this makes no sense.

Probably less so because I'm functioning on about four hours' sleep.

I read with some satisfaction this little blurb (video and text on same page) concerning a six-year old and his "sentencing" for a relatively minor infraction. What infraction? Let me explain. No, it's too much. Let me sum up.

Little dude brings his boy scout camping tool (fork, knife, spoon combo, kinda looks like a Swiss Army knife) to school to eat lunch with. School gasps in shock, brands kid as a threat to society, and bans him from his school for 45 days, with that time to be served in a reform school.

Overreact much?

Let's get past the detail that Mom and Dad should have known better than to let the kid take it to school. I'm sure it's harmless, but I'm also sure that the kid's gotten some handbook from the school that spelled out a "no weapons or anything that looks like it" policy. Barring that, some wise ass little shit could just as well taken it from him and either lost it, broken it, or decided to play ninja with it. You know how kids are.

The bigger issue here is this "zero-tolerance" baloney that has infested our schools along with all the touchy-feelie don't make them feel bad about themselves self-esteem crap.

It doesn't matter what the infraction is. It doesn't matter how small, how large, how insignificant, how serious. Extenuating circumstances, past disciplinary record… it's all irrelevant.

This is the creation of so-called intelligentia. The people who educate your children. They know more than you do, dontyakno. 

Disagree with them? You… you barbarian. Don't you understand? Someone could get hurt because you want to have several sets of rules. We have to treat everyone the same! No one gets special treatment!

Sound mildly totalitarian to anyone? 

A kid brings a plastic knife to eat lunch with and gets suspended. A girl takes an aspirin for a headache and gets suspended. A boy is framed by some wiseass who plants a pocket knife on him and gets suspended. Time was that the principal would sit down and review the case. Now, because some pencilhead on a school board has pounded his fist on a table a couple too many times, these kids get the shaft. 

Yet, kids are still getting beaten on buses and no one does anything about it.

What "zero-tolerance" is and always has been is societal control. Step across an imaginary line drawn by people who are either

1. out of touch with reality
2. sporting an agenda of their own

and you end up in a world o' hum, whether you truly deserve to be there or not. No appeal, no review, no time served for good behavior. 

Let's bang that into place when they're children, eh? Let's make it clear that this is the way things are, so that by the time they're adults, they don't expect any differently. Sure, this was well in place before hope-n-change, but the people running this asylum are the same ones supporting His Holiness. Remember that.

Comments

[Karen]

Mmm Mmm Mmm Barack... I'm sure you know the rest.

Common sense is long gone from education. It's crazy really.

[Jo]

There was another example here in Wilmington, DE last year - elementary school girl was running for class president, her gramma made her a cake for her class. Her gramma sent in a plastic knife to cut the cake and the girl was suspended. Student didn't even know the knife was packed with the cake.