Weapons in School: Zero Tolerance
 

What does it/should it mean?

Real weapons? check

But what about:

• pocket knives
• nail clippers
• knitting needles
• halloween costume replica weapons
• guns make out of lego
• swords made out of sticks
• fingers pointed like guns
• talking about weapons
• drawing pictures of weapons
• books containing images of weapons
• writing about weapons
• plastic knives in lunch boxes
• shirts with images of weapons
• Buffalo Sabres shirts

And if zero tolerance really means zero, how are students to learn about the civil war?

If you can, please try not to bring politics into this, just offer your personal opinion on where the line should be drawn (the above are not necessarily in an order where you need to draw a line and those above are OK, those below are not....) it is true, however, that I was surprised to be told that my child had been warned about one of the above behaviours/actions and told it wasn't OK due to the "zero tolerance".

war is not teh fluffeh. hush your un pc mouf

I agree up this point ,
* guns make out of lego
* swords made out of sticks
* fingers pointed like guns WTF ???
* talking about weapons Free speech ??
* drawing pictures of weapons
* books containing images of weapons So much for History or LOTS of Art
* writing about weapons Again free speach
* plastic knives in lunch boxes
* shirts with images of weapons
* Buffalo Sabres shirts WTF is this

This just PC Bull shit

It's not actually a "zero tolerance" policy if she was only warned. If she violated the policy, she should be expelled.

"zero tolerance" policies are stupid. Teachers and administration should make judgment calls based on each situation, and they should be intelligent about it.

When I was in high school, we were studying ancient and medieval history, and one of the students brought in a home made mace for "show and tell." The teacher was pleased.

In Jr. High woodshop class I built a functioning replica of a medieval crossbow (illegal in New York State at the time) I got an A.

and another thing, I can't stand intolerance.

As I'm typing this my son comes up to me to tell me that a million of his soldiers are fighting 3 robots who are bionic, nuclear (not nucular) and "dynamitish"

OTOH, thank goodness there's zero tolerance for kids having sex in schools: we don't want them learning how to use sex as a weapon. Add that to the list.

Well, that policy forgot to ban one very important weapon. The students themselves.

With good training, any human being can use his own body as a weapon, sometimes a letal one.

That's not the policy. That's just a list of suggestions to consider. but I like your way of thinking. Are they allowed to bring legs to school if they promise not to kick anyone?

Not karate but capoiera

I was watching the The men who stare at goats a couple of nights ago, then followed up by checking out the website of the book it was based on. According to the author's website, the military in this particular section have a weapon which looks perfectly harmless (like a bottle opener from what I could see), but can be used for a myriad of pain inducing techniques including twisting fingers and more worryingly inserting it into someone's ear canal which leaves no visible damage, but causes a huge amount of pain. I'm guessing this kind 2nd one could easily be done with a pencil or pen as well...I don't think this generation would be the first to use their writing implements as weapons.

Everything is a weapon.
Hell we used to play a game where someone would name an object and the rest of us would think of ways to kill a person with the object.

a Ricola candy

In the movie About a Boy, the bullies torment the main character by throwing sweets at him.

so c'mon. what is and what isn't OK?

I reviewed the district policy on weapons, and I have to say I'm not impressed by this teacher's interpretation of it.....

I don't see where drawing a picture of a gun (which is what my kid did) is a no-no -it may be a replica if you really stretch that, but it isn't an object or implement...

licorice is a slow lingering death

Someone in the bureaucracy told the school : "No Weapon Policy". And then they forgot to use one of their own : a brain.

If I had children, I would seriously question the validity of the school's teachings since they're such morons.

Whereas the directors of that film tormented me by alternately making me watch hugh grant while trying not to imagine him with that tranny looking hooker, and watching Toni Collette with far too many clothes on.

I agree with glatt on his point. That's why I find it disconcerting that you at first withheld the nature of the alleged offense and you're still withholding the specific circumstances under which it occurred. Why did your child draw a picture of a gun? Since a picture can be worth a thousand words, a picture of a gun can be an historical account, an indicator of violent feelings/intent; or, anything in between. Intent is key to making a determination in such instances. Was the picture appropriate to the academic circumstances (more than just a tangent)? If not, it probably wasn't appropriate to the venue. If so, then perhaps the teacher was promoting a personal agenda rather than an academic climate. There is no line to be drawn between "Other weapon[s]" without knowing the full circumstances of the specific instance in which they're used; because, that's where people's perceptions about them mainly come from.

because he is a boy.

bingo.

But the whole thing bout "zero tolerance" is the "why" is irrelevant. Either it's OK or it isn't. I guess because Jack can bring a gun into school to kill Jill, but when caught, claim it was for show and tell. Fine. Guns/People with guns hurt people. I get it. Fake weapons. Well they look like real weapons, they could be used to intimidate. I get it. Lego guns, Sticks like swords, pointed fingers, I sorta get it but I think mostly kids need to be taught to shrug it off if they don't like it. Drawing a picture of gun? HTF is that a threat to the safety of any other student?

I has one ;) (& I is one)

It could lead to critical thinking and or independent thinking.

