Zero Tolerance Strikes Again - 6 y.o. Victim Suspended

Was the policy effective?
Click to expand...

Of course at the time I was PISSED and thought it was the stupidest rule/law ever. No IIIIII wouldn't have hurt someone with the knife but that doesn't mean that every child who finds a knife in the backpack wouldn't. And if it means stopping 1 person from hurting someone then I'll take the heat for what happened to me.

It's like saying it's okay if your kid finds your gun and plays with it as long as he doesn't INTEND on hurting anyone. Yeah right, we've all heard how that ends up. Sibling, friend, or the kid himself winds up dead.

Why not stop the problem at the beginning? BEFORE someone intends to hurt someone.

I'm really tired of people not wanting to take responsibility for the actions. If you take a knife to school and you know it's against the law then you should be punished for it! If you allow your kid to go to school with a knife by mistake, then you will be disciplined too. You will have to find alternative schooling, take time out of your evenings if he has to go to night school, etc. Learn from your mistakes and move on.
 
DU: Dung...er, make that DemocRATic Underground. Oh, I distinctly remember that we had real butter knives on the tables, when I was in h.s.
 
I actually do agree with the concept of "Zero Tollerance." I do think that any knives, guns, etc. should be kept out of the schools. What I disagree with is the enforcement end of this policy.

The situation should have gone like this. warning:common sense ahead. Educators and Administrators should skip this section.

Boy opens back pack. Butter knife falls out. Teacher sees butter knife. Teacher says "Boy, why do you have that knife?" Boy says, "I don't know. I didn't put it in there." Teacher takes butter knife and says "We need to go to the Principal's Office and call your parents." 1.Teacher/Principal calls parents. "Boy, brought butter knife to school." Parent(s) says, "Oh no. I'll come pick it up." 2. Teacher/Principal says "Boy, when parent comes to pick you up, have them come in here and get this. Be careful when you leave your house to make sure nothing like this is in there." Problem solved.

None of this, "WHAT?!?!?! A BUTTER KNIFE?!?!?! CALL THE POLICE, WE'VE GOT A POTENTIAL SERIAL KILLER!!!"
 
If its sensible repurcussion to a minor thing like being forgetful then nobody will be saying anything because everyone makes mistakes. To err is to human.

But if kids get suspended for playing imaginary "shooting" games(ie cops & robbers) then that is just plain ridiculous. I remember back in elementary school we used to have a bunch of kids playing "war" and even the recess aids would join in because it was just a GAME. Violence is part of human nature, if people can channel their inate violent nature to a safe output like football(bunch of guys smashing each other to the ground so counts as violence imo) then theres nothing to worry bout. Friggin HS staff are power hungry.
 
Josh:

And if it means stopping 1 person from hurting someone then I'll take the heat for what happened to me.
Click to expand...

If someone decided giving up our guns might save just 1 person, would you give up your XD?
 
If someone decided giving up our guns might save just 1 person, would you give up your XD?
Click to expand...

No but i'm not a 3rd grader, I'm a mature adult who understand the consequences of using a gun or knife on someone.
 
thatguyjosh said:
Why not stop the problem at the beginning? BEFORE someone intends to hurt someone.
Click to expand...
That whole premise means that we must be able to fortale the future. And we must be able to read minds, just in case our predictions were wrong.

Since we can't do either of those, the only thing left is to forbid anything and everything that could possibly hurt someone else.

Zero Tolerance. Viola!

Sorry Josh. A butter knife at school is not a problem. Neither is pointing a french fry or your finger at someone and saying, "Bang! Your Dead." (yes Josh, these actually happened) A pen knife at school is not a problem. Drawing a picture of an armed soldier is not a problem.

Part of the problem is that parents and other close adults (teachers?) won't let kids be kids. The other part is that we no longer teach our kids about knives and guns and safe handling, etc.

I can certainly see that in certain schools, all of this might be a problem. But in the vast majority of this nations schools, there have never been stabbings and shootings. So why Zero Tolerance?

Because we live in a society that has evolved into exactly what you claim: No one wants to accept responsibility. No One. Not you. Not your teachers. Not your parents.

Until you work through the first part of this post, you will never understand the second part.
No but i'm not a 3rd grader, I'm a mature adult who understand the consequences of using a gun or knife on someone.
Click to expand...
The problem is that many of us knew this by the 3rd grade. We didn't have to wait 'till we were adults. We knew the difference between toys and real guns and knives.
 
josh,

Glad you're not a demo, but your sound bytes are right on line with theirs.

What do you think of this, honest opinion now:

I graduated in 1986 at Branford HS, Florida (so you can check that it does exist).

I carried a knife on my person every day while at school, and when I wasn't in school. During hunting season (like now), most of the Juniors and Seniors had guns in the rifle racks of their trucks, on school property.

Yet, we didn't have any shootings or stabbing in the 5 years that I went to that school. Fist fights yes, shootings and stabbings, no.

During lunch, marbles (we were a K-12 all in one school) and mumblypeg were the games of the times. All ages played in one or the other. Yet when we got into disagreements, our knives and our guns weren't even a thought, and after the fist fight was over, the next day everyone got along once again.

