Exactly, this doesn’t warrant a suspension, but it did need to be dealt with in some way, i.e. the teacher confiscating it for the day and telling the parents it was inappropriate to let him bring it to school.
It depends on the craft scissors. The difference is A) one is unaccounted for which leads to B) the scissor would be used under adult guidance and supervision. So yeah, there are some craft scissors that I feel would be inappropriate for the class room and some that are more appropriate. Both should be given proper safety considerations in activities as well.
What part of that do you not understand?
What if the kid brought in a 6-inch long flathead screwdriver? I can gurantee you I’d rather have that in a fight then the spork. But hey, screwdriver isn’t a knife, right?
And again, it’s not a fucking spork. Bringing in an unaccounted screwdriver should also be seriously dealt with.
The whole point is you see the word “knife” and all of the sudden they’re all equal. No, they’re not. There has to be at a least a degree of reason and decision-making involved.
No that’s not my point and the fact that you’re blindly keep attacking me says you’re the one lacking in “reason” and “decision-making” ability. I’m not defending the decision to suspend the kid for the transgression, I’m saying it is a serious danger compared to other tools available to the kids with adult supervision and considered safety practices.
This is a perfectly fine solution. My problem with Mordrak’s need for severe treatment is that he ASSUMES that punishment is needed instead of education.
This is a failing of the ADULTS who created these policies or failed to explain them to the point where they can get a reasonable number of other ADULTS to agree what falls in or out of the policy. Yet, it’s the child that gets punished.
This kid, and other kids, need to educated that this kind of thing shouldn’t be done, he doesn’t need ANY form of “severe” punishment.
You know it occurs to me that one reaons these laws exist (and note, I think this is a bad reason, not a good one) is to help substitute for backbone for some school admins on disciplinary issues. When Little Johnnie goes berserk and becomes disruptive, and the principal tries to discipline him, Little Johnnie’s parents may balk at anything negative happening to their little prince. So “zero tolerance” rules let the Principal do the passive aggressive thing: “I’d love to be kind to Little Johnnie, but my hands are tied”.
Either way you spin these rules, IMO they smell strongly of poor judgement or poor management skills by school adminstrators. There’s a lot things in life that just have to based on judgement, not rules. And broad based rules with harsh consequences and no excepctions, like “zero tolerance” policies, are the worst kind.
Seriously? You’re actually willing to up the serious, judgement-free punishment to screwdrivers, too?
Mordrak and myself are saying the same thing, he is just using bigger words and longer sentences. You keep beating that strawman, though, don’t mind me.
EDIT: Also I agree that a screwdriver should be treated the same way as a knife: confiscate, tell the parents not to do it again.
On the scale of dangers that a 6 year old kid is exposed to, a camping utensil with a small, presumably dull blade rates pretty low in my book. And I have a 10 year old, an 8 year old, and a 4 year old.
FWIW, just today we had a medical emergency (of sorts) with the 4 year old. She had been playing with a hollow plastic ball with round holes all over it, stuck her finger in one, couldn’t get it out, and the panic and tugging apparently caused swelling. Her mom and I couldn’t get the finger out with oil or soap lubricating it, so I performed delicate surgery on the ball with a pair of garden snips and a kitchen scissors, and a successful result.
The point is, kids will hurt themselves with all kinds of things. Do I think, as a matter of policy, it’s reasonable to exclude things like this camping utensil from school? I guess, though frankly, it wouldn’t bother me (much) as a parent (rules aside) if my kid or another kid brought such a thing to show and tell.
My wife and I sometimes joke about her desire to wrap our kids in bubble wrap so nothing in the world will hurt them. It’s a joke, obviously. Yes, you need to provide reasonable guidance in separating kids from dangerous objects and activities. But you can’t eliminate all danger to kids, and they’re likely to hurt themselves a few times along the way, often with unexpected things and/or in unexpected ways.
I don’t read your posts with the words “severe” and “serious” in them. Nothing more than confiscation and a note or call home is needed here, for a 1st time transgression of this nature.
If that’s what Mordrak classifies as “severe” than I have no qualms with that.
o.O
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Should’ve got her Mainway’s Bag O’ Glass instead.
:)
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I don’t know why you’re putting severe in quotes. I never used that word. I said it should be taken seriously, which it should. The fact people walked away from this thinking it was a spork says that people aren’t taking it seriously.
My mistake on the severe part. Apologies for the misquote.
On taking this seriously, I certainly would take this LESS seriously than news that my son got into a fist fight. Something which I fully expect I will get news of, at some point in his future academic career.
How do kids eat there lunch? I mean, if there was anger and intent in a child, why would he not just pocket a lunchroom utensil? Hell, I could poke the shit out of someone’s eye with a finger and you know what, I had a friend that got poked and had to wear a patch after a basketball incident.
I understand weapons should not be brought and there is no way to have a comprehensive detail of approved and not approved items. Just some common sense please. There are probably 10,000 stories like this one. Cannot find it, but there was one where a kid had a tiny, plastic key chain toy gun and was treated similarly.
There is no reason we should be having to ask lawmakers to write new laws to protect kids from their own school officials.
I agree with what Talisker and Slainte have expressed. It saddens me that shit like this (along with insane sex offender laws) can turn kids into criminals for simply being kids.
What on earth do “isms” have to do whether or not kids take things that might or might not be weapons to school?
Well, you know…sporkism, knifism, screwdriverism, stuff like that.
Shenanigans. I own a pretty sharp / nice pocket knife, and if I wanted to “almost completely sever” my finger with it, I’d have to do some serious cutting. I’d buy that he cut himself pretty good, but c’mon.
You’re also an adult. Are you a midget? We also don’t know the circumstances.
Is this really how far the conversation has degenerated?
He was closing it and had his finger in between the blade and the little pocket thing it goes into, bam: finger barely attached to hand. I don’t understand the assumption that all knives are dull, sharpening knives involves sliding them along something to wear the edges of the blade, making it sharper. It’s not rocket science.
EDIT: And yeah, it was an 8-9 year old, genius. How thick were your fingers in elementary school?