Pocket Knives in School?

School is for learning: not for lessons in self-defence

How can anyone learn about physics and mathematics with a blade being wielded about in the hallways? Don't we already have enough dunce children attending schools? The ones who want to lead our nation, should not be inhibited by crudeness off the streets who only inhabit schoolrooms because they're force to attend. So many children are in schools because of age, not because they desire to learn anything. Reading is paramount to learning, yet schools follow an agenda toward our future shagrin. Until a child enjoys reading, what else remains toward education? Teach a child to read, or lose him or her forever. Many communities offer reading through programs, but finding suitable teachers and/or willing subjects remains hit-and-miss. I am a willing teacher, yet promising students seem rare beyond college level. I'm always looking for brilliant minds to teach. I've found a few winners, but also many losers. cliffy

I'm with you about the state of our schools CLIFFY, but what does any of that have to do with having a pocket knife? It is a parents responsibility to teach children how to handle keeping it in their pocket where it belongs. It is the schools that have removed the parent from the process. Now instead of doing the job the parents once had, they just ban the pocket tool/knife. Nothing about carrying a knife involves self defense other than the sense of security one may possess by knowing it is there. And nothing about having a knife in your pocket or not will change ones desire to learn.

i grew up and went to school in a small rural town in Oregon, and at my school there were rules in place in term os students carrying knives, but most teachers chose to overlook a student with a knife if he or she was responsible and not flashing it arround or threatening people with it.

i guess it does depend alot on the demographic the school caters to. if you are in an inner city school with violence or gang problems no, students should not be allowed to carry. but if the students are responsible and understand that these tools can be dangerous and handle them accordingly then why the hell not allow them? i have had teachers ask me to borrow my knifes to open boxes cut rope or what have you.

btw i carried a CRKT M-16 zytel with a partially serrated tanto blade. it was a modest easy to conceal, keep out of the way and not make people nervous knife.

farming town in rual MN. most guys had some kind of pocket knife on them . and durring bird hunting season.. alot of those guys had shotguns in the trunk of the car or behind the seat of the pickup... not once when growing up in that town was there ever a stabing or a shooting at the school.. if it did get to a fight.. it was settled with bare hands.. or a teacher breaking it up.. hell half the time no one even ended up in the office.

shawn

I carried a folder every day in high school. just a lock blade.
no one cared, and the ones that did did what they may, and then the ones that didn't sent me back to class.

yea, i went to a small school... no problems.

I teach HS in a small school.

I must enforce policy. Consider what could happen to me personally if I knew a student carried a knife and then hurt somebody. (I'd be sued, me, not the school). Though if a student tells a teacher "I have my knife can you lock it up for me until after school." that has been done in the school.
I carry in my bag a multitool for repairing lab equipment, and in projects they use hobby knifes. I count them at the end of the class.

Sounds a lot like jail. Counting the razors and pencils.....Like in my earlier post, what if a student has a knife and stabs someone with a pencil?

Carried pocket knife from 6th grade all the way through high school. (graduated 1980) As others here have stated also carried usually a 22-250 in vehicle for the ocassional coyote going to and from school (24 miles one way) Didnt even have to lock the vehicle during school with rifle in plain sight. Those days are definately gone! So sad.

I teach HS in a small school.

Click to expand...

Take Caesar's coin, follow his rules. That's the way it is...

Doesn't keep us old farts from hating the rules and those who make them.

I don't remember when I started to carry a knife. But had one always until I graduated in "79". Did farm work and was a mechanic. Just another tool to use.

i graduated in 2005. in my school handbook it allowed us to carry knives with a blade up to 4 inches.man how my school has changed in just the last few years. most of us had guns in the truck, as it was a tiny school, and the only time anybody actually got caught with their gun they were just told to take it home. iv had a knife on me every day since i was a little kid and i feel naked without 1.but like all of you, my knife is a piece of commonly used equipment, and is needed.

I graduated high school in 1951, also from a small school. One of my proudest possessions was a pair of lace up high top boots, with a small knife pocket sewed outside the shaft. As I remember, a small Imperial, more than likely 2 to 2 1/2 inch single blade folder enclosed , and I did wear those boots until I outgrew them. No one thought anything of knives at school, and I don't remember many times I did not have some sort of pocket knife on me, until I joined the Army, and lost my knife at the introduction center. I did not have a vehicle during school years, but others that did usually had some sort of sporting firearm, and no problems.
Only incident I remember was one of the older kids who had been passed over for grade promotion several years in my 5 th grade was caught with a small semi auto pistol, loaded in class. He did lose the pistol, but was back in class after three days suspension.

I graduated in 2001, and carried a knife every day from second grade (when I got my whittlin' chip in Cub Scouts) on. Until high school, I carried the same boy scout folder (it now lives in a shadowbox at my parent's house with the rest of my scout regalia and keepsakes), and when I was in 9th grade, it was replaced with a little boker folder with a damascus blade that was a gift from my grandfather. That knife has lived in my dresser for the last 6 or 7 years, since I replaced it with an axis lock benchmade.

Small private school in a medium sized town. Most of us had knives of some sort or another. It's just a tool.

