A 13 year old boy attending Payne Junior High School in Arizona doodled some sort of gun on a homework paper he turned in. The school district, with a "zero tolerance" policy suspended him for three days. Are these people insane? The joke is too obvious so I'll get it out of the way up front — Zero Tolerance? More like Zero Intelligence! Children learn lots of things in school. Some of it is scholastic — some of it is behavioral. Adult authority-figure behavior is on display here and what we see is a total lack of common sense. Gone. Gone. Gone. No common sense in adults, but now in children, a fear of breaking bizarre, arbitrary, unknown, and unknowable rules. Shouldn't the rules make sense? I assert that no kid could predict that such doodles would be considered "threatening," (because A) they aren't, and B) they haven't yet had common sense beat out of them by the "educational" system.)
How is a this doodle a threat? This is stupid beyond belief. Almost certainly I handed in some paper as a child with a gun drawn on it (as well as cars and airplanes). The teacher probably utterly ignored it as what it was — meaningless scribbling.
I saw some talking head lawyer on Fox News sticking up for the "zero tolerance" policy, stating, "If someone handed me a legal brief with a gun drawn on it, I'd feel threatened." Where to begin... Where to begin... Well, I suspect she's just a blithering idiot, but I will try to address this rationally. If a GROWN UP drew a gun on a LEGAL document it MIGHT mean something significant, whereas if a CHILD scribbled a gun on HIS OWN HOMEWORK it might mean HE'S A CHILD!
I'm going insane because this is all so blatantly, flagrantly, painfully OBVIOUS and it is maddening to explain the blatantly, flagrantly, painfully OBVIOUS to what are supposed to be rational, mature, intelligent, responsible adults! (False assumption in there somewhere. Can you spot it?) But they've got their "zero tolerance" policies — which I suspect are just a way to avoid the chore of actually thinking and responsibility. More importantly, it's a means of avoiding the "J-word" — judgmental.
There's more to this madness than zero tolerance of weapons. My daughter is still in high school. They do not have a medical care for students because they are evidently afraid of lawsuits. They have some guy in the "clinic" — a room with a cot. I don't think he's a nurse even. There is, of course, a "zero tolerance" policy on all drugs (all medications). The "clinic" guy cannot give out any medicines such as Advil, Tylenol, etc. He does not even have ice on hand for first aid for sprains, etc. Apparently he's only there to call parents and watch kids lying down on the cot until they are picked up. Why aren't my children being medically cared for in school? I am baffled by the school district's irresponsibility. I have placed my child in their care but they are not caring for her.
Crap! it just hit me! School just started again. I need to register her medications so she can take her asthma inhaler to school without being expelled. Yes, if we have not registered it, she can be expelled from school for possessing her potentially life-saving medication. It's a topsy-turvy world.
I try to make reasoned arguments on this blog, but it feels like all I can do here is scream at the incredible lack of common sense displayed by school administrators and their moral cowardice in the face of imagined potential lawsuits. Won't someone "Think of the children!"?
Saturday, August 25, 2007
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Joe Woe’s excellent rant (“Dangerous Doodles”) concerning “Zero Intelligence (Tolerance)” policies in the public schools has its heart in the right place, but the arrow of blame is slightly off the mark.
I was familiar with this most recent episode at Payne Junior High in Arizona via James Taranto’s “Zero Tolerance Watch” in the Wall Street Journal Online blog. Unfortunately, these incidents of vanishing common sense occur with such regularity as to warrant an ongoing feature in his column. The Payne Junior High sketch of a “laser pistol of some sort” is only the latest, but certainly not the most egregious.
As Taranto quipped “Someone must have told the school officials that ‘drawing a gun’ is dangerous." School Boards have correctly identified a “danger”, but their remaining common sense assures them it’s not a danger to the students in their charge, but rather a danger to their budgets, their legal bills and the thing that they value highest: their careers.
This is the appalling legacy of Columbine – an educational system so frightened of litigation that it negatively affects every aspect of its core mission of teaching students.
With every new (and it must be pointed out – rare) horrendous incident of violence at a school, I have no doubt of the sincere heartbreak and agony felt by administrators and teachers for the victims, as they wring their hands and beseech “what could we have done to prevent this?” – followed immediately by a paralyzing fear of crucifixion in the courts of law and public opinion.
I have some first–hand experience in the administration and governance of schools – albeit, private schools. I can assure you that the burden of legal protection from real or perceived faults of the teachers and administrators weighs heavily on most decisions that must be taken. At our modest private elementary school, located in the sleepy burg of Topeka Kansas, we had parents who wanted eight–foot tall chain link fences and armed guards at the door and other parents who wanted no security whatsoever (That wasn’t the kind of school they wanted THEIR children to attend). The governing board had to attempt to square this intractable circle. Our little school had only a couple of administrators and less than twenty teachers – but we had a dedicated legal counsel.
No, the fault here is not lily–livered dolts running our schools, but rather the litigious “gotta blame and sue somebody” mentality that has taken hold of our modern culture. I accuse the ambulance–chasing trial lawyers (like John Edwards) with their TV ads encouraging every jamoke with a pain or a grievance to sue their perceived enemies into oblivion. I accuse popular movies like “Erin Brockovich” which glamorize these tort–bar–bastards as selfless heroes. And I particularly accuse the otherwise upstanding Americans who decide to assuage their pain and loss by suing the pants off somebody.
In the mean time every school board is advised by their legal counsel to institute “zero tolerance” and other nonsensical schemes, not to protect the children, but to protect their own wary behinds.
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