Posted on 07/04/2014 4:21:58 PM PDT by doug from upland
There was a time in America when the first priority of our schools was educating our children. That's no longer the case. Today, schools are primarily job programs for the unions and indoctrination centers for the Left. The great teachers in our schools are now used as cover for the mediocrities, the overpaid administrators, and the blatant attempts to force feed liberalism to children before they become experienced enough to recognize all the problems associated with it.
Since the Left has been losing the public battle to curtail the 2nd Amendment, liberals started fighting it in a place where they feel like they can get away with anything, our schools. Towards that end, they've instituted "no tolerance" policies that harshly punish children for wielding imaginary weapons. Even though no crimes are committed, no one is in danger, and no one is being hurt, these schools are persecuting children for pretending to play with guns.
The real problem here isn't the kids; it's the teachers, principals, and school boards that are allowing this to happen and it's time we put a stop to it. When a kid is kicked out of school for playing with an imaginary weapon, they should be deluged with complaints. Conservative groups should offer to sue the school on behalf of the parents. The people responsible should lose their jobs. We won't need to do that a hundred times. Take three or four schools, makes examples out of them, and then you'll be surprised at how quickly the rest of the schools outside of the most hopelessly blue parts of the country start to become reasonable.
1) Suspended For Playing With Airsoft Guns In Their Own Yard (Virginia Beach, Va): Aidan Clark, Khalid Caraballo and a third friend were given three month suspensions for shooting spring-driven airsoft guns at each other on Caraballo's property. No one was arrested, no one was hurt, no crimes were committed, but all three children were suspended from school for AT LEAST three months. If a school can suspend kids for doing something legal on their own property that has nothing to do with the school, what's next? Suspending children for owning toy guns? Suspending them because their parents are in the NRA?
2) Students Suspended For Performing A Scientific Experiment With Permission (Edmonds, Washington): A group of students got permission from their teacher to bring NERF guns to school as part of a probability experiment, which actually sounds like more fun than anything most of us ever did in math class. Afterwards, the school responded by suspending all the children who brought toy guns to school and all the children who were present, while the teacher was unpunished. Well, at least the school is preparing the children for real life where government employees get a free pass for breaking the rules while private citizens are punished for doing nothing wrong.
3) Suspended And Arrested For Wearing An NRA "Protect Your Rights" T-shirt: Fourteen year old Jared Marcum wore a NRA "Protect Your Rights" t-shirt to school with a hunting rifle on it. Despite the fact that the shirt didn't violate the school's dress code, a screaming teacher demanded that he turn the shirt inside out. Marcum was then removed from class, suspended, arrested, and faced a year in jail for "obstructing an officer" because he wouldn't stop protesting his innocence while he was being hauled away. In this case, 100 kids wore the same shirts to school as part of a protest without being challenged and the family lawyered up and got the charges dropped. If everybody fought so hard to "protect your rights," these out-of-control government employees wouldn't be getting away with treating our kids like this.
4) Sixth Grader Suspended From School For Saying The Word "Gun" In A Sentence (Ownings, Md): The 11 year old son of Bruce Henkelman was discussing the Sandy Hook massacre with friends on the school bus and he noted that he wished he had a gun to stop the bad guys. This earned him a ten day suspension from school while his father received a visit from police who wanted to search their house without a warrant. Who’s running this school? Piers Morgan? Michael Moore? Barack Obama?
5) Deaf Preschooler Asked To Change How He Signs His Name Because It Looks Too Much Like A Gun (Grand Island, Nebraska): Three and a half year old Hunter Spanjer is deaf and signs his name in a way that looks like a gun. This was unacceptable to the school, which told Hunter's parents he'd need to change his name because its "Weapons in Schools" policy forbade "any instrument...that looks like a weapon." This sounds like the start of a "Chuck Norris at three joke," but it really happened.
