Middle School Banned Farting

Thanks to some gassy eight-grade boys who couldn't keep it to themselves (and instead made it a sport), Camden-Rockport Middle School in Tennessee Maine has now banned farting:

According to this week's Fire Cracker school newsletter though, the joke's on the boys as the penalty for "intentional farting" is now a detention.

"Strange, but true, thanks to a bunch of 8th grade boys, intentional farting has been banned from CRMS," the newsletter said. "It started out as a funny joke and eventually turned into a game. This is the first rule at CRMS that prevents the use of natural bodily functions. The penalty for intentional farting is a detention, so keep it to yourself!"

According to a group of seventh-grade students milling around downtown following Friday's storm-related early release, the eighth-graders' escapades are well known in the school.

http://knox.villagesoup.com/rewrite/108448.htm (Photo: Christian Borstlap and modelmaker Quist, blogged as previously on Neatorama here) - Thanks John!


How very Medieval. Reminds me of a old English catch-song that might pre-date Shakespeare:

“My Lady and her Maid
upon a merry pin,
they made a match at farting,
who should the wager win.
Joan lights three candles then,
and sets them bolt upright.
With the first fart she blew them out;
with the next she gave them light.
In comes my Lady then,
with all her might and main,
and blew them out, and in and out,
and in and out again.”

But seriously, if they're doing it deliberately, then it's not beyond their control, despite whatever rationalizations they make. They're being disruptive, just as if they were belching at will. The problem is that the burden of PROVING that their flatulence is deliberate falls on the teachers & administrators. The fact that anyone can tell they're faking it is beside the point --- the law protects these kids and promotes this behavior, and they know it. They'll abuse the system as long as it lets them... or until it dawns on them that maybe this is why no girls seem to show an interest in them. (Except for My Lady and her Maid...)
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They could've dealt with this under the rules against being disruptive and rude, without bringing boldily funtions into it.

It sure wouldn't have worked when I was in school; they served us beans as a main dish at least twice a week!
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They could’ve dealt with this under the rules against being disruptive and rude, without bringing boldily funtions into it.

I'm not so sure. When I was in seventh grade, several of us could burp and fart on command, with the obvious effect on classroom discipline. Had we been punished for being disruptive and rude, we'd pull that innocent "...but I can't help it, I've got gas, Principal" routine. The rule allows teachers to specifically name a punishable offense.

Will this rule punish kids who are innocently flatulent? It's possible, but if my experience is any indication, rules were enforced selectively, and the wrath of the teachers generally fell on those who were pretty much causing trouble.
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The news story is bogus. The fire cracker is not a school newsletter but just a gag some 8th grade girls made up.

http://www.fivetowns.net/crms/crms/ttimes.pdf
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When I was in fifth grade the teacher used to pull kids out of class into a small adjoining room and leave the rest of us unsupervised. One day this turned into a battle to see who could make the rudest fake fart noises by blowing on their arm. I don't know if she seriously thought we were farting that much (she did have a history of being clueless and nosy, a terrible combination) or if she thought that playing along would teach us a lesson, but when she came back she lined us all up and LECTURED US ON PERSONAL HYGIENE well into recess. All about how as we got older we would find we needed to SHOWER MORE. It was painfully awkward and bizarre. If the principal of that school needs some help, I can probably track her down ;-p
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Well...This is funny. I am a Camden resident and know the whole story. Farting has not been banned from the school. The 8th graders have a fake newspaper they publish every month and this was one of the 'joke' stories because a student farted in class. The fake paper was brought home and a parent who works for a local paper wrote a story about it. Then other media organizations wrote stories about it as well, without doing any fact checking. It was on the national news and USA Today, all because an 8th grader got a funny idea for a fake classroom newspaper. This just goes to show how much a story can be blown out of proportion and how much research goes into the news that is delivered to the public. Sorry to rain on anyones parade, but this entire story was made up by a 14 year old.
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