we don't.
School Superintendent David Fleishman said Thursday the punishment had nothing to do with DeGroot’s right to speak his mind, but instead violated the code of conduct that he and the other seven Newton exchange students signed after extensive education about Chinese culture and social norms.
On Saturday, DeGroot said in an interview, “I did partially regret what I had done, as I’ve said, it was stupid and immature. But I don’t any more, because I’ve now had the opportunity to speak out about the school administration, so I’ve been given an opportunity I didn’t expect.”
DeGroot said he was under the impression that one of the two Newton teachers who had insisted he write the letter of apology would deliver it to the Beijing Jingshan School Principal Fan Luyan.
“School was already out of session for us, and I didn’t want to have to go back to deliver it myself,” he said.
In addition, he said, by the time he had written the phrases, with only about three weeks left in the exchange, he had already lost respect for the Chinese and Newton administrators who he said let the program’s academic rigor slip.
At least they had some to lose; you never did, kid.
The Kanters, who have spent 35 years building a relationship between the Newton schools and China, have e-mailed a letter of apology to Fan.
“Throughout this exchange, we and those that followed us taught our students to recognize and respect the cultural differences between our countries,” their letter said. “The purpose of this exchange was and still is the understanding and respect as well as the mutual education of all our students so that solid appreciation of each other’s cultures would result.”
The actions of DeGroot, they wrote, came “at the expense of the Jingshan School and your position as principal.” They added that DeGroot violated “all the instructions given by Newton Public Schools as a condition of this exchange program we started.”
In 1979, Claire Kanter accompanied her husband on a business trip to Beijing, and said the exchange program grew from a chance encounter with her hosts, who found out she was a teacher in the Newton Public Schools. “The key words were always mutual respect and bridge building,” she said. “That’s what this one student didn’t understand.”
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I don't want to speculate on the ethnic or religious affiliation of the little shit because I don't go in here thinking that; the problem is he can't help but notice the exclusive supremaci$m that is brought to the paper. It is in front of my face every day, and there is just no denying it.
I'm not complaining; I just realize it is not being written for me.
And hey, if I were one if their cla$$ I would love reading the articles they present. Problem is, I'm not.
