Saturday, May 20, 2006

Spurious logic at work.

Students at Basha high school in Chandler are getting an unexpected-- and unwelcome surprise.

The new policy is to make them pay extra for Ketchup beyond the first three packets in the lunchroom. The schools complaint is that lately some of the students have taken packets of ketchup from the cafeteria and begun stomping on them in the halls, having contests to see who can make the red stuff squirt the farthest.

So the school has begun charging for the packets. But in a not very well thought out process, they have also banned bottles of ketchup from school grounds. They will however let people bring an unlimited supply of packets of ketchup with them.

What kind of logic is that? In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it seems unlikely that students would stomp on bottles of ketchup, and as for the unlimited supply of packets they can bring in (I'm sure the local McDonald's loves that part of the policy), it seems self defeating.

But that is logic for you. Have a minor problem that you can't seem to fix (what happened to detention, anyway?) so you restrict everyone's rights, and do it in a way that makes it seem that it isn't about the 'problem,' but actually about getting a few more quarters out of the students.

And this is a high school, that is supposed to be teaching them constructive thinking?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its not always a contest to see who can make it squirt the furtherist. Sometimes its to see who can make the most come out, or how even you can get it to squirt out of both sides at once (thats a test of coordination). And mostly its just to have fun and get out some stres.

Eli Blake said...

Kris:

I didn't know this was such an exact science. What's next-- people who have a special pair of shoes that they carry in their backpacks just to take out and step on ketchup packets?

Good grief.