Student Points Finger Like Gun, Gets Suspended Under Zero Tolerance Rules
from the zero-intelligence dept
If one were looking to find a singular, widespread example of the American people's abdication of common sense, the best of the available examples would have to be zero tolerance policies in schools. Think about it for a moment. Here we have a population consisting entirely of incomplete members of society, those that are still undergoing the learning and growth required to become fully functional members of our union. To treat that still-learning population with any measure of "zero tolerance" is antithetical in the extreme. These are the very people you would expect to make mistakes, to lack a full understanding of their surroundings and situations. They're the people in our culture most in need of tolerant learning opportunities, rather than the iron fist of bullshit justice.
Take the story reader kenichi tanaka writes us about, in which a youngster making the universal gun-symbol with one hand has ended up suspended from school. Keep in mind that Nathan Entingh is ten years old, was playing around with one of his friends, and that roughly every kid on the planet everywhere has done this exact same damned thing.
"He was pointing it at a friend's head and he said 'boom.' The kid didn't see it. No other kids saw it. But the teacher saw it," he said. "It wasn't threatening. It wasn't hostile. It was a 10-year-old kid playing."A level 2 look alike firearm? What the sweet hell does that mean? I'm just saying, I can make up nonsense levels about stuff, too, such as the policy on display here is a level 30 kind of stupid, with no save rolls for intelligence.
The next morning Paul Entingh escorted his son Nathan to the principal's office, where they met with Devonshire Alternative Elementary School Principal Patricia Price.
"She said if it happened again the suspension would be longer, if not permanent," said Entingh, who also received a letter explaining the reason for Nathan's suspension as a "level 2 look alike firearm."
Look, I think the American people have been pretty patient with this kind of BS, but enough is enough. To take a common pantomime like this and use it to suspend a confused ten year old for three days from his place of education doesn't make a lick of sense. Worse, what could have been a learning moment about why we might not want to see kids doing that kind of thing in school was instead turned into a learning moment about the injustice of zero tolerance laws. Well done all around, Ohio educational system!
When asked what has Nathan learned from this incident, Entingh paused, then scoffed: "He's learned never to make his fingers like a gun a school again. I don't know if you consider that a life lesson."In other words, no reason or context was taught, only uninformed respect for the power of authority. Yup, sounds about right.
Filed Under: devonshire alternative elementary, school, zero tolerance
