OCALA, Fla. -- A 10-year old Ocala girl brought her lunch to school and a small kitchen knife to cut it. She now faces a felony charge after being arrested.
The crazies will cry, "But Darren, what if she hurts someone with that knife? We could have prevented it!" To which I reply, "If she wants to hurt people, she could stab them with a pencil."
I long for the day when "zero tolerance" applies to idiotic rules and the spineless administrators who create idiotic rules, and not to knives in lunchboxes.
8 comments:
I grew up in Tennessee. Got my first pocket knife when I was 7 or 8. Carried it to school as often as not, like most of my friends. The only time I saw someone cut was when they opened or closed their own knife carelessly.
I still carry one everyday as do several of my co-workers.
I guess they better check the school for a spanner, lead pipe, rope, and candlestick.
Not much to say except stories like this go to prove the old adage of, "You can't idiot proof things because the world will simply invent a better idiot." An idiotic policy enforced by even bigger idiots. Anyhow, like Dadvocate I too carried a pocket knife when in school. All the teachers not only knew which of us had them, but which kids kept them sharp enough to cut something. I remember several times when a teacher asked to borrow a students knife for some task. Of course during deer season it was not unusual to find students in high school driving to school with their hunting rifles in their vehicles so they could do a little hunting as soon as school was out.
Several years ago a student brought a knife to school to cut something in his lunch and I spotted it in my classroom before he headed out the door to the cafeteria. I calmly told him that he would get in severe trouble if an administrator saw him with that, or if a student reported it, and I ook it from him after I allowed him to cut what he needed to cut. I wrapped it in a wad of paper towels, put it in my desk drawer, called his mom to explain why he couldn't bring a knife to school ever again if she wanted him to stay in school, and had him pick it up after school to take home with him. I like to think that I used common sense in dealing with that situation.
i like how anonymous handled the situation. teachers who use that such approach help kids stay in school because the student isn't expelled or suspended with the administration screwed the student over for a careless mistake that didn't hurt anyone.
but i guess the administration didnt want the young child to 'shank' her food, they would rather have her rip her apple appart with her bare hands (if it was an apple).
it's strange though, that high schools say no weapons on campus, yet they still let military personel on campus. They are classified as "walking weapons" by the time they're out of training. Don't believe me? look it up
(not really related, but i thought i would point it out)
You've got to think there's something fundamentally wrong with a system in which the application of common sense is an act of great daring and a sense of responsibility can get you penalized.
Common sense vacated the system when parents started using lawyers as advocates before even talking to the teacher. The adversarial attitudes of parents, teachers and administrators has done no one any good. And so, to avoid lawsuits, the legal teams come up with stupid guidelines which are meant to be applied blindly. I recall a couple of years ago, a kid near Houston used his rescue inhaler to help his girlfriend, who was in an attack at a school event but didn't have her rescue inhaler. He may have saved her life, but they suspended him anyway. I recall last year when a kid near Waco was expelled because he had a breadknife in the bed of his pickup truck. It turned out that it was left over from taking donations to the local Goodwill. I could go on, but I think you get the drift. Our legal system is hampering our progress in so many ways. And until political actions groups stop using it as a way to bully their political actions, this type of thing will continue.
EllenK, your observation is, as usual, spot on.
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