No injuries, no damages, but felony charges

[Panacea]

So rather than dealing with something through the school's disciplinary system, we are going to tie up the already busy courts with a meaningless trial and what not.

That's the big issue I have with this. All that expense, probation, blah blah, for a teenager being a dumbass. In school suspension, and menial chores on campus for a month should have done the trick here. Instead, we have to have the whole dog and pony show.

Popping the cap off of a soda bottle does not constitute "blowing stuff up." From what I can gather, the bottle itself wasn't even damaged, so that makes zero "stuff" that got "blown up."

But what you're missing here is the girl DID create an explosive reaction. If she'd gotten the mixture wrong, or used something more volitile, she could have hurt someone including herself. While I don't think the punishment is right here, I do think what she did was stupid and dangerous.

What she was trying to create is a pressure bomb. There's millions of videos on YouTube and odds are that's where she got her idea.

Kids have been experimenting with chemicals and creating explosive reactions since the dawn of time.

When I was in high school, I had a chemistry lab in the garage: I could make my own compounds. I had burners, distillation equipment, the whole nine yards. I regularly made all kinds of complex compounds from household chemicals . . . sometimes with the aid of specially bought ingredients, sometimes not.

Mostly what I did was them was do "magic shows" for local kids. Mixing various chemicals can cause fun and dramatic color changes and liquid reactions that are lots of fun. The only time Mom got upset with me was when I dropped a container of ammonia and stunk up the garage.

What she didn't know was I was making my own sulfuric acid and nitric acid. Dad caught me preparing to soak fibers in a bath of them to make gun cotton. He stopped me, and we had a lengthy discussion of the wisdom, or rather the lack thererof, of making bombs in the house. Well, actually, I didn't want to make bombs. I just wanted to see the explosive reaction when I lit the fibers on fire (which I planned to do in the local park, not the backyard . . . I wasn't that stupid).

I went on to become a nurse, not a terrorist or a criminal.

Point is, kids are naturally curious about explosives and explosive reactions. Most satisfy their urges with fireworks, which is more dangerous in my mind because they never learn how to handle them properly.

What this girl did has been done a million times, and will be done a million times more. The correct reaction is to redirect her curiosity into a safe environment, rather than come down on her with a hammer.

This quote is interesting: "At the urging of a fellow classmate, she combined toilet bowl cleaner and aluminum foil in an 8-ounce bottle."

This brings up several questions. Not the least of which as to why the friend hasn't been similarly punished and whether or not she even knew what was going to happen when she combined the two items.

Because it doesn't matter what the friend said. What matters, is what the girl DID. She could have said no, that's too dangerous and stupid, and not done it.

[Kheldarson]

Not saying this is right, but this opinion piece does beg the question: is the punishment simply race related?

[Andara Bledin]

But what you're missing here is the girl DID create an explosive reaction.

I'm not missing that in the least. I'm merely objecting to the use of hyperbolic language to describe an event that happened. Saying she created an "explosive reaction" is fine. Even saying she made an explosion is ok, if a little overdramatic; mini-explosion (a term used in several articles) is far more accurate.

Popping the top off of a bottle and producing a bunch of smoke should never be described as "blowing stuff up." Because there are actual events where stuff is actually blown up, and conflating the two is not a good thing.

Because it doesn't matter what the friend said. What matters, is what the girl DID. She could have said no, that's too dangerous and stupid, and not done it.

If she didn't know what it would do, how would she have known it was stupid?

And it very much matters what the friend said. It also matters what they knew. Because inciting another to commit a crime, is, itself, a crime. And if the friend knew it would cause an explosion and failed to tell the girl yet urged her to cause the reaction, that makes it a real crime, and not just the crime of being a reckless teenager.

[Greenday]

If she didn't know what it would do, how would she have known it was stupid?

To just do something like because someone told you to do it is stupidity in itself.

[Andara Bledin]

To just do something like because someone told you to do it is stupidity in itself.

Right. Because none of us have ever done anything a friend suggested we do and had it be harmless.

Plus, there is a difference between stupid and ignorant. They're not mutually exclusive, but they're also not the same thing.

[Kheldarson]

To just do something like because someone told you to do it is stupidity in itself.

Which is the definition of being a teen. Are you that far from being a teen to forget that?

And that's part of why most of us are appalled at the extreme punishment. She has a track record of being a good kid. Her previous mistakes were obviously the more minor stupid ones that tend to get overlooked. Her biggest mistake involved her doing something really stupid that ended up being harmless.

Do you punish her? Yes. Do you make sure the punishment lasts the rest of her life? NO.

She didn't kill anyone, she didn't steal, she wasn't doing drugs...she just had poor judgement and listened to a friend too closely. And a suspension would've taught her the same two lessons that this expulsion will--I need better judgement and should weigh what my friends say more carefully. The expulsion and court charges just add on: the system is unfair, I shouldn't trust authority, I'm an idiot, etc. Those aren't lessons that a school (or school district) should want to teach.

[Greenday]

Which is the definition of being a teen. Are you that far from being a teen to forget that?