Maybe this worked because I went to a school that was 1A (less than a thousand, K-12) or whatever, or maybe it was just Southern Honor at work, I don't know. All I know is that I survived school with good grades and knives and guns were just a part of it.

And the school I went to, being 5yo's to 18yo's, not one single rape, child molestation, or what happens now days happened.

And every one of us had at least a knife on their person. Not a butter knife mind you, but a buck mostly.

Wayne
 
Antipitas ~

Good post.

I was standing there watching my middle son, then about age 6, playing a video game at the pizza parlor when his grandpa walked up behind him.

Grandpa spotted what the boy was playing and gasped. "David! That's a bad video game! We don't like that kind of game -- there are people with guns shooting each other in it."

My little redhead made me proud. He nodded to show he'd understood and finished his round. Then he turned around and looked his grandpa straight in the eye. "Grandpa, you don't like that kind of game, but I do. And it's just a game. It isn't real."

Too many people refuse to give kids credit for being human beings. But you know what? Every single one of mine knew the difference between "real" and "not real" by the time they were old enough to go to school.

Funny how that works.

pax

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. -- Groucho Marx
 
My appologies to Josh for accusing you of being a DU plant. My appologies to Antipitas also and I agree, I wasn't thinking clearly when I said that I was just merely upset. My attack was unfounded and based off nothing at all, sorry Josh.

Glad to hear the boy does not have to miss school after all. But looking at the end of the article, it seems to me that that school hardly enforces what one would consider "Zero Tolerance."

The district said it didn't reconsider because of the negative publicity. It takes each case individually under consideration.
Click to expand...

This is the way it should be. I wonder how true it really is though :confused:
 
Ingram, no need to apologize to me. I was just trying to keep the Keel level.

That old "Think Twice, Post Once" thingy at work! :D
 
Drawing a picture of an armed soldier is not a problem.
Click to expand...

I absolutely agree with you. I think the zero tolerance policy can be taken too far when it comes to stuff like that, and playing "cops and robbers" in school. I think expelling a kid for that is ludicrous. But allowing a kid to bring a knife to school and then just slapping him on the wrist and giving him detention is just as ludicrous.
 
What do you think of this, honest opinion now:
Click to expand...

I'm glad you are smart and didn't pull a knife on someone. But plenty of children do, all the time. Just because you are intelligent enough to fight with your fists doesn't mean other kids are. If you bring a knife to school (whether it's a mistake or not) you should be disciplined for it.
 
I just can't understand what has happened since I went to school. I graduated in 1991. From the time I was in 7th or 8th grade I carried a Swiss Army Knife religiously, got one in my pocket right now. :)
In highschool I was in the FFA all 4 years, and had a lot of agriculture and shop classes where we actually used our pocket knives. We were told that if they were used other than in those classes we'd lose the privelidge of bringing them to school, and we followed that rule. I saw a lot of fights in school, and not one of them involved a weapon of any type. Very few of those people got suspended. Most ended up on in school suspension for about a week, and that was that.
The deer hunters at school almost always had a rifle or shotgun in their pickup truck, and nothing was said. Nobody ever got shot, nobody ever got stabbed, nobody ever brought a bomb to school. I know they still have archery and rifle teams at the two highschools here in the county, but I don't know how they handle that. I'm bettin' that their firing/archery range isn't on or near school property.
 
thatguyjosh said:
No but i'm not a 3rd grader, I'm a mature adult who understand the consequences of using a gun or knife on someone.
Click to expand...
So you don't differentiate between a sharp knife and a butter knife? Should someone be suspended if they bring a ceramic rod to school, because they could take any number of metal objects and fashion them into stabbing implements?

thatguyjosh said:
Pencils, rocks and umbrellas aren't widely known to be used as dangerous weapons. Knifes are.
Click to expand...
Scissors are, too. Regardless, by highschool students are strong enough that any number of things are just as dangerous as knives. Umbrellas are clubs; belts or strings are garrotes. There are no national statistics kept for purposeful violence in schools, so you have no basis for making such a claim.

After many thousands of years of human evolution, we now expect children to be educated without access to the tools we used to get this far? I distinctly recall the presence of x-acto knives in art class in lower school, and at least in middle and upper school there was never any prohibition against carrying pocketknives or multitools. The items most often used in an unsafe manner in middle school were rubber bands and pen tubes (for spitwads).

But, like USP45usp, I went to a small, close-knit school.
 
Josh, it was a butter knife for crying out loud! No edges. No sharp points. A sharpened pencil would do more damage than a butter knife!
 
A knife is a knife.

The kid (and parents) knew it was against the law to let their kid go onto school property with a knife. He did and he should be suspended for it.

I'd like to see you try and board a plane with a knfie and then tell the FBI you left it in there by mistake, good luck.
 
A knife is a knife.
Click to expand...
Scissors are knives. Pencils are knives. Pieces of sheet metal are knives. Doorstops are knives.

Unless you define knife, this... dare I call it a discussion... is going to get even more silly.

If anything that cuts is a knife, there goes the first amendment, along with paper. Electronic classrooms! But wait, computer components can cut, too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top