'Snack-dealing' schoolboy given suspension... and a scholarship

Source: The Local (Italy)
Published: Dec 16, 2016
Author: Staff
Post Date: 2017-01-04 05:49:21 by Deckard
Views: 5802

Selling snacks at school and pocketing the profits - is it illegal dealing or an impressive flair for business? At one school in Italy, it's unclear.

A schoolboy from Turin made national headlines after he was caught selling food and drinks to his peers at cheaper prices than the school cafeteria.

The 17-year-old has received both praise and punishment for the scheme.

He started taking orders for snacks and fizzy drinks - which he bought at a local discount store - last year, and received a ten-day suspension when he was caught by a teacher.

Around 500 students gathered outside the school on Wednesday, the day the boy was due to receive his award, with banners proclaiming 'Illegality is the new high school diploma' and 'scholarships for us too!'.

Piedmont's regional councillor for education, Gianna Pentenero, said: "It's understandable that the decision to give a scholarship to the student suspended for abusive snack-selling has provoked a certain upset among his peers. 

"I think it's a mistake to give a message that disrespect for the rules will be interpreted as innovative entrepreneurial skill."

The boy's suspension period will be spent volunteering with a charity selected by the school next year. The 15 days will not be consecutive, in order to minimize disruption to his schoolwork.

And when staff found out that the boy, who cannot be named due to his age, had started up his 'black market' again this year, he was handed a longer suspension of 15 days.

The case made headlines across the country and provoked fierce debate, with many arguing that the teen should be lauded for his entrepreneurial spirit.

He's received a handful of job offers from startups and marketing companies, as well as a prestigious scholarship from the Einaudi Foundation, a socio-economic institute which usually reserves its scholarships for post-graduate students, which said the boy's initiative should be "encouraged, not persecuted".

"Perhaps the small illegal businessman of today will become the large-scale legal businessman of tomorrow," said the school's headteacher, Stefano Fava, TorinoToday reported. 

"However, the school needs to teach pupils to respect the law and our rules."

Other pupils at the Pininfarina technical school in Turin, which has 1,700 students, protested against the Einaudi award. Around 500 students gathered outside the school on Wednesday, the day the boy was due to receive his award, with banners proclaiming 'Illegality is the new high school diploma' and 'scholarships for us too!'.

Piedmont's regional councillor for education, Gianna Pentenero, said: "It's understandable that the decision to give a scholarship to the student suspended for abusive snack-selling has provoked a certain upset among his peers. 

"I think it's a mistake to give a message that disrespect for the rules will be interpreted as innovative entrepreneurial skill."

The boy's suspension period will be spent volunteering with a charity selected by the school next year. The 15 days will not be consecutive, in order to minimize disruption to his schoolwork.

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Comment from the site:

Bravo to the boy. His best chances in life will be once he gets away from the clutches of the school system. The head teacher made it very clear what children are supposed to learn in schools: respect the law and obey the rules. The State prefers to produce complacent citizens for their society which makes control of the population easier. Too much creativity and independent thinking by the citizens threatens the system where the laws and the rules ultimately only favor the elite and the people who feed off it.

I couldn't agree more - schools (even in Italy) are designed to teach conformity and to discourage independent thinking and creativity.

Post Comment   Private Reply

#1: buckeroo    To: Deckard (#0)

abusive snack-selling

snicker

buckeroo posted on 2017-01-04 07:49:48   Reply   Private Reply


#2: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#0)

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 08:40:03   Reply   Private Reply


#3: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#0)

You thanked me the other day for bumping your thread.

No need for you to thank me now for this bump, I will have a few more coming …

Students will ‘face discipline’ for selling THC-laced lollipops at school.

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 10:25:53   Reply   Private Reply


#4: Deckard    To: Gatlin (#3)

Students will ‘face discipline’ for selling THC-laced lollipops at school.

Once again, you post something that is not even remotely related to the topic.

THC-laced candies are the same as sodas and snacks?

You're losing it more and more as each day goes by.

Deckard posted on 2017-01-04 10:28:49   Reply   Private Reply


#5: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#4)

THC-laced candies are the same as sodas and snacks?

Did the article say he was not selling candies?

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 11:32:03   Reply   Private Reply


#6: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#4)

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 11:32:38   Reply   Private Reply


#7: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#4)

Once again, you post something that is not even remotely related to the topic.
It is not unrelated….it definitely is related pay attention, concentrate and think about it.
- schools (even in Italy) are designed to teach conformity and to discourage independent thinking and creativity.
That is true and that is bad. We know that kids are only being tested for degrees of obedience in today’s schools while they are not being educated. It is gross atrocity that school systems are merely indoctrinating children into a system without valuing their creative expression and never encouraging their unique abilities.

Be that as it may and as wrong as it is….however, allowing kids to bring any kinds of snacks to school that may contain [and has contained] harmful substances and sell them, or even freely pass them out, is downright STUPID.

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 11:48:46   Reply   Private Reply


#8: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#7)

Once again, you post something that is not even remotely related to the topic.
Sure it is, you just don’t want to see it.

I don’t understand you….but then, that’s nothing new.

Do you want to say the entrepreneur in this article was not selling snacks with drugs in them therefore the school should allow the selling of snacks by students?

If so, then can you say that if the school allowed the practice of students selling snacks in school to continue…that some of the next students would not sell gummy candy or other snacks laced with drugs?

