Sanity on the part of the same suburban Maryland school administrators who suspended a 6-year-old for what they labeled a threat “to shoot a friend” — which most of the rest of the world saw as a 6-year-old playing? Yes indeed, and hallelujah! (Hardest word to spell!)
Here are the details. Very sorry the family had to retain a lawyer to get the school to reconsider. Nonetheless, rejoice in a victory for rationality, decency, and all children with fingers! – L.
When fingers are outlawed, only outlaws will have fingers.
(That means they may become the only bloggers!)
9 Comments
My daughter at the age of 8, got a verbal beat down for pretending a pretzel was a cigarette. They threaten suspension. The lunch time staff really police everything the poor kids do.
This brings back a memory from early 2004, when I was in 6th grade. There was this teacher that would always sit in on every lunch to keep an eye on the kids and make sure we weren’t doing anything bad. One big rule of hers: no sharing food. Why? GERMS! (oh no, germs!) I would always share gummy bears with my friends during lunch, which would always get the teacher on my case as well as my friends. Kinda goes along w/what Tracy said – the lunch time staff at schools really do police everything the kids do.
It got to the point where one day, they had bowls of hot sauce (either that or ketchup) out on all the tables. My friends and I took a bag of gummy bears and put about 4 or 5 in each bowl and covered them with the stuff. The teacher never complained again 😉
One small victory for common sense. And Lenore you are so right, that it is a shame an attorney was needed.
I hope the attorney engaged by the family also saw the insanity and took the case pro bono.
So, did the lawyer write the Wiki page himself? At first I thought so with the heckling, now I am not so sure!
I hope after this hit the papers that the school officials involved had a crappy vacation. They certainly didn’t help this kid’s family have a good one.
And yes, like this family, I kept the radio off when that all happened. Only my oldest knew about it at first because we had been away all day and she pretty much heard the same time I did. Why, in any case, would these adults suspect that this kid was doing this because of that shooting? (Rhetorical question.)
Just found your blog, I have two small boys living in South Africa and our children need to grow up confident and self-reliant for sure. So I have much reading to do (and little time, like most of us). I’ll be back!
The action of the school administration is in reality a power-grab; she arrogated the power to redefine the safety of the situation, which helps her assert her technical “professionalism” and helps justify her larger salary and places her further into the realm of elite decisionmakers. . . she can “see” the risk better than you or I can.
We Basic Plebes must have our thinking done for us, by Those Who Know Better.
This sounds cryptic or conpiracy theory; but what really is happening is a redefinition of professionalism.
My favorite comment on this story was that we should react by arming our teachers with finger guns.
Couldn’t agree more, Captain. (egos disappear smartly into navels gazed upon – or some other parts of anatomy, it seems.)
Meanwhile, that sharp trigger finger attached to stupidity is ever quicker to fire…a hairline, it seems.
We must keep our “professionals” employed somehow.
But a child’s hand has the power to provoke what a national rifle association can not and must not do?
Wow.
I recall a school in my distant past that so easily could have been reduced to girls only within a fortnight. (but then, not even all the girls would have survived such nonsense.)
One wonders though. Was it really the “gun” hand, so much as the civil disobedience? How dare he………..