Kid suspended for drawing a gun

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

Source


Source

The schools in the state may be on alert because of issues like these above. Maybe that's why the punishment seems harsh. In context with stories like these (granted the 2nd story doesn't say if it's the students or not) I find what the school did to that kid to be just.

Because other people have done awful things, otherwise innocent people are persecuted. Sounds really familiar to me.

In any case, you've already answered the question regarding the hypothetical, and you believe that suspension teaches the appropriate lessons, so there's not much more to be said. I totally disagree with you.

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

Distrust, yes. But are you emotionally scarred by the incident and more likely to become a Columbine-esque murderer because of it? I'm thinking, no. But you do remember the suspension, don't you?

I'm surprised at this response. In reading Erica's post again -

Originally Posted by blueerica

My biggest problem was how angry I felt toward the school administration for my seemingly excessive punishment in relation to my crime. Had I been having other issues who knows where it could have led. It was in my senior year of high school, and I still carry a distrust of authority that I have no doubt was only affirmed by my incident.

She didn't say that she learned that the prank was wrong, she said she learned that schools punish pranks excessively, and that if she had other issues with authority, it would have made things worse. I fully agree with this.

Originally Posted by GC

Because I didn't do messed up things.

Thing is, I did messed up things. I didn't want to bring this up but here goes....I once wrote a threat, regarding a teacher, on a desk in pencil. I said I wanted to kick him in the balls. Yeah, not smart. I had an odd communication with a kid in the same classroom at a different period, writing pencil notes on the desk. The other kid said they wanted to bring in a gun and kill the teacher, and I said I'd kick him in the balls.

OH MY GOODNESS, OBVIOUSLY THESE CHILDREN ARE A DANGER TO THOSE AROUND THEM!!! OBVIOUSLY THEY ARE GOING TO KILL PEOPLE!!!

I can't speak for the other girl, whom I met later. She had many other warning signs floating around her. I'm sure she could have benefitted from a talk (not a talking TO, but a counseling session). I, however, had never been in trouble before. I had never been in the principal's office. I had never been suspended. But here I was, sobbing in the office, because they were coming down hard on me, and I had no prior experience in dealing with them.

I was suspended for a day. I didn't care about that - it was all about having to tell my parents such a dumb story and having to face the wrath of the staff. I didn't care about my record that much, as I was never the college-bound type.

Thing was, the teacher deserved a kick in the balls, since he was a total prick. Not that I would have ever done such a thing. I've never purposely kicked anyone in the balls, not even my annoying brothers in the middle of a wrestling match. It's not something I would do.

Thinking on it now, I realize what I learned from that situation. People think about doing awful things their whole lives....they may despise their coworkers, their family may drive them crazy, they may hate their spouse or their boss or their local mailman.....but we have to pretend we don't feel these things. We have to bottle this crap up and smile and eat sh.t. We need to keep our conflicting emotions and needs inside until it eats the bottom out of our stomachs. We have to bend our values in order to lick the ass of the alpha person in our committee. All of this starts with the institution called school, where we learn how all institutions work. There is no room for honesty in such an environment - only for compliance.

I could not act out against the charlatans of the school environment. I had no recourse. I was stuck in the system and if the teacher was incompetent or apathetic or just a power-hungry prick I still had to visit their little show every day for 9 months. I did my share of changing classes and bringing mom in to get me shifted about but in the end, you're going to have some jerks, and if it's not the teachers, it's the administration.

My bottled rage came out in drawings and writings and yes, scribbled threats. Seeing as how I'd never have the nerve to break the "no Discmans" rule, it was pretty obvious that my drawings involving voodoo dolls and hangman's nooses weren't going to come to fruition. My frustrations are as real as anyone else's on this planet, and just as suppressed.

Back on topic, slightly - if I had not been able to express myself at all in doodles, wherever they land on the scale of wrongness, my rage would have grown. My frustration with the system would have grown. My need to act out would have grown.

