When Daughter #1 was in the 5th grade, she had a friend who was very into anime, and both girls watched a lot of anime on Cartoon Network at the time. YuYu Hakusho was one; Rurouni Kenshin was another. I wasn't paying as close attention as I should have; Kenshin turned out not to be a samuri, but a Japanese assasin "with a sunny disposition"; YuYu was some kind of competition fighter, or something. ANyway, one morning, before #1 was going off to school, she had a funky-looking little baggie in her hand, and my mom asked what it was. She said "medicine" and mom was all "what kind of medicine?" She took the little baggie, and there, inside were 3 little corners of baggies with what looked like cocaine in them! Turned out it was powder that she had wetted with water, and then let dry; she had packaged them in exact replica of the "medicine" (opium!) that she had seen in the anime! Apparently she and her little friend were going to play Rurouni Kenshin during recess. Mom took them from her and told her she shouldn't bring stuff like this to school, and when #1 asked "why?" she told her that I would explain when I got home from work. Thanks, Mom! When I got home, I took her and her little medicine bags into the kitchen, let her dump them out, and then told her that while I truly admired her "creativity", the resemblance of her medicine to little bags of street cocaine was so close as to be identical, and had she been caught with those at school, very likely I would have been arrested, and DCF would have been called, and she and her sister would have been taken away from me. I then told her that she could not watch anime anymore until she was 15 years old. There was little protest on her part; she was very repentant, and scared at the thought of DCF taking her and her sister away from me.
There but for my mom's chance sighting of that little baggie, her smarts and the grace of whatever god/dess is watching over us, I would have gone where this boy's parents did. Dodged a (BIG) bullet that time.

...I would have gone where this boy's parents did.

Oooops! This should've been in the other thread; however, there is a real possibility the #1 could've gotten expelled, too.

I still ask myself where that whole "No Tolerance" thing will end-up. Do the kids will be hampered in the development of their ethical sense? If the only answer for all questions is obedience in all time, how can you question autority?

The problem is, Toubrouk, that the people that used to tell us to "Question Authority" are now the ones are ARE the Authority, and they will brook NO questions. It's "Do as I say, not as I do." and if anyone questions that, it's ZERO tolerance. That's another reason why all this "political correctness" is a buncha bullshit; it's not political and it's not correct. It's absolving people of taking personal responsibility and taking away their right to question authority. Am I the only one who sees this?!?

Times do change, don't they?

In 1958, in Rogers, Arkansas, I rode a float in the high school homecoming parade dressed as a hillbilly and holding a 12 gauge double-barreled shotgun. The teacher who sponsored our club picked me because I had the most old-fashioned shotgun--one with a worn stock, faded bluing, and external hammers. But it wasn't a wallhanger; it was the gun I regularly hunted with. The teacher just told me not to bring any shells, and to carry the gun disassembled till I got onto the float, and to take it apart again after the parade.

Taking a gun or a knife to school is one thing. Buying personal SOUVIONIRS on a feild trip which were never taken out of the box they were bought in and to be sent to the students homes is something else.

Those kids should get their proprty back, get the money the spent to go on the trip refunded, and the teacher who stole their stuff should be charged.

Flynne says, "The problem is, Toubrouk, that the people that used to tell us to 'Question Authority' are now the ones are ARE the Authority, and they will brook NO questions. It's 'Do as I say, not as I do.'"

Flynne, I admire your insight. The irony you speak of showed up even in the old "Question Authority" days. In the late '60s I made a mildly iconocastic remark to a group of dinner guests. One of them, an activist in campus uprisings going on at the time, said, "After the revolution, I'll let you say that, if you say it in just that way."

I blew up at him. I told him, "By God, if you have the authority to tell me how to say things after the revolution, the whole operation is a complete failure. Nobody can tell me how to say things now! You think your God damn revolution will improve on that?"

So I think you're right, Flynne. They didn't have to do a revolution, because they managed an infiltration.

P.S. I always enjoy your wit, too. Just thought I'd let you know, since I was already addressing you.

Flynne -- Thanks for the "Aha" moment.

Those who told us to question authority now are the authority, and they will brook no questions.

Exactly!

Flynne, you have nailed it so right!

It is amazing what a little power can do to a human mind... :D

Spanks you guys, I'm just callin' it as I see it.

The McKinney, TX school district hired an East Coast transplant teacher.

One of her students, a 12 year old boy, wrote on his essay assignment that he wanted a ".50 caliber smooth bore rifle", aka muzzleloader - the same rifle out of the Last of the Mohicans - so he "could shoot his first deer".

The teacher freaked. The rest is predictable.

But, the school principle had a talk with the teacher.

Of course the Mom and Dad were livid and now this teacher's name is mud.

Actually, the teacher, the child and his parents all should have been deported from Texas for not knowing the difference between a smooth bore and a rifle.

Extreme stupidity demands extreme wrath.

The late great actor Charlton Heston said it best in his speech "Winning the Cultural War".

"When a five year old is charged with sexual harassment and suspended from school for kissing a little girl, blockade the schoolhouse steps"

Stupid rules remain in place because there are to many LAZY smart people.

Here is how to stop these ludicrous applications of zero tolerance.

If your school suspends a student for having an inhaler, or will not allow them to have it on them, register your wrath with other parents, organize, block the schoolhouse steps, notify the media, wage peaceful war on idiocy, hit them in the pocketbook if you must, and withdraw your child from school, convince other parents to do the same.

Simply groaning about the idiocy of the system, allows the system to continue because it has no reprecussions...except for the poor unfortunates who live beneath it's aegis.

