Virginia second-graders suspended for pointing pencils at each other

[decocker 7,198]

Have you heard about the two 7-year-old boys who were suspended from their Suffolk County, Va. school for pointing pencils at each other while making shooting sounds? One boy was pretending to be a Marine and the other a bad guy.

There is a zero tolerance policy in the school system and so, the second-graders had to stay home for two days instead of go to class at Driver Elementary School, according to the Associated Press.

Paul Marshall, one of the boys’ fathers, who is a former Marine, was quoted as saying:

When I asked him about it, he said, ‘Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy.’ It’s as simple as that.

But not to Suffolk Public Schools officials. The AP quoted spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw as saying that under the disciplinary code in the district, a pencil pointed at someone by someone making a shooting sound is considered a weapon. She was quoted as saying:

Some children would consider it threatening, who are scared about shootings in schools or shootings in the community. Kids don’t think about ‘Cowboys and Indians’ anymore, they think about drive-by shootings and murders and everything they see on television news every day.

A reader offered this solution in the comments of the story:

RyaninVA

5/7/2013 6:04 PM EDT

Here is the appropriate way the teacher should have dealt with this:

Teacher: “Little Chris, that is not appropriate behavior. Please stop it and sit down”.
Little Chris “OK Mrs Teacher. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do anything bad”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/08/virginia-second-graders-suspended-for-pointing-pencils-at-each-other/?wprss=rss_local

[mota bhai 2,675]

A reader offered this solution in the comments of the story:

RyaninVA

5/7/2013 6:04 PM EDT

Here is the appropriate way the teacher should have dealt with this:

Teacher: “Little Chris, that is not appropriate behavior. Please stop it and sit down”.

Little Chris “OK Mrs Teacher. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do anything bad”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/08/virginia-second-graders-suspended-for-pointing-pencils-at-each-other/?wprss=rss_local

RyaninVA is ON POINT!

[decocker 7,198]

Kids don’t think about ‘Cowboys and Indians’ anymore, they think about drive-by shootings and murders and everything they see on television news every day.

this is bs. while kids aren't playing cowboys and indians anymore, they're still playing cops and robbers or muricans and terrorists..

[mota bhai 2,675]

this is bs. while kids aren't playing cowboys and indians anymore, they're still playing cops and robbers or muricans and terrorists..

Instead of kids doing wah wah wah holding their hands over their mouths, they ululate these days.

[decocker 7,198]

Instead of kids doing wah wah wah holding their hands over their mouths, they ululate these days.

kids chasing each other around with strips of bacon in bedsheet burkas..

[duraaraa 203]

It sounds like they're treating violence as seriously as they're treating sex in schools...

Someone I know had a son in school in Utah of all places. I think he was in second grade, and he fell off the monkey bars and landed on his butt. When people around him asked if he was ok, he said "I'm fine, look!" and showed his butt to the group of kids. They proceeded to suspend him and launch a child protective services investigation against his parents, for potential sexual abuse, or something.

It's ridiculous how we treat our kids. In other countries, they can moon each other and pretend to shoot each other all they want... do we really want kids to grow up in such a ridiculous environment?