Suppression is suppression and it doesn't bode well.

One more thing, GC - I've asked before, where does it end? Where do you draw the line as something that's ok to draw on your homework? When is it time to tattle, to persecute, to control?

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Back on topic, slightly - if I had not been able to express myself at all in doodles, wherever they land on the scale of wrongness, my rage would have grown. My frustration with the system would have grown. My need to act out would have grown.

Suppression is suppression and it doesn't bode well.

One more thing, GC - I've asked before, where does it end? Where do you draw the line as something that's ok to draw on your homework? When is it time to tattle, to persecute, to control?

So doodle, create, do what you need to but there's a place for that. And putting a picture of a gun on a piece of paper that is going to be seen by a teacher is not appropriate. It, like the last line in the article says, disrupts the process.

I don't see this as an act of suppression. I see it as a lesson of appropriateness in a period of time post-Columbine. Your friend's comment (bringing a gun in to kill a teacher) may not have been taken seriously at all back then, nowdays it would be. A kid saying that stuff now would be seen as a danger to those around her.

It's a different time from when we were in school. There weren't huge shooting sprees in schools when I was a kid. Now there are.

And, to answer your question, unless it's stipulated in the homework itself, it's never okay to turn in homework with doodles on it. At least that's the way it was in my school. You'd get your paper handed back to you and you'd have to re-write the entire thing.

Anytime there's an occurrance that is threatening or can be miscontrued as a threat, that's when it's okay for the school to address it. There are varying degrees of penalty, but there needs to be some sort of sense of accountability for someone's actions. If there isn't, then it gives the message that it's okay to continue that behavior.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I'd like it noted that I think the parents in the real case here are total scumbags for going to the media. It's a petty way to deal with an issue that should be dealt with by going in and talking to the administration.

Hell, if you choose to go public with it, I think that should absolve the school from any requirement of confidentiality.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

I'd like it noted that I think the parents in the real case here are total scumbags for going to the media. It's a petty way to deal with an issue that should be dealt with by going in and talking to the administration.

Hell, if you choose to go public with it, I think that should absolve the school from any requirement of confidentiality.

I agree. Apparently, there's a second kid involved whose parents didn't go to the media.

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by AllyOops!

[font="Georgia"]

Also, a main point- my Dad did not insist on the guns until a prowler was found on our property. He wanted to make sure that I was protected. I don't feel the need to have one. However, does it make me feel a bit safer knowing it's there? I'd be lying if I said "no".

I, too, grew up with guns, but this is a reason to get an alarm system (or steal someone else's sign), not a gun. I find it odd that in this thread with all this pro-gun criticism of fear, fear, fear and the assumption that all adverse risk of a random Columbine situation must be eliminated, that there's no recognition that the pro-gun mentality is to a large extent about fear, fear, fear and the willingness to declare the pernicious societal consequences of gun worship acceptable and justified by the desire of each individual to protect himself from statistically unlikely random violence.

Now, I recognize that an alarm system is just a way to call in the folks with the guns and that the police only represent a delegation of power that we would be justified in exercising ourselves. Still, somewhere along the line, and perhaps only at the borders of where this issue is debated, gun ownership got unhealthily fetishized from the sad recognition of the need for self-protection to a worship of killing power.

Originally Posted by AllyOops!

[font="Georgia"]Oddly, I also feel unsafe at times knowing it's there.

Are you prepared to use it before it's taken from you and used against you? I saw this video where a fellow robbed a convenience store with a shotgun and set the shotgun down on the counter while he bagged the money that the clerk gave him. The clerk took the shotgun and pointed it at the guy. The guy ran out of the store. Ten seconds later, he came back, hopped the counter and started struggling for the shotgun before deciding to leave again. I guess he thought--to the extent he did think--that the clerk did not seem like the type to shoot him.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I don't see this as an act of suppression. I see it as a lesson of appropriateness in a period of time post-Columbine. Your friend's comment (bringing a gun in to kill a teacher) may not have been taken seriously at all back then, nowdays it would be. A kid saying that stuff now would be seen as a danger to those around her.

