My parents were both [retired] teachers, and sadly this is the truth. Some bottom N%, I don’t know if it’s 1 or 5 or 10 or whatever, but they are absolutely beyond anyone’s ability to rehab, let alone educate. Often no fault of their own. Broken families, parents don’t care, gangs, lots of reasons. Any effort spent on them is wasted. They are inevitably fucked, and will end up in some kind of institution (prison, mental health) or unemployable, by age 25. It’s a sad reality and not something politicians like to talk about. We pretend that if we just whip the teachers so they teach harder, these people will miraculously grow up to be functional adults. It’s not going to happen.

I remember a guy in my high school whose claim to fame was he dragged some other poor kid into the wood shop and filed his teeth down to nothing with a band saw. Spending 50% of the school budget on these blockheads is not going to rehab them.

> I remember a guy in my high school whose claim to fame was he dragged some other poor kid into the wood shop and filed his teeth down to nothing with a band saw. Spending 50% of the school budget on these blockheads is not going to rehab them.

What year and what school district did this happen in?

I mean I'm curious because that's violent assault, of the sort that generally makes the local papers.

I'm struggling to visualise how this would be physically possible.

ryandrake says:

"I remember a guy in my high school whose claim to fame was he dragged some other poor kid into the wood shop and filed his teeth down to nothing with a band saw."

Citation needed!8-))

Sounds like an urban myth (albeit a good one)!

Also, it is unclear that the story demonstrates any relevant point in this discussion: one might say that using a shop band saw on another's teeth is a very clever, although, on the surface extremely unsocial, act."

Well, I was in Junior High at the time. It could have been exaggerated, but we all saw the ambulance. Both students were never seen around school again. The 80s were wild!