Zero Thought

I have been reading Randy Cassingham for several years now, he sends out a "true news" email once a week, and I've been getting really upset reading about the Zero Tolerance trend in both schools and everyday life. Well, something happened recently to make me really annoyed.

One of my co-workers has a son in sixth grade, who he describes as "the biggest nerd in school." Apparently he and some of his friends were playing war at recess, using their pens as guns. The class bully complained to the teacher that he felt threatened, the boys were sent to the principal's office, and my co-worker was called to come talk to the principal.

When he got there, the principal spoke to him separate from his son, explaining what had happened, and the school's policy in these matters. He was going to be suspended for two days. The principal was shocked at their behavior and wondered aloud why they wanted to play war to begin with. As we were all being told this story at work, we all said, "Because they are boys!?"

My co-worker is a former Marine, and was not very impressed with the principal's attitude. He went with her to see his son, who was visibly frightened, afraid that his father was going to come down on him, but he simply told him, "well, looks like you get a couple of days to play your Xbox." The principal was furious and asked him if he didn't understand the seriousness of the offense. He just responded, "It's your policy, not mine," and went on to say that the kid had been bullying his son for months, and nothing had come of it, but a bunch of boys playing war together rates a suspension? So he just took his son home and treated it like a very long weekend since he was suspended Friday and Monday.

Now, to top it all off, the day before his son was able to go back to school, they got an official letter from the school about the suspension. In the letter, they stated that the boys were playing in a "non-threatening manner."

Excuse me? Non-threatening? I thought they suspended him because someone felt threatened!

I couldn't help but think about the Blackrock Clan, or the BRC as the boys in my church called it when I was a teenager. They used to go off into the mountains to a campsite they had which they called Vietnam, or 'Nam or something, I don't remember for sure, and play war games. Noone ever got seriously injured as far as I know, I'm sure there were scratches and bruises, but it was just recreation for them, and none of them grew up to be terrorists. One of them ended up giving his life for our country in Iraq. I wonder, if that were to happen today, if those boys would be considered delinquents of some kind, and get into trouble?

Some of my other co-workers started sharing stories of stupid things from their schools. One of them mentioned that children aren't allowed to play tag at her child's school, because they might trip and hurt themselves. But dodgeball is perfectly fine, and I can remember some nasty dodgeball games.

Well, that's my rant for the month. Tata for now!