It is not enough to ASK for a good system, a good education, it is not even enough to DEMAND it. We as parents & as citizens who pay taxes to support that system must vigilantly root out officials who either cannot, or will not, put forth their best efforts to provide a quality education & a safe environment for our next generation. Schools which employ officials who refuse to use their heads, are NOT fit to TEACH.

We get the government, and the education, that we deserve, when we do nothing in the face of corruption or incompetence...or when we overcome both those things.

After reading this and the other post I've concluded that we're fucking up this generation more than the previous (mine...you know, the ones you think are all financially retahded. Different topic.)

By making everything off limits and punishable we're doing something scary:

Creating reactionaries.

People who can't approach a subject while examining the entire topic. It's either black or white, it's either 'allowed' or 'forbidden'. We are teaching kids how to NOT approach a situation an utilize common sense and rationality. It shows kids that you have to react with full force to everything, no matter what. Great, when John Boy Smith is 16 and someone cuts him off in traffic John Boy Smith should tail gate the offender, flash his highs and throw shit at the car until the guy (who was just having a REALLY bad day) poops his pants.

There IS a difference b/w someone buying a sword for dad and someone who is deranged and bringing it to school. And we can ALL TELL THE DIFFERENCE. If there were NOT a difference no one would care and we'd all support these over-reactions. But, here we are talking about how insane it is, so guess what? It's high time the schools/cops at baseball games get a fucking grip on reality.

A big part of the problem here, meseems, is that ever since the wave of school shootings that more-or-less climaxed with Columbine, a lot of "educators" go absolutely bananashit at the mere mention of the word "weapon."

When I was in school, we did riflery in gym class, my senior year. I loved it because, after all those years of humiliation, I could finally shine...I was already an NRA-trained marksman. If we'd had things like that in gym more often, I'd probably not have such a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing. (It was perfectly safe; we used .22 rifles---many of us brought our own from home---and the whole thing took place at the local National Guard armoury's range.) These days, between insane liability precedents and the ghost of Columbine, I don't think they do it any more. Pity.

And as far as buying something like this on a trip overseas, that's probably not even going near the school ever---words fail me. If it had been me, my parents would have torn the school a new arsehole.

First of all, Robert H. thats the way things need to happen. Should one of those kids that bring a gun be under IDEA (Special Education) the most they will receive is "45 days removed to an alternative setting", while the non-IDEA kid is gone for a calendar year. As an administrator, Vice Principal, I would like to see the parents of our basic, everyday kids get riled up and start calling those that make the policy and law I HAVE to follow.

Now to address the main post.

My Stepson is going on a People to People trip http://www.studentambassadors.org/ this summer. They are told directly, that they may not purchase any weapons, including knives and swords. I could not find out if these kids were told this or not. If they were, then I can understand the punishment, but not the expulsion. Here I have a good law (sometimes) that allows me to treat a weapon as a non-statutory event. When a kid goes hunting or skating and leaves his multi-tool in the backpack, I do not have to suspend or expel, I can impose a stupid tax and be done.

"Zero Tolerance" = "Zero Thought" = Expelled for bringing a butter knife to school.
It's easier to over-react to all situations than have to judge each one-by-one. Any school I've seen where there seems to be any semblance of order and successful structure was run by administrators who DO examine each case, get personally involved, and deal with every incident individually. The bad ones just over simplify and over-react to everything in the name of "consistency." Feh.

Now I'm feeling old and cranky. When I was in High School, I was permitted to bring two swords I had made myself into the school - carried them around with me all day - in order to give a presentation on them to the Latin classes...all 4 years of high school.

Actually, the teacher, the child and his parents all should have been deported from Texas for not knowing the difference between a smooth bore and a rifle.

Hah! Well said.

...the people that used to tell us to "Question Authority" are now the ones are ARE the Authority, and they will brook NO questions.

True.

The thing is, the people that used to worship at the altar of "Question Authority" always mis-interpreted that phrase to mean "Automatically Disagree with Authority" - so they see any questions as illegitimate revolts against their petty tyranny instead of legitimate questioning of government officials by a free people.

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If your school suspends a student for having an inhaler, or will not allow them to have it on them....

If your child’s school suspends a student for having an inhaler or will not allow him to have his inhaler on him, ask the school administrator if they’ll go halfsies on a coffin when your child dies of an asthma attack during the school nurse’s lunch hour.

Restricting someone's access to lifesaving medication goes way beyond the authority of any school official. That's a medical decision. Of course, any official who equates asthma inhalers and Midol with heroin and cocaine should not have been placed in a position of authority in the first place.

Hey, you guys are forgetting something: we asked for the current school system.

We told the principal he couldn't paddle little Johnny, or make any other decision about his conduct.

We built schools, then populate them with transients, so the school system has no choice now but to issue IDs to otherwise anonymous people.

We told the principal she couldn't discriminate between the thug and valedictorian.

We told the principal he had to keep thugs and severely handicapped students in the classroom with the ordinary kids.

We allow a union, concerned with headcount, to override concerns about obviously incompetent "teachers", and pay no attention when dollars earmarked for "the children" actually go to administrative personnel, office spaces, faddish programs - everywhere but the classroom.

We tell our kids, directly and by example, that self-esteem and sexual identity are more important than learning, and that they can be granted, rather than earned.

We mistake memorization drills for teaching.

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This all sounds holier-than-thou, but there really isn't much room for debate here, because it's obvious that parental involvement - not the screeching control freak second-guessing the school's every decision, but the enabler - produces a better school and a better student.

Don't worry, the Brits have outlawed samurai swords. Our children are safe.

/sarc