6) Five Year Old Accused Of Making Terror Threats Over A Hello Kitty Bubble Gun (Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania: A five year old who was talking with her friends offered to shoot herself and her friends with a Hello Kitty bubble gun that she had at home. The school's reaction to the little girl's love of soapy bubbles? The school accused her of making a "terrorist threat," suspended her from school for 10 days, told her the police might need to be involved, and demanded that she get a psychological evaluation. The psychological evaluation should have been saved for the people who run that school.
7) Student Suspended For Chewing His Pop-Tart Into The Shape Of A Gun (Brooklyn Park, Minnesota): Seven year old Joshua Welch was eating a strawberry Pop-Tart and started playing with his food. After making a mountain out of it, he turned it into a gun. For that dastardly crime, he was suspended from school for two days and believe it or not, a letter was sent home to the student body telling them, "A student used food to make an inappropriate gesture." Thank goodness he didn't do something more serious like draw a gun in his mashed potatoes or Welch might have never been allowed to come back to school.
When do we put our foot down and say that the sort of people who are victimizing children like this have no business being around kids? If you're so ideologically rigid that a Pop-Tart shaped like a gun or a child who signs his name in a way that looks like a gun is more than you can handle, you don't belong in a school. It's time to demand better for America's children than what they're getting from schools today and the principals, teachers, and school boards that won't get on board with that need to be replaced.
This summary is quite telling.
Strikes home, more today, July 4.
bo has kept me so occupied, diluted, and spread thin that I can’t keep up.
Give me (and the ‘American People’) ONE good cause and look out. Action instead of (feeble feeling) keystrokes.
This ping list is for the “other” articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself) The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. Metmom holds both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail Metmom if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.
If I was in school today, I’d be in so much trouble.
That kid who chewed his pop tart into the shape of a gun is a real threat to society. Keep an eye on that kid. (sarcasm)
What does it say about the bureaucrats who run our schools, that they have so much time on their hands to make federal cases out of minor incidents? What does it say about their own judgement or interpretation of regulations and school rules, that they choose such absurd cases to make their political statements?????
Yep! While in elementary we use to play gunslinger, drawing on each other while waiting for the school bus. Fought Indians with finger guns during recess and re-fought WWII against the Japanese or Germans in the evening and over the weekends.
Now you can’t even mention the word “gun” anywhere.
Warning: Do this to my nephews and there will be legal consequences, leftscum. I have friends who are powerful attorneys. All 2nd Amendment advocates and conservatives (requirements to be one of my friends).
Level 2 lookalike firearm part deux?
When in the 3rd grade, we were allowed to bring a Christmas present to school when we returned from the holiday break...
I took my treasured Fanner-50 made by Mattel...(if you don’t know what that is, look it up)
Some other guys brought theirs...We had a ball on the playground during recess...
Those days are looooong behind us.
I read history in school, art of war, etc.
These days that might get you looked at funny at the least.
Reminds me, I should pick up a new copy of art of war to refresh my memory.
If I was in school today, I wouldn't be.
FMCDH(BITS)
Students should all fall to the floor screaming next time their teacher points at one to come to the board. Those pointer fingers are deadly.
In one of our homeschool groups, there was a young boy who wore a cowboy hat and carried toy guns in his backpack. He and the other boys often “shot” at each other. Another mother and I once talked about how much trouble they’d be in if they were in school.
In regards to number 3 up above, the ahole cops who arrested the boy should be fired and their asses thrown in jail.
One of our local homeschool groups had a class on the history of weapons.
So, those days aren’t long gone, not even in the schools. I’m a homeschool parent, but my kids were involved in many activities with schoolkids. And most of those schoolkids play violent videogames at home. So, outside of school, many of those young kids pretend to shoot each other - all the time. It’s the only way they seem to play, in fact.
In the old days, I don’t remember pointless violence in boys’ play. Nowadays, though, it’s different - for example, one 7yo boy we knew got in trouble for pretending to slit another boy’s throat - like something he might’ve done in an M-rated videogame. To be honest, that kind of play concerns me, too.
But, to suspend a kid for drawing a gun, for example, is absolutely ridiculous.
Surrounded by sounds of fireworks here... Happy 4th to all!
Here, teachers wet themselves at the mention of guns.
Happy Independence Day!
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