First Grader Suspended for pointing finger and saying POW

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let punish kids for having fun and using their imagination......and we wonder why our kids are turning out so screwed up.......

these "zero tolerance" policies are ridiculous....god forbid a teacher actually have to use common sense and judgement.

hell, i remember when i was a kid i used to bring hunting and shooting magazines to school to read during down time....never once caused any panic or concern.
 
M-Cameron said:
let punish kids for having fun and using their imagination......and we wonder why our kids are turning out so screwed up.......

these "zero tolerance" policies are ridiculous....god forbid a teacher actually have to use common sense and judgement.

hell, i remember when i was a kid i used to bring hunting and shooting magazines to school to read during down time....never once caused any panic or concern.
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I remember learning at the age of six that a bedsheet "cape" will not give you super powers when you leap from the roof of the garage. An active imagination can teach you a lot.
 
Y'all obviously should have used shower curtains instead of bedsheets. Gosh.
 
I convinced my nephew that he could fly with his superman cape if he jumped off a sliding board. Face planted and broke his nose, valuable lesson learned there, never trust what your uncle says is true. Then I had to face my mother, another lesson learned.
 
Wonderful!! Now, for all you lawyer hating friends of mine here (and I know there are at least a few, judging from how society just hates lawyers), let THIS LAWYER tell you how I would absolutely love to represent the family of this young boy. I would make a very fine example of the school district who perpetrated this harmful absurdity.

I drool over cases like this..........:evil:
 
I saw the beginnings of this kind of insanity over 40 years ago, in Jr high school. I got called to the vice-principal's office because I threw my lunch away (Nobody wanted it, I tried to give it away) and went to the restaurant near the school. When she told me why I had been called down there, the first thing that went through my mind was "She's got to be kidding!". But no, she was deadly serious, convinced that it was a VERY big deal. First she tried to make it some insult to my mother, "who fixed that lunch for you!", but I had fixed it myself. Now she went on a different track, asking me what my mother would say if she called her and told her I had thrown my lunch away. I told her, "I don't think she would care what I did for lunch". Oops, wrong answer, she then threatened to call her, and at that point, I was tired of her grilling me, and I said, "Go ahead!", guessing mom would share my opinion that the VP needed to get a life. So my mom answers and the VP tells her why she was calling, and my mom says, "Don't you have something better to do than to worry about where my kid eats?". I was trying to keep from laughing. The VP started stammering and was trying to get off the phone, but mom kept asking her if she was so bored she needed to worry about such nonsense, after all, I was 13, and not a little kid, etc. Finally, mom let her go, and she let me go back to class. The teacher asked me what was up, and I told her and everyone in the class, it got laughs from the kids, and eyes rolling from the teacher, who muttered, "Where the hell did they find her at?" Later that year, I would have another run in with her and the principal, when I committed the dastardly crime of creatively editing a weekly reader. Mom had the same reaction to the principal's call as she did when the VP called, "Don't you have something better to worry about?". Nope, they don't, 40 plus years later, the insanity continues, and it's even worse now.
 
Complete insanity. M-Cameron got it and I have nothing nice to add so I'll keep my fingers still (typing version of mouth shut).
 
What used to be a "teachable" moment has turned into utter insanity. Not that I agree with this in any way - I played a lot of cowboys & indians in my day - but if the behavior is deemed wrong, isn't it easier to just tell the child not to do it and perhaps why? How does this help or teach the child anything? Not one positive thing came out of the situation.

This zero tolerance and draconian punishment belongs in a prison, not in our schools. Teachers and staff should be mentors, not wardens.
 
I wonder what they would have done if he had said that he only brought his "gun" to school for the buy back program. Extra credit? Humanitarian award?

This is the absurdity that has to stop. They are evolving common sense out of us.
 
I don't think we're all lawyer haters, ArchAngel. Anyone who has ever had the need knows better.

I would also like to see this case represented and someone lose their job over this. There's an 11 year old girl I know doing in school suspension for telling her friends at school she had a gun in her back pack (not one of mine).
 
I'm so glad that my kids go to a public school that still has some common sense. They even allowed the kids to say the most evil of words, Christmas. My son has on several occasions drawn machine guns, or my favorite, a Mustang shooting down a Zero. The teachers saw it and said "that's a nice drawing"
 
Let's forget the age for a minute, because at 6 years old this is just stupid. He is 6 years old...

But...

What about pointing at someone and then doing the "Throat cutting motion...."?

Just as harmless, but not knowing the circumstances it is a little different. Imagine the "pointer" had been bullying another kid and then decides to do the old "pow" at the same kid. Is it cowboys and indians at that point or a threatining gesture?

As a parent, an seeing the results of bullying first hand I would want to look into this a little more. Does this kid have a history of getting in trouble in school? I did not see any of that in the article so I cannot pass judgment one way or the other.

Except to again say, he is only 6 and I think at that age kids are pretty harmless but if he were 12 it would be a different story.
 
What do you expect? MD is the ultimate liberal nanny state.

Hey, this gives me an idea. We often have traffic problems in town from all the Marylanders coming over the border to go to the casino/race track. Maybe if they were told the WV state flag actually has a firearm on it (gasp!), they'd be too scared to come any more.
 
Kids play... Kids learn, and kids grow, that ain't all bad.

We had bullies in school in the 60s and learned to stand up and handle them. I'm not saying there is not a time and place to step in, but things have gotten ridiculous.

No child left behind
No winners and losers
Everyone gets a trophy or award for participation
Gotta be tolerant of everyone and everything, except what you believe
Raise your hand and tell


Any wonder young people have a hard time coping when they don't get selected for a job. In the real world there are winners and losers and 2nd place is not were you find the movers and shakers in the work force.

Feelings get hurt - learn to get back up and deal with it.

Tolerance has limits, it really is true, if you don't stand for something, then, you don't stand for anything.

There are bad people in this world and there will be times when you have to deal with the situation. There won't be anyone to run and tell!!!
 
Zero tolerance is just an excuse not to think and make rational judgments. We should all oppose zero tolerance wherever it raises its ignorant head. Incidents like this one, or where a first grader was suspended for drawing a picture of a gun, are more common that you would think. It gives the school the excuse that there was no choice in the decision to discipline because of the zero tolerance policy. School officials are so afraid of being criticized for a poor judgment call that they want to eliminate the need for judgment. And so we end up with incidents like this or where "zero tolerance for drugs" has a kid suspended or expelled for having their asthma inhaler in their backpack. Cowardly and petty people are always looking for easy ways to avoid having to make a decision which might be criticized. The only "zero tolerance" policy I like is to have such a policy for "zero tolerance" itself.
 
I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance policies and the people that enforce them.

Im retired but when I worked I loved to interview these do good types and then tell them face to face they lacked the qualities I was looking for, took great pleasure in the "what do you mean look"
The tip off is people that use yuppie speak "we need to..... or the issue is.....
We dont need need to do anything -you do, and there never is a single issue, usually it is a set of interlocking problems. And any one that said a problem is an opportunity got shown the door early.
 
Hi, everybody. Long time lurker, first post. Isn't it about time that some organization started challenging these inflexible rules by organizing some planned disobedience? Have a "Go pow day"or something where everybody deliberately breaks a silly school taboo to force the administrators to face up to their own stupidity? Would they really suspend whole classes over a finger point? If they did, the organization would be ready to step in and publicize it to the hilt. If they won't see the light maybe they'd feel the heat.:evil:
 
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