Geez. When I was 7 in 1957, all boys carried pocket knives. We amused ourselves for hours playing Mumblety-Peg with them (with no adult supervision). In 2nd grade, my big thrill was to be able to wear my cub scout uniform, replete with jackknife dangling from my belt, to school on special days.
Public schools are just so much better and safer now with all these brainless "zero tolerance" policies in place, aren't they?
Now my daughter is a 1st grader in public school. The lesson I teach at every opportunity is that some of what they teach her there is always true, some of it is only true for now, and some of it is just flat out wrong. I teach her that part of her educational responsibility is to learn to tell which is which, and of course I am always there to help her with that.
I'm planning on buying her a jack knife and teaching her how to play Mumblety-Peg this summer.
Same here only 60's and 70's. We used to clean our shotguns in Ag class before hunting season. No self respecting farm boy went to school without a knife.