Gun-Free School Drones

The Second Amendment Foundation is upset about the Spokane School District's decision to suspend three third-graders for bringing tiny toy guns to school. The boys, who borrowed the guns from their G.I. Joes, violated a "zero tolerance" policy regarding toys, guns, and toy guns. It's hard to say which is more puzzling: treating action figure accessories as a menace (which, sadly, is not unprecedented) or pretending that a day without school is a punishment.

Comments

[Swamp Justice]

Don't forget that the state of Georgia has proposed striking the word "evolution" from their schools' science curriculum and replacing it with the phrase "biological changes over time."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/30/striking.evolution.ap/index.html

[Rick C]

Every one of these incidents reminds me why I'm homeschooling my kids.

Hell, you people with your squirtguns were small potatoes. In high school, in 1987, I brought in the keypad to a touch-tone phone and carried it around for 3 days, just for the heck of it. I told anyone who asked that it was part of a bomb. Never got more than rolled eyes.

[Parse]

Jennifer:

I must have missed your earlier comments. What law forbids you to penalize certain students for bad grammar or misspelled words?

[Jennifer]

Parse--

Any teacher will tell you about the dreader IEPs--Individualized Education Plans. I believe they started off reasonably enough--I had an unfortunate student with arthritis, and issued her two textbooks; one for the classroom and one to keep at home. Frankly, any teacher who needs a law to do something like that should be fired on grounds of cruelty.

But any parent who wants special treatment for her offspring can emand an IEP these days. Here are some actual IEPs that either I or my colleagues have had to deal with (and remember my students were all juniors or seniors):

--students with spelling inabilities, so I could not penalize them for badly spelled words

--students with writing disabilities, so that instead of expecting them to write an essay, for example, I had to accept a drawing, or a collage of magazine pictures expressing the same theme

--one student in 12th grade who I was told had 'handwriting issues' and could not be penalized for them. I protested that, while I never actually graded handwriting, I can't grade something if I can't read it, and if the kid's handwriting is that bad he should type his work instead.

Should a teacher reject an IEP, legally that would be no different from refusing to give a diploma to a straight-A quadriplegic because he couldn't participate in gym class.

And I'm not even going to TALK about Special Education.

[Jennifer]

That's "dreaded" IEPs, not "dreader."

[thoreau]

Jennifer-

A friend of mine who teaches high school in Texas, of all places (not a bastion of political correctness last I checked), told me that some students are deemed to have an "overachievement complex" or whatever the psychobabble term is. They have to be given all sorts of allowances because they freak out over tests.

Another friend suggested that these students be given "medical marijuana" so they can relax and mellow out.

So, which takes priority: Compliance with the IEP or compliance with zero tolerance? After all, that pot is part of their "therapy", right? 🙂

I'd love to see the standoff between the DEA agent and the anti-discrimination lawyer...

[bigslacker]

One of my friends brought a 12-gauge shotgun to school for speech class (informative speech - how to clean a firearm). That was in 1986. They wouldn't let him store it in his locker - had to keep it in the office. They were pretty strict back then...

[Jennifer]

Thoreau--

At my old school, students with "test-taking issues" were so commonplace I simply forgot to mention them. Half my students used to be awarded extra time to take tests.

Imagine if these kids tried to become doctors: "What do you mean, I only have thirty seconds to perform CPR before the patient develops brain damage? My IEP says I get five MINUTES to complete my alotted task."

Lawyers: "What do you mean we go to trial tomorrow? I need an extra nine weeks to prepare my case. Check my IEP if you don't believe me."

It's strange, at the same time schools are ignoring all standards on things that DO matter (like whether or not a kid needs to read and write in order to graduate), they are completely overreaching on things that DON'T matter.

On one earlier posting I half-facetiously suggested that school were run by a conspiracy of left- AND right-wing extremists, each one utilizing their philosophy so as to do the most damage.

[Douglas Fletcher]

"I wonder if there will be a libertarian backlash someday?"

I don't know a lot about this, but in Arizona there seems to be a thriving 'charter school' movement going on -- it doesn't get a lot of attention, but they're all over the place here in Phoenix.

I don't know if that qualifies as a libertarian backlash, but at least it gives people more freedom on where to send their kids to school.

[Rich]

Swamp Justice:
Don't forget that the state of Georgia has proposed striking the word "evolution" from their schools' science curriculum and replacing it with the phrase "biological changes over time."