BTW, unless the school is private and receives no funding from the government this is in fact a freedom of speech issue. Unless they can show that he is inciting to riot, that drawing is protected speech. They are not allowed to ban that speech unless they are wholly private.

thanks, I'm headed that way with the teacher. I'm currently awaiting his response on the drawing weapios while studying civil war thing (which they just did...) -he didn't seem to have a problem with pictures of guns then....

I suspect it's really about drawing when he should be doing something else, and it's got to a point where the something else is irrelevant to my kid so he argues that and wins. teacher saves face with "inappropriate subject matter". I could be wrong, but I bet I'm not. That's what you get when you Open School. Sometimes the kids are going to be smarter than the teachers in some respects. In "regular" schooling that is supressed for the "greater good". At Open School, teachers get schooled sometimes :lol:

Lordy. Ya'll just need to move down south where folks have more common sense about weapons. When my son did a report on the War of Northern Aggression, he gave a musket firing demo with a 9 count load. He also demonstrated fix bayonets

The War of Northern Aggression? :lol:

I've got news for you, Han shot first.

Sorry, Sarge, but naming rights go to the winners.

Except "Operation Enduring Freedom". But that isn't a name, it's just :jagoff:

Ha! But it sounds so warm and fuzzy!

Wagging the dog.

Image of tranny looking hooker please. Confus-ed. Do you mean Rachel Weiss?

Which one's the tranny?

aside: saw Transamerica this weekend. What a great movie.

Free Speech Rights of Students

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/project...dentspeech.htm

Policies (or parts thereof in this case) may just be guidelines that allow for judgment calls based upon the circumstances, they're not always definitive. Consider a child who gets into a disagreement with a teacher (perhaps over what the child should be concentrating on during class) and is admonished; then, the child sits down and draws a picture of a gun knowing full well the teacher is going to see it. That's harassment; but, the teacher may find it difficult to prove because the child, well, "he is a boy" and that's what boys do. Sometimes pictures are innocent; but, sometimes they're indications of something else going on. Parents can be the last to acknowledge that since their children's actions reflect opon them. Keep an open mind.
No brainer: It can be an early indicator of something that may escalate into harm to others; or, self-inflicted harm. You can't advocate teaching other kids to just shrug it off in today's proactive environment of school violence awareness without coming off as being egocentric.

Re Hugh Grant-I'd forgotten about Divine Brown (was that her name?)

Was it the clothes themselves you objected to?

Excellent link. It brings up the issue of intent and context. If Monster's son had been taunting a kid whose family had been gunned down the week before, probably not protected. But in the absence of any specific circumstances, just drawing a picture of a gun is hardly impeding the school's mission to teach. While the act of drawing, in itself, may have been disruptive, then that is what the charge should be, not invoking the zero tolerance policy for guns.
yes. their existence was offensive to me. I much preferred http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Story

Yes, Toni Collette was much more corporately dressed in that. That was a very uneven movie. There were some fantastic scenes, but also some really stupid bits in that movie that annoyed me incredibly like the whole dessert vs desert scene.... but we should now probably move this to the movie thread if we're going to continue.

Quite. It was actually in "free time" apparently. And if it had been the former, I think bullying would have been the issue rather than weapons. But zero tolerance does not allow for intent.

I was mostly surprised because he's been in school 5 years. he's a boy. He draws guns. He's not alone. How is this the first time I've heard it's not OK? Being fair, he's 4th grade but his drawing level is Kindergarten. And he knows it. So now he labels his drawings. Maybe they just didn't know he was drawing guns before?

(they still don't look like guns, ffs)

I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance policies. Zero tolerance policies themselves are the common-sense exception which makes this zero tolerance policy OK.

The policy doesn't say implement, it says instrument and a picture is an instrument of communication that can easily be used to communicate a threat.
When it comes to "other weapons," the policy clearly takes intent into consideration. Harm does not have to be physical, it can be emotional and harm can occur whether the student intends for it to happen or not. The policy only holds the student responsible for intentional harm which seems quite fair to me.
That pretty much rules out the act of drawing as a distraction the teacher was addressing. The issue seems to be with the subject matter.
I take it you're referring to the teacher and not the written policy which is why you're not satisfied with the teacher's determination under that policy.

Ironically, dissatisfied parents contribute to zero tolerance policies in schools. Such policies can be applied uniformly without teachers having to psychoanalyze students and look into their backgrounds to determine intent. Teachers thereby avoid making mistakes in judgment calls that may have dire consequences. They avoid prohibiting some students from doing things that most others are allowed to do; also, the parent-teacher confrontations that arise from such situations. It's a catch 22 for the teacher: they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.

The teacher was probably better off, with the variance in political correctness surrounding this issue, by avoiding making judgment calls and applying the same precautionary standard to all students. The teacher can simply claim there wasn't sufficient information or time to make an accurate determination. It forces parental intervention and places the onus for any adverse ramifications, of children drawing pictures of weapons in school, on the parents and the teacher's superiors. This seems to me like the most plausible explanation (personal agenda) for the teacher having intervened without taking disciplinary action under the circumstances you've described thus far.

It wouldn't fly with me either; but, I recognize that good people can have bad ideas. I try to separate the person from the idea.

ok let's. I love Australian cinema. More on this movie later.

Hey... fixed that for you. a little late for some of us, but hey.