A "zero tolerance" head scratcher

[Racket_Man]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/offbea...ool/ar-AA8PoAN

Story: a 9 YO had just seen the last Hobbit movie and comes to school claiming he had "the one ring to rule them all" and can disappear or make a classmate disappear. Suspension ensues because boy with the ring "may have caused emotional damage " to the victum.

Also of note: this is his 3d suspension

#1 was calling a classmate (who I assume is Negro) Black
#2.classe was studying the Solar System and he brings in the Big Book Of Knowledge. said book had an illustration of a pregnant woman on one of the pages so the principle took offence
(here is the Amazon page for that book and yes some of the reviews do contain reference to the above news story": http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Knowl.../dp/0752592173

[HYHYBT]

Nothing about this makes any sense.

[mjr]

A prime example where "Zero Tolerance" means "Zero Thinking" on the part of the school and it's administration.

Calling another kid "black" (especially if the kid is), is in no way a suspend-able offense, at least in my book. What are you supposed to call the kid (other than his name)?

Re: The Big Book of Knowledge. I think I actually had one of these when I was a kid. It's not like it shows the woman getting pregnant (if you know what I mean). Worst case here is the teacher keeps it at her desk until the end of the day, and sends it home. Maybe email the parents and say something like, "Please ask Timmy not to bring additional materials to class unless requested."

Re: "The One Ring" -- that's EXTREMELY ludicrous.

[bara]

Im thinking Texas...(clicks link)... was not disappointed.

[anakhouri]

I'm so glad we could get our son into a private school. He'd be expelled within a week thanks to this zero tolerance nonsense; one day he told his teacher that his baby brother drinks milk from my nipples, he throws Koopa Troopa shells at his friends during recess and draws pictures of monsters every day.

[Andara Bledin]

I don't know if there's an xkcd for this... but there is a Penny Arcade...

[MournBlade]

The stupid hurts my brain.

[TheHuckster]

If this is what gets you suspended at this school, I have to wonder how many other students have gotten suspended for very innocuous and trivial events.

Is it at all possible this is just another case of an overzealous news story finding something out of nothing? I mean, maybe the kid was being overwhelmingly harrassing of the other classmate about the ring, to the point the kid was being bullied with it?

Is it possible the kid who he called black did so in a very demeaning and derogatory manner that should have instituted discipline?

Is it possible when the kid brought the book he pointed at the pregnant illustration and then described in detail what made her pregnant?

It's not impossible that the administration at this school are batshit crazy, but I can't rule out the possibility that the news is just trying to get a story out without giving us more details.

[fireheart17]

I'm so glad we could get our son into a private school. He'd be expelled within a week thanks to this zero tolerance nonsense; one day he told his teacher that his baby brother drinks milk from my nipples, he throws Koopa Troopa shells at his friends during recess and draws pictures of monsters every day.

I work in a public school (Aussie here) and your kid would be the "interesting" ones. I might've asked him about it and I might've asked you about it, but it would be more of a "where did he pick it up from" type thing.

I might have used the nipple thing to explain how mothers feed their babies at first, with a slight focus on how animals feed their young. (Ie cows produce live milk, but chickens don't)

Eta: from the sounds of it, Malcolm sounds like he's doing ok.

[wolfie]

Ie cows produce live milk, but chickens don't

Then how do you explain the eggnog that appears in the dairy case at my local supermarket before Christmas every year? Since this is Canada, the label is required to be bilingual, and the French side says "lait de poule" - literally, "chicken milk"

[Titi]

I am calling BS on this. When my son got suspended (the entire he threatened to kill himself and my house was searched because my husband is in military so we MUST have guns in the house), I was given paperwork that told me why and how long (a week and he had to get psych evaluation from the county psych ward at my expense.).

The guy seems to be telling what his child tells him. He is not showing the paperwork that has to come with a suspension. Even a detention has paperwork to show the parents some are so stupid that they end up on the internet. I think there are even sites for them. Why is this parent not parading around the paperwork? Does it even exist? Or is his 9 YEAR OLD such a special snowflake who can never tell lies to his parents?

[Estil]

Oh geez...zero tolerance has done zero good. If anything all it does is end up hurting/ruining a lot of innocent people. Here's a doozy for ya...how about the guy who had the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song as his ringtone and a school administrator misheard a line as "chilling out maxing relaxin' or coolin' or shootin' some people outside of the school..." and well, overreacted. :P

Hint: the correct lyric is "shootin' some b-ball outside of the school.

[s_stabeler]

I'd say zero tolerance isn't inherently bad, but it's a) used far too aggressively and b) doesn't have enough flexibility to deal with minor incidents.

After all, the main issue with zero tolerance si that people are getting threatened with suspension or expulsion for minor crap that can safely be ignored. On the other hand, how often are issues like bullying ignored? a zero tolerance policy might actually do some good in dealing with bullying. (obviously, while training teachers to recognize the difference between friendly teasing and actual bullying)

[TheHuckster]

I'd say zero tolerance isn't inherently bad, but it's a) used far too aggressively and b) doesn't have enough flexibility to deal with minor incidents.

Well, those two things are pretty much what zero-tolerance is defined as.

a zero tolerance policy might actually do some good in dealing with bullying. (obviously, while training teachers to recognize the difference between friendly teasing and actual bullying)

And here's the problem. No matter how you train teachers, there will always be a difference of opinion and grey areas. Perhaps what one student did to another was technically bullying, but was a relatively minor offence. It requires some action or discipline to correct the behavior (possibly even merely a stern talking to). However, thanks to zero-tolerance, the student's punishment is the same as if they had done something absolutely heinous.

Schools are institutions for learning, and one of them are social skills. There are different flavors and circumstances behind bullying. Some act out because of family problems which need to be corrected in one way. Others act out either because they're going through a phase in their life where they feel like they need to be an alpha, or perhaps they simply have a poor attitude, which could be corrected via a different approach. Some simply don't know any better (e.g. borrowing from a current topic, one uses the "R-word" not knowing just how bad that word is; they simply use it because they heard their brother use it or some such; ergo a stern talking to should suffice).

I'm talking mainly about elementary school and middle school. By the time high school comes students should absolutely know better, but there should still be a curve as to how horrible a bullying incident was, and what the just punishment is for it.

[Rageaholic]

Oh geez...zero tolerance has done zero good. If anything all it does is end up hurting/ruining a lot of innocent people. Here's a doozy for ya...how about the guy who had the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song as his ringtone and a school administrator misheard a line as "chilling out maxing relaxin' or coolin' or shootin' some people outside of the school..." and well, overreacted. :P

Hint: the correct lyric is "shootin' some b-ball outside of the school.

What I find harder to believe is that someone could not know the lyrics to the Fresh Prince theme.