That's not such a bad thing. Darwin actually preffered "descent with modification" to the word "evolution" because of the connotation of progress that is present in that word. Biological changes over time, while perhaps not the most illuminating phraseology, seems quite accurate.

[Randy]

"Biological changes over time, while perhaps not the most illuminating phraseology, seems quite accurate."

And "universal attraction between two bodies", while not the most illuminating phraseology, is more accurate than "gravity."

[late for the boom]

Hell lets just replace any scientific word with 'gods will'. Ill home school my kids, and the fundies can send thier kids to skool, and we will see which ones graduate to higher education, and which ones are serving me lunch and dumping my garbage. Its amazing how many parents willingly retard thier childs education because of a severe aversion to science.

Like I tell any fundie who professes GOD over science...'you pray for heat to cook your frozen pot pie, and Ill microwave mine, we will see how eats first'

[late for the boom]

that should read "who eats first" should proof read a bit closer.

Also, I spelled school, skool for effect.... just incase the grammer/spelling nazis are lurking...

[thoreau]

Jennifer-

I have a lot of experience with people who have real learning disabilities, mental illness, and other mental disabilities. I have to wonder how many of your students have genuine disabiliies. From what I've seen, if somebody has a real problem, the odds are good that he or she will never tell you about it, or at least that he or she will only tell a professional (e.g. a teacher) in strict confidence. It's embarassing to have problems doing things normally and to be different from everybody else.

Conversely, anybody who goes around proclaiming "I have a disability and you must accomodate me" is probably a 100% healthy asshole.

Also, anybody who has a real mental problem is probably more interested in recovering than in being accomodated. I know people with severe mental illness who have made herculean efforts to live normal lives and work normal jobs, with a little bit of medical assistance. They don't want handouts, they want to be healthy so they can live normal lives. No amount of handouts can change the fact that a person with a mental disability encounters all sorts of frustrations on a daily basis, and struggles with things that normal people take for granted.

On the other hand, I have a cousin who faked mental illness to get disability payments.

I know some people of a more conservative bent are skeptical of mental illness and learning disabilities. And I guess they have good reason to be: The people who have real problems are keeping to themselves and trying to get better, while the people who have no problem except laziness are busy telling everybody that they need sympathy.

[martin]

"and once the kids grew old enough to recognize this idiocy they became rebellious hippies."

Jennifer:
Please tell me it's not the former rebellious hippies, now parents, that are the control freaks driving all this BS.

[Kevin Carson]

GoonFood,

They teach kids that guns are evil. But they also teach them that authority figures in uniform (who also usually have guns) are their friends.

More generally, they teach kids that their immediate response, when faced with a doubtful situation of any kind, is to run to an authority figure for help. And remember, it's COOL to inform on your friends!

[Phil]

And to think that 27 years ago I could take toy guns to school for show and tell.

Hell, in my 8th grade yearbook (let's see . . . I graduated HS in 1987, so 8th grade was . . . oh christ, 22 years ago), there's a picture from my school's Gun Club. Six members (there were only about 200 students in the middle school), all holding .22 rifles and shotguns. On school grounds. And nobody ever shot anyone. Imagine that.

[asmile]

Jennifer:

I still don't understand. Is it that the law requires IEDs, or the law dictates what will be in them? Who creates the content of the IED?

[SteveInClearwater]

LATEFORTHEBOOM, you might wince when I remind you that 'proof read' is actually one word.

🙂

[nobody]

Zero brains.

[Franklin Harris]

And to think that 27 years ago I could take toy guns to school for show and tell. Thank God those days are over. Someone could have had fun.

[Jennifer]

Asmile--
As I understand it, IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) were part of the federal mandate in the 70s or 80s to ensure that handicapped children were not denied an education. Some of it is sensible--an arthritic kid who can't carry books might have an IEP stating that he must be given two sets, one for home and one for school. Perfectly reasonable. Only nowadays, schools are so afraid of lawsuits that any parent who demands ANY consideration gets an IEP for her kid.

The problem is, originally it was designed to ensure that PHYSICAL problems don't spill over into your academic work. Now, apparently, even INTELLECTUAL problems are to be compensated for. One educator actually told me: "When it comes to student achievement, ability doesn't matter; effort does." Uh huh. So I suppose the only difference between Einstein and a Down's Syndrome kid is that the kid with Down's is lazy? I doubt it.