No, I'm only 25. And when I was a teen, I never did something just because a friend suggested it. I wasn't stupid. In fact, any time a friend tried to get me to do something, I immediately became skeptical. No, I had more common sense when I was a teenager.

[Nekojin]

No, I'm only 25. And when I was a teen, I never did something just because a friend suggested it. I wasn't stupid. In fact, any time a friend tried to get me to do something, I immediately became skeptical. No, I had more common sense when I was a teenager.

Call me a skeptic of your supposed level-headedness. It's one of the few universal truths - kids do dumb shit, and often with friends.

[Greenday]

Call me a skeptic of your supposed level-headedness. It's one of the few universal truths - kids do dumb shit, and often with friends.

I wasn't a normal kid. I never succumbed to peer-pressure. It didn't make me very popular. I was more of an adult stuck in a kid's body. I learned faster than everyone else, I focused on world politics and understood them better than a lot of adults.

Point being, your supposed universal truth is no different from people who think all black people love fried chicken and watermelon, Asian people are bad drivers, etc.

I was an exception to your universal truth.

[Nekojin]

You'll pardon me if I choose not to believe that you were a model child in every way.

[Kheldarson]

I wasn't a normal kid. I never succumbed to peer-pressure. It didn't make me very popular. I was more of an adult stuck in a kid's body. I learned faster than everyone else, I focused on world politics and understood them better than a lot of adults.

Point being, your supposed universal truth is no different from people who think all black people love fried chicken and watermelon, Asian people are bad drivers, etc.

I was an exception to your universal truth.

I'm sure you can still name some time where you did something mind-blowingly asinine though.

And, unlike the stereotypes you're trying to associate this statement with, the truth is that their is a scientific basis for this fact.

1) Teenage brains are normally not fully developed or trained in the areas of adult consequential relationships and decision making (i.e. that'll never happen to me, I'm immortal).

2) They are hard-wired to look for instant gratification and thrill seeking. (Let's try to jump from the house to the trampoline, or I wonder what this'll do.)

So while some may develop the relevant areas of the mind at an earlier age (congrats Greenday), it does not detract that this is observable, concrete, age old behavior from an age group that has been continuously documented (unlike your racist stereotypes).

And further, this is something educators are typically taught as part of the field. We know this is expected behavior, and while the science is just coming out, it is something that has been taught as a behavioral issue to be adjusted for.

Which the school board didn't do. This would be what could be classified as "extenuating circumstances", often used when passing judgement on a criminal. The school board got first judgement and overshot in the long run.

Hopefully the court is far more understanding.

[Greenday]

You'll pardon me if I choose not to believe that you were a model child in every way.

I was a stubborn child. Still my biggest fault.

I'm sure you can still name some time where you did something mind-blowingly asinine though.

And, unlike the stereotypes you're trying to associate this statement with, the truth is that their is a scientific basis for this fact.

1) Teenage brains are normally not fully developed or trained in the areas of adult consequential relationships and decision making (i.e. that'll never happen to me, I'm immortal).

2) They are hard-wired to look for instant gratification and thrill seeking. (Let's try to jump from the house to the trampoline, or I wonder what this'll do.)

So while some may develop the relevant areas of the mind at an earlier age (congrats Greenday), it does not detract that this is observable, concrete, age old behavior from an age group that has been continuously documented (unlike your racist stereotypes).

I don't know what to tell you. I always weighed the risks of what I did. I wasn't hard-wired to look for instant gratification and thrill seeking (Far from it actually). I am a freak of nature.

[KabeRinnaul]

I admit I haven't been following the thread since the second page or so, but I haven't really understood how an outlier or two (such as the apparently very mature younger Greenday) in the teenage demographics means we ought to throw the book at this girl.

A teenager did something very stupid to impress her friends, and it caused no long-term harm. This sort of behavior is exactly what we expect from the average teenager, and we have systems in place to handle it appropriately. Why exactly do we need to declare it a heinous crime that merits long-term adult consequences?

[Greenday]

A teenager did something very stupid to impress her friends, and it caused no long-term harm. This sort of behavior is exactly what we expect from the average teenager, and we have systems in place to handle it appropriately. Why exactly do we need to declare it a heinous crime that merits long-term adult consequences?

No one here thinks she should be thrown in jail. But setting off explosions in the middle of a school should have consequences. Just because no one was hurt doesn't mean the school/town should set a precedent of letting people get away with it.

[KabeRinnaul]

No one here thinks she should be thrown in jail. But setting off explosions in the middle of a school should have consequences. Just because no one was hurt doesn't mean the school/town should set a precedent of letting people get away with it.

"Consequences" are appropriate. "Felonies" are not. I even think expulsion is going too far.

And from their description of it, I think I know the mix she did myself. And if it's what I'm thinking of, "explosion" is technically an accurate description, but implies something much larger and more dangerous than what it actually was. The one I'm familiar with would be better described as popping the bottle open. You'd get the same effect, minus the smoke, by running the bottle over with a car tire.