Actually, one of my best friends in high school came to our school after he was expelled from his public high school after he borrowed his dad's pickup, forgetting that there was a shotgun in the gun rack in the back.

Stupid zero tolerance. It was quite the coup for us though, as he ended up being a 2x state champion medium distance runner.

I don't recall schools having rules against carrying pocketknives. What kept me from regular carry was that I was always losing them on the playground.

Now hear this

last year i was suspended from school for 10 days, kicked off my Student Body treasurer position, and all for having a small scout knife at a Cross Country race in the middle of nowhere on a saturday morning.

Ruined everything i worked for during highschool basically, i never even had a detention before..........

I carried a knife throughout high school. A buck 110 actually.

And I carry my Kershaw Blur to college classes every day.

It's a piece of metal. Whoopididy freakin' do. Let's leave the emotional stuff behind.

actually it wasn't, the race was in the middle of nowhere as it is a cross country event and i had the knife in my bag which i used to dig mud chunks out of the shoes and on that day......helped a friend out by cutting up a pineapple.

Apprantly someone decided it would be a good idea to report this to the school the following week (the race was on a saturday)

Still ticks me off whenever i think about it, i worked 4 years to be the model student and all the sudden they suspend me for having a knife on a SATURDAY morning? sigh........

actually it wasn't, the race was in the middle of nowhere as it is a cross country event and i had the knife in my bad which i used to dig muds out of the shoes and on that day......helped a friend by cutting up a pineapple.

Apprantly someone decided it would be a good idea to report this to the school the following week (the race was on a saturday)

Still ticks me off whenever i think about it, i worked 4 years to be the model student and all the sudden they suspend me for having a knife on a SATURDAY morning? sigh........

Click to expand...

from my experience, if it is a school related function then the school rules still apply:banghead: that is one of the great things about smaller schools, nobody cares, but i am sorry to hear of the level of stupidity in your community and that that has happened to you

ive gota a story about knives in school. let me give a tiny bit of background before i tell it though.

i am an Eagle Scout. i have a jeep. i love rock climbing, camping, fishing hunting and all that stuff. throughout school entirely (k-12) i had NEVER gotten (never gotten busted) into any trouble with the school or any school i had attended untill this day.

first 1/4 of my senior year (graduated a semester early in 2007) i have 2 periods off in my schedual. during those 2 periods i leave MY highschool to go play drums for another schools jazz band (i played drums all through middle and highschool, did 4 years of drumline etc). i had been filling in for this jazz band for a while and never had any problems.

one day im in rehersal and in through the band room doors come a cop, and 2 campus supervisors. they ask for me (how they knew i was there is beyond me, i had an arrangement with the band instructor only, no one else knew about me playing there.) i step into the hall with them to see whats going on and they ask me to show them my jeep. i say no problem and i take them to my jeep. they ask my permission to search the vehicle and i ask "is this about my knife?" (on the walk to my jeep i realized i had left a pocket knife in my cup holder) and they say "yes, we were checking parking permits and saw your knife, a pair of handcuffs and a do-rag" (the supposed do-rag was actually just a bandana) i kinda laugh a bit and open the jeep up for them.

they search my jeep and find 5 or 6 more knives. these knives were in things like the first-aid kit they found, the tackle box i had in there, my emergency road side kit and one in the glove box.

along with the emergency kit, tackle box, and forst-aid kit, they also find a sleeping bag.

*so far we have: Eagle Scout, Kinves, 1st aid, tackle, Emerg kit, sleeping bag*

another patrol cop, a police SGT and three more campus supervisors later, im sitting in the principals office waiting for my mom to get down to this school that im not attending. upon learning that i was an eagle scout, the cops congratulated me, told me what an accomplishment it was and wanted to just turn the knives over to my mom and let me go. BUTTT the school district and there "Zero Tolerance" policy wouldnt have that.

15 days of suspension and an expulsion hearing later, the school board lets me go back to school. i was barely able to pull my grades up from missing three weeks of school and barely passed that 1/4.

my friends and i all carried pocket knives. its just part of how our fathers raised us. tradition more than anything.

so... there's my story. lol

last year i was suspended from school for 10 days, kicked off my Student Body treasurer position, and all for having a small scout knife at a Cross Country race in the middle of nowhere on a saturday morning.

Ruined everything i worked for during highschool basically, i never even had a detention before..........

Click to expand...

Wow, that's horrible. I'm sorry that happened to you.

they ask my permission to search the vehicle

Click to expand...

i kinda laugh a bit and open the jeep up for them.

they search my jeep and find 5 or 6 more knives. these knives were in things like the first-aid kit they found, the tackle box i had in there, my emergency road side kit and one in the glove box.

Click to expand...

I'm no legal scholar, but consenting to a search generally will not help you in any way; it will typically only make things worse for you. Any legal experts out there please correct me if I am mistaken.

Smith, you make the faulty assumption that high school students have the same rights as normal human beings.

In my school, if you told them "no, I do not consent to a search," You are still majorly screwed. The school pretty much did all in its power, even threatening to withold diplomas, if you did not comply.

zero tolerence = zero intelligent thought

I was in grade school in the 70's. Many boys carried pocket knives and we showed them off on the playground. No one ever got stabbed either. As I recall I brought a 12ga to school for Pioneer Days once too.