Thoreau, I suspect most special ed kids just need a little discipline. I once spent two days as a substitute teacher assigned to escort a 14-year-old "Special Ed" boy to classes and keep him "on track" by constantly reminding him to work, not daydream.

Please explain to me how the best way to teach a kid responsibility is to hire an adult to shadow him and nag him all day! Were it up to me, I'd put the kid in a safe but boring all-white room with his assignment and tell him he can come out when he's finished or at bedtime, whichever comes first.

Besides, in theory school is supposed to prepare kids for real life. I could maybe see babying kids in elementary school, but by the time a kid is a high school senior he needs to learn that in real life, people expect you to follow time constraints, people expect you to meet certain standards, etc.

And the idea that a person who can't even read should still be able to get an English degree is lunacy. If the National Football League were run by IEP writers, Christopher Reeve would be a quarterback.

[JayD]

I'm beginning to think that we're one earthquake away from the setting of Demolition Man. Pretty sad, really, that a mediocre action flick could be so accurate in predicting future society on so many levels.

Are toy glow-rods allowed in schools?

[Grant Gould]

Isn't it amazing that all of these school districts are arguing so strongly in favor of vouchers. And here I'd thought that the educational establishment opposed vouchers.

I mean, this has to be ironic performance-art political agitation about the moral and intellectual enfeeblement that follows from replacing the market with central planning, right? It couldn't possibly be actual policy, right?
--G

[Jennifer]

One possible ray of hope: in the 1950's authority figures told kids that "duck and cover" would protect them from nuclear bombs, and once the kids grew old enough to recognize this idiocy they became rebellious hippies. Maybe all we have to do is wait for authoritarian stupidity to reach critical mass.

[Madog]

I wonder what they'd think of my friends and I bringing small squirt guns to class in 1st grade and squirting eachother and kids we didn't like at lunch.

As it was, my teacher just took away the guns and gave them back at the end of the year. She didn't even tell our parents or anything. And this was in the mid-80s on a military base.

[Grant Gould]

I wonder what they'd think of my friends and I bringing small squirt guns to class in 1st grade and squirting eachother and kids we didn't like at lunch.

"Oh my god it's another school shooting! Call the cops! Duck and cover, kids!"
--G

[Randy]

I remember some kid got punished for having a DRAWING of a gun in school. A DRAWING. I wonder if any textbooks (history books, for example) have pictures of guns in them? If so, every single student with that book must be considered in violation of the zero-tolerance rules.

Zero-tolerance seldom serves the purpose for which it was intended. Zero-tolerance about drugs? Great...that's what got a student punished for loaning her asthma inhaler to a fellow student who was having a severe asthma attack during gym class (they both knew they had the same prescription). It's what gets kids punished for drawings of guns. It's the equivalent of killing a fly in your house by burning down your house and nuking the foundation.

[Jason A. Fager]

So you're saying that hippies are too cool to duck and cover? Does LSD help you dodge flying glass? Does pot give you mutant healing powers?

jafager

[Fred]

"...or pretending that a day without school is a punishment."

I hated every moment I was in school. I thought what sadisic bastards these adults are, torturing little kids. And now they have managed to make schooling (as opposed to education) even more authoritarian.

I wonder if there will be a libertarian backlash someday?

[Argyles]

My brother and I used to play soldier with my dad's color guard rifles (non-firing fakes of solid wood, painted to appear real). He instructed us to handle them as though they were real and, even in play, taught us the safe handling of weapons. I can't help but think that such lessons would be not only frowned upon today, but illegal -- and that the lack of such lessons merely leads to more accidents with guns due to ignorance.

[Jennifer]

Fred--

Not ALL teachers are evil; in many cases, it's the administration that's causing all the problems.

As for a day without school being a punishment--I don't know how things are nowadays, but when I was in high school, you were not allowed to make up work you missed while suspended. (I myself was never suspended, however.) Therefore, if you were suspended on the day of a test, you got a zero, which completely ruined your grade. If you timed it right, a three-day suspension could basically guarantee a failing term.

[rst]

Zero tolerance serves the same purpose as teen curfews: silence parent groups and provide some measure of insurance against liability. A staggeringly large proportion of teens who commit crimes do so in the hours immediately following school. So how to keep teenagers safe and out of trouble? Have cops make sure they're in by 11, nearly 8 hours beyond that peak time, when the largest majority of kids who will get into trouble are so far beyond the notion of "curfew" that it might as well not even be there. A sensible approach if you're a fucking idiot.

