A fantastic idea

Glad I thought of it.

I’ve been saying for years that people need to keep a leash on their children. Literally. When I was a toddler, my Mom has this long, rainbow colored, bungee cord like device that attached the two of use via adult and child sized Velcro wrist straps. That way she knew that A) I was never going to wander off in a crowded train station and B) if someone tried to kidnap me, she would know about it immediately even if she was momentarily distracted. This was a common practice in England and Europe at the time we were there. Surprisingly, when we came to the states, mom used to get no end of hassle from other parents and occasionally the police who wanted to know “Why are you treating your son like a dog?” Mom’s initial reaction to this was her usual blinding rage, but she eventually simmered down to snark with the stock response “Excuse me sir/madam, but YOU don’t care enough about YOUR child’s safety to take proper precautions, that’s hardly my concern.” or words to that effect. Of course, that usually just ticked people off and got me into loads of trouble when she said such things to my teachers. But that’s neither here nor there.

What does this have to do with Japan? Simple, there is a school in Tokyo that is using GPS technology to keep track of their students. The idea is to crack down on truancy. An excellent idea if you ask me. The only problem is that the school in question is a college.

http://http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090529/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_iphone_truants

According to this story, the school is giving brand new iPhones to students. They’re then using the built in GPS system to see if the kids are cutting class. The logic is that the kids are unlikely to deliberately throw away something as vitally important to daily life as a cell phone (and that isn’t hyperbole, in this culture, you can’t survive with out your keitai).

This doesn’t seem like something you should need with college students. I have seen elementary school students wearing clips on either their backpacks or jackets that might be tracking devices or panic buttons. Also, all elementary school students are required to wear name tags that identify their name, school, grade level, and what class they’re in. These are typically safety pinned to the shirt. Also, many middle and high school uniforms have name tags as part of the uniform code. Considering that uniforms are almost NEVER the same between two different schools, it’s fairly easy to tell where a child or teenager belongs.

Frankly, this is a stroke of genius that should be standard issue across the educational spectrum. I’ve said for years that we should “chip” our children the way we do our pets. For those non-pet owners out there, to “chip” an animal is to implant a microchip under their skin that contains all the relevant information about that animal and his/her owners. That way, if the animal is ever lost, all one need do is scan the chip and contact the owners.

Considering that children have a legal status similar to house pets, a similar strategy can and should be used to ensure the safety of the world’s children. I suggested a few years ago that American school children should be required to either have such a chip implanted or should have to wear a wrist watch with GPS tech equipped. Being much younger, I assumed that said watch would not only be synchronized with the schools clock to prevent tardiness but would also act as a personal database and scheduler to keep track of homework, library books, etc. I concluded that the chip would be cheaper but the watch much cooler. Either way, it would be an instant end to the kidnapping, rape, and trafficking of children. Surely, no one could possibly object to this plan.

But WOAH was I wrong. I was living in Washington State at the time, so that should have been a tip off that logic need not apply. It turns out that the version of the Bible that is taught in that part of the US says that one of the signs of the apocalypse is something called The Mark of the Beast. A mark placed on people that will . . . do . . . something I guess. Anyway, when I brought up the idea of manditory tracking devices for children in a university-level teacher prep course, I was told that was impossible because it was against the will of God.

You heard it here first folks: God doesn’t want you to protect your children from kidnappers! (whispers under breath) Fight, fight, fight for Washington State…