David McElroy

It was a pretty typical Saturday afternoon in Aurora, Colo. People were bustling around town going about their business. For about 40 unlucky people, though, the next two hours were going to be anything but typical.

Someone robbed a Wells Fargo bank in Aurora. Police say they received word that the suspect was almost certainly in a car at a particular intersection. They didn’t have a description of the suspect. They didn’t know if it was a man or woman or what race the suspect was. They knew nothing, but they said afterwards that it was a “virtual certainty” that the suspect was somewhere at that intersection.

What the Aurora police did next makes it clear that they’ve never heard of the Fourth Amendment and have no respect for innocent people.

Police quickly blocked the intersection from all sides. I’ve heard differing reports on the number of cars in the intersection, but it was in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 vehicles. Even though police had no reasonable suspicion of any particular person or vehicle, they handcuffed every single adult in every single one of those cars. It was about 40 people. You can see from the picture above that they went in with guns ready to blow the heads off of these innocent people. Doesn’t that kid look like a bank robber?

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What kind of dreams do you have? I’ve always been fascinated by mine, even though I’ve never figured out whether they’re just nocturnal patterns of nightly neuronal weirdness or if there could be something deeper about them. I read something Tuesday from a man who’s certain that his dreams are meaningful, because a dream he had when he was 16 years old changed his life.

I don’t know much about this guy. He lives in Great Britain and was a loser early in life. Nobody expected anything of him, including himself. Well, I’ll let him tell his story, which he told Tuesday on a message board:

I was written off at school when I was 10. The teachers at this massive school decided that there was nothing that I could learn and it was pointless to try and teach me. I followed the lead and paid no attention in class. Life was pretty bad at home so to get attention, I’d ruin class for everyone else. Parents would ask the school for their kids to be in classes where I wasn’t. No future.

At 16 years old, I’ve somehow scraped through my exams with the minimum grades required and into senior class. And I have the dream.

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A physics teacher in Edmonton has been removed from his classroom for having the guts to insist that his students’ actions have consequences. A year and a half ago, his school adopted a policy forbidding teachers from giving students a grade of zero on work they don’t turn in. He refused to comply — and he’s been suspended for standing up for academic integrity.

Lynden Dorval comes across as a teacher who simply wants to do what’s right for his students. (See video from Canada’s CBC below.) He couldn’t comply with a policy that gave students credit for things they didn’t even attempt to do. He’s appealing the decision, but says it’s the right thing even if it permanently costs him his job.

A new principal at Ross Sheppard High School brought the new policy last year. It’s the same policy in place at various other local schools. In fact, it’s been the policy at Edmonton junior high schools for decades, but it’s now spreading to high schools.

The idea is that assignments that aren’t turned in and tests that aren’t taken are simply behavioral issues, so they shouldn’t count against a student’s academic evaluation. Teachers are told to ignore any work not turned in and simply give grades based on the work that was completed.

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