Zero tolerance is not designed to be sensible or even smart. It's designed to placate parents who associate "zero tolerance" with notions of the "safety" implied by authoritarianism. Practically speaking, it affords absolutely zero protection. Except that they've reduced the likelihood that some kid will get his eye gouged out by a toy. Now, if they can only get past that whole you-can't-teach-for-shit-but-you-want-to-be-paid-like-a-doctor thing.

[Jennifer]

RST-

I agree, there are plenty of teachers out there who stink--I've worked with a few myself--but again, this is NOT necessarily the teachers' fault. I've made Hit and Run postings before discussing the bullshit teachers must deal with: English teachers like myself who are FORBIDDEN BY LAW to penalize certain students for bad grammar or misspelled words; math teachers who are not allowed to deduct points for wrong answers; teachers of all subjects forced to have literal criminals in their classes because, while it's okay to kick out stuidents who smoke cigarettes or carry toy guns, you can't penalize kids who assault others, or steal their stuff, or anything else.

Notice: it's the school ADMINISTRATION who's kicking thsese kids out, not the classroom teachers. (Sorry for all the CAPITAL LETTERS but my computer won't let me italicize on postings.)

Believe me, however much you personally may hate crummy teachers, I guarantee that good teachers hate them even more.

[Fred]

Jennifer,

I hate to correct an English teacher, but RST and I are getting all snarky about authoritarianism versus libertarianism. But I guess that makes us too idealistic for this cruel world, so its off to Freeperville with us.

[GoonFood]

And policies like this are how the anti-RKBA types are eventually going to win. Every year more and more gun related toys and topics are becoming stigmatized and very non-PC. When it gets to the point where toys and mere pictures of firearms are so scary to most people that they must be hidden from view, who is going to stop the gov't from taking our real guns?

I feel this every day around where I live (in California). When I go shooting on the weekends I never know what to expect on the way to my car. Some people see a rifle case and don't think much of it, others can get rather irate or even scared (as though I'm some jack-booted thug coming to get them). And I'm sure those ridiculous fears come from years of school indoctrination that guns are evil and cause wars and death. They must have skipped over the history lesson showing how all those wars got started by a bunch of pandering politicians.

[Dan]

Where are the tort lawyers when we need them? Surely there is some enterprising lawyer who can some figure out some legal angle on which to sue educational administrators who commit such assaults against both their students and common sense.
How about it lawyers? Surely you can find a way to make a buck out of this while chastising some deserving educational bureaucrats!

[Andy D.]

"LATEFORTHEBOOM, you might wince when I remind you that 'proof read' is actually one word."

Yeah and "incase" is two words, not one:)

And I wonder how the guns at school situation is at schools in rural areas. So far, living in and around San Diego, I've seen a total of three guns (one belonged to a cop friend, another one was when I went shooting that one time, and the other was a neighbor who was bizarre enough to have a gun when we were in high school). But when I went up to visit some family in the mountains in New Mexico, they had a whole bunch of guns and it guns were far more pervasive. I imagine that there're still things like gun clubs at schools 'round those parts and I doubt they have anything like the zero tolerance gun policies of more urban areas. Any hicks here to back me up?

[Brendan Perez]

No one mentioned the schools ban on toys in general or the pathetic justification of that ban on the basis that if you have toys you're not in school.

Did recess disappear? Apparently even that time doesn't belong to the students in any shape or form.

This is another reason why it is high time we begin subjecting adults who support zero-tolerance in schools to those same policies. Teachers who break any rule in or out of school should be subject to zero-tolerance the same way students are. This would produce some interesting squirming as teachers who bring guns to school, or grab students, or sleep with them, try to explain why they should be given a second chance while 12 year olds are not.

[Jennifer]

Thoreau--

The idea "ability doesn't matter, effort does," can explain failure, but not success. You can be brilliant and become a failure because you're lazy; but if you are inherently stupid then effort will only take you so far.

People have intellectual limitations, just as they have physical ones. Consider: I am a woman, 5'3" tall, and weigh about 105 pounds. All throughout my childhood I was either the shortest or second-shortest girl in my class.

Now imagine you're my gym teacher, and you really want what is best for me. I tell you that my life's ambition is to become a professional tackle for the NFL. Do you tell me I can become a tackle, as long as I put forth enough effort? Or do you tell me honestly "Look, Jennifer, there are a lot of things you can do but being a tackle isn't one of them"?