Should this high school student selling marijuana gummy candy snacks in school also be praised for his ingenious entrepreneurial ability and receive a scholarship?

Isn’t it time you start having a realistic outlook in life?

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 12:34:42   Reply   Private Reply


#9: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#8)

Glance quickly down through these:

Now let me give you my last shot.

You of course will remember this….we all do:

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado. They injured 21 additional people, and three more were injured while attempting to escape the school.
You once said I should think outside the box. I now say to you that you should start doing that. Stop and think how many more students Harris and Kiebold could killed had they simply stood outside the school entrances as the kids entered school that day and passed out snacks laced with arsenic or Strychnine. Oh, maybe you think that Harris and Kiebold would have trouble getting their hands on arsenic or strychnine because buying that would have set off alarm bells. Well, they could use castor beans as the deadly poison that can be bought almost anyplace, even Amazon carries them in the bulk. Surprised at the mention of castor beans as a deadly poison? Probably. Not many know that the most common form of poisoning occurs from eating castor beans. As few as 5 castor beans ground up in candy, or other snacks, could prove fatal.

Do you see the danger yet in allowing kids to distribute snacks in school?

I hope so.

If not, I will still try to show you by ending up with this.

Two [suicide bomber] girls thought to be around seven or eight years old….am I doing this the right way for you….died in blasts in a crowded area near a market in Nigeria.

Imagine this -

This Italian school in the article has 1700 students. Think what could happen if the terrorists flooding through Italy changed the “MO” to kill from a suicide bomber and sent a cute little girl into that school passing out poisoned candy to hundreds of students….while school officials passed by thinking….oh, that’s just another cute kid distributing candy working at getting a scholarship.

If you can’t the danger of allowing distribution of snacks in the school and the importance the school prohibiting of it….then God help you.

The action by the school to prohibit the student [and all students] from selling snacks in the school and for suspending him after the second infraction was the proper action to take.

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 14:19:36   Reply   Private Reply


#10: Deckard    To: Gatlin (#9)

Your posts reek of desperation.

To you, a kid selling sodas and snacks is equal to a suicide bomber, school shooters and terrorists.

Un-frigging real!

Do you see the danger yet in allowing kids to distribute snacks in school?

Do you see your idiocy?

Deckard posted on 2017-01-04 14:29:13   Reply   Private Reply


#11: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#10)

Do you see your idiocy?

I see great idiocy in you NOT understanding the problem.

But then, it is to be expected.

Kids simply cannot sell, or hand out, anything they want to in school.

The school took the correct action....live with that.

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 14:59:04   Reply   Private Reply


#12: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#10)

To you, a kid selling sodas and snacks is equal to a suicide bomber, school shooters and terrorists. Un-frigging real!
To you, kids shooting kids and a teacher is a school is not un-frigging real?

Huh?

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 15:02:56   Reply   Private Reply


#13: Deckard    To: Gatlin (#12)

To you, kids shooting kids and a teacher is a school is not un-frigging real?

Learn to read.

Then learn to comprehend.

I find it encouraging that someone recognized this kid's initiative and entrepreneurship.

Statists like you want to see him suffer for the crime of using his imagination.

Your attempt to equate his actions with those of terrorists, school shooters and suicide bombers displays an illogical leap of colossal proportions.

Stop wasting my time with your flatulent tripe.

Deckard posted on 2017-01-04 15:12:01   Reply   Private Reply


#14: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#13)

I find it encouraging that someone recognized this kid's initiative and entrepreneurship.

I find it admirable that the school staff was looking out for the students.

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 15:21:43   Reply   Private Reply


#15: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#13)

Stop wasting my time with your flatulent tripe.

As you recently said, "no one is holding a gun to your head" to make yyou read my truthful comments.

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 15:23:26   Reply   Private Reply


#16: Deckard    To: Gatlin (#14)

I find it admirable that the school staff was looking out for the students.

"Major" Gatlin hath spoken:

Deckard posted on 2017-01-04 15:24:50   Reply   Private Reply


#17: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#13)

Your attempt to equate his actions with those of terrorists, school shooters and suicide bombers displays an illogical leap of colossal proportions.

I am only showing you the potential danger.

You are too stupid to recognize it.

You hatred for any authority blinds you to rational thought.

Who would have thought earlier in life that a seven-year would be a suicide bomber?

Who knows what children put in snacks?

Wait….I showed you case histories.

Did you read them?

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 15:29:31   Reply   Private Reply


#18: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#16)

"Major" Gatlin hath spoken always speaks the truth.

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 15:31:26   Reply   Private Reply


#19: Deckard    To: Gatlin (#17)

I am only showing you the potential danger.

Heavens to Betsy!

How do you manage to gin up the courage to get out of bed in the morning? The kid was selling snacks and sodas. Period.

Man, you are one submissive little twat.

Deckard posted on 2017-01-04 15:34:33   Reply   Private Reply


#20: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#19)

The kid was selling snacks and sodas [in school]. Period.
And I showed you factual cases where kids were selling snacks containing marijuana in school. Period.

You see no problem?

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 15:46:22   Reply   Private Reply


#21: Gatlin    To: Deckard (#20)

You see no problem?

Gatlin posted on 2017-01-04 21:52:23   Reply   Private Reply