It was taken seriously and as I understood it, her actual-threat-to-a-teacher's-life got her much more punishment than I got. In fact, I believe we were both treated with punishments equal to what we actually did, shock of shocks, since we both had actual threats involved. Yes, it wasn't the same.

Originally Posted by GC

It's a different time from when we were in school. There weren't huge shooting sprees in schools when I was a kid. Now there are.

There's the heart of it, right there. I personally don't think that changing our fear level actually prevents anything. I personally think that measures like these are just a lot of posturing, much like supposed bag searches that don't do a thorough job. It's all icing on a rotten cake.

I don't think anything has changed. I feel the same way in a post-Columbine world as I do in a post-9/11 world - that others have used these tragedies to steal freedoms. That the measures taken don't protect or help anybody. That we are feeding on our own fears and are making things worse. That the terrorists and the Columbine kids did achieve something - they made America into a land of quivering cowards who feel better when people in authority overstep their bounds.

And, to answer your question, unless it's stipulated in the homework itself, it's never okay to turn in homework with doodles on it. At least that's the way it was in my school. You'd get your paper handed back to you and you'd have to re-write the entire thing.

Yeech. All your teachers were like that? You went to public school? When I think of all the art I saw on other people's papers...

Anytime there's an occurrance that is threatening or can be miscontrued as a threat, that's when it's okay for the school to address it. There are varying degrees of penalty, but there needs to be some sort of sense of accountability for someone's actions. If there isn't, then it gives the message that it's okay to continue that behavior.

Again, you're sticking to general concepts, and I want to know where the cutoff is. If I doodle something on my TrapperKeeper, and someone overreacts to it, is that ok for the school to interfere? I've mentioned many different things....knives, scissors....how about an iron maiden, or a cowboy brandishing a pistol? Can you, GC, you personally, draw a line as to what is permissible and what is a threat, or is that at the mercy of whatever fear-ridden shmuck decides is a threat to them? Is it ever ok to say to that shmuck, "You're being a shmuck, just calm the fvck down, it's a goddamned doodle"?

If you cannot draw an objective line, you cannot enforce it, and if you cannot enforce it, it must be thrown out as subjective posturing BS, in my humble opinion.

However, I'd like to restate that if a child seemingly has actual issues, they need counseling.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by The Lot

You must spread some Mojo around before giving it to Cadaverous Pallor again.

doesn't the mojo system ever 'reset?' I haven't mojoed CP in, like, forever ... but she deserves this public mojo very much, so all's good.

[Gemini Cricket]

CP ~ I went to a private school. Nuns and priests. And yes, they were all like that. I got hit if we did stuff wrong...

How can you possibly say that that nothing has changed from then and now? Nothing Columbine-esque happened when I was in school. Kids weren't packing when I was in school. Maybe the odd bee bee gun or slingshot but not real guns.

You keep bringing up examples and I keep telling you that anything inappropriate that gets turned in to a teacher is fair game. I'm handing this paper to you and it has a gun on it. That's a threat in my book. Especially when it isn't in context with what was written. ie. An illustration of a gun in a creative writing story.

I think we do live in a society of fear. We have this administration to thank for that. But like you said it's the half-assed nature of it that's wrong. Hastily checked bags, extra security one day then it's gone the next... I'd rather people be consistent. At times, I feel it's justified, sometimes I don't. In this case, I'd rather them err in the name of safety. I don't feel that in every case, but in this case I do.

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I think we do live in a society of fear. We have this administration to thank for that.

No, we have ourselves to thank for that. The potential existed long before hanging chads were a part of the national vernacular.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

No, we have ourselves to thank for that. The potential existed long before hanging chads were a part of the national vernacular.

Of course it did. But this administration exploited it.