Schools are turning into some Harrison Bergeron nightmare, where the powers that be refuse to admit that not everyone is physically or intellectually equal. I myself will freely admit that, for all my abilities in English, I am a lousy mathematician when it comes to anything beyond Algebra I. I will NEVER become as scientifically brilliant as Stephen Hawking, no matter how hard I try, and I'd say admitting it is a lot less cruel than having a teacher tell you, "You CAN become the next Stephen Hawking, Jennifer, and you will keep working on those quantum equations until you do. Work! Work!"

Meanwhile, Stephen Hawking will NEVER dance as well as me, no matter how hard he tries. But no public school will admit this, on the record.

[thoreau]

Jennifer-

That statement on ability vs. effort isn't entirely PC nonsense. It's the favorite American story. So many novels and movies concern a scrappy underdog with no training, no finesse, no skill, and little knowledge, but by sheer effort he manages to win the battle/woo the girl/succeed in business/win the big game/save the world/win the election/invent a miracle device/etc.

I agree that these heroes obviously have a lot of skill that was never realized before. However, the classic American genius is Thomas Edison, who said "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration". If I have half the brains but I work 3 times as hard, I'll come out way ahead of somebody with twice the brains but less work ethic.

The problem is that the person who said that ability doesn't matter, just effort, forgot that effort is measured by its fruits, not by its quantity.

[Andrew Lynch]

Jennifer, you can teach my kids anytime. 🙂

[Larry]

From More Gun Controls? They haven't worked in the Past, by John R. Lott

"But nowhere were guns more common than at schools. Until 1969, virtually every public high school in New York City had a shooting club. High-school students carried their guns to school on the subways in the morning, turned them over to their homeroom teacher or the gym coach and retrieved them after school for target practice. The federal government even gave students rifles and paid for their ammunition. Students regularly competed in city-wide shooting contests, with the winners being awarded university scholarships."

Not in the South or West. Not a rural area. New York City. Picture a modern NYC teenager approaching the subway with a .22 Cal target rifle. Homeland security would go infrared.

Andy D.: "Any hicks here to back me up?"

I live in semi-rural Texas. (Town of 22,000, in a county with a population of 40,000, an hour from a major city) I teach Hunter Education to a little over 100 kids (Age 12 up) per year, but then I'm not the only instructor. I also hold a hundred or so concealed handgun classes (New and renewal) per year.

Two of the CHL classes (spring and fall) are taught through our independent school district community education program, and we've taught Hunter Ed in high schools as well. Community Ed. also runs a beginning shotgun class and an NRA Women On Target event.

Under Texas state law I can leave my concealed handgun locked in my car in the school parking lot as I go inside to do my business.

[dj of raleigh]

Making too much out of two kids going home
and one being given in school suspension.
Zero tolerance doesn't seem to be the case here,
since zero tolerance would mean expulsion for the year.
The discretionary decision of the principal was stated,
but the story does not detail the action of the kids.
That left the press to sensationalize the story
for the amusement and shock of the readers.
One account said the boys forget the toys in pocket.
That leaves out the fact that they did come out of pocket,
elsewise, how were the toys discovered?
What was the reaction of the boys when called down.
The worst thing a kid can do in elementary school
is confront and resist a teacher.
I'd like to hear the 'whole' story, and I bet
it would be funny.
The school board policy is probably sensible,
but the judgment of the principal is in question.

[dj of raleigh]

> Are toy glow-rods allowed in schools?

[Mona]

Jennifer writes: "Lawyers: 'What do you mean we go to trial tomorrow? I need an extra nine weeks to prepare my case. Check my IEP if you don't believe me.'"

Something along those lines happened. When I was practicing in the 2nd Cir (in NY) I ran across a case of a woman suing the NY Bar under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She won, and the court decreed she had to be permitted 4 days, rather than the 2 that everyone else has, to sit for the bar exam. She had, you see, a reading disability.

Fortunately for her potential clients, even with 4 days to tackle the exam she was unable to pass it. Ability to read and comprehend dense and complex material quickly is, kinda sorta, a big part of lawyering, for god's sake. (Of course, her billables would have been super, for the firm lucky enuff to have her: 3 hours billed to read one, 8 page case!)

[Sanner Paul]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
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URL: http://preteen-sex.info
DATE: 05/20/2004 04:45:50
I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.