Student suspended for taking razor from kid who was cutting

Currently we select school administrators for their willingness to conform to rules that are well known to harm children.

Are we surprised that these people are at best competent sadists, but more frequently vicious fools?

If you live in a “Zero Tolerance” area, as I do, every day the government forces you to place your children into the care of people who are have been proven to be acting against children’s best interests. The system’s not broken, it is a system that works - to select for evil.

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As far as I can tell, the school was never contacted for comment. At least there isn’t anything in the article except that the hearing date was moved up.

Sure it is: Authority is wielded capriciously, is unforgiving, and can never be trusted.

Sounds like a good lesson to me.

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From the article: http://wavy.com/2014/03/19/student-suspended-for-taking-razor-from-self-harming-classmate/

The school’s own details of the event state Adrionna reported the student had a razor blade. She admitted taking it from the student then throwing the blade away.

I know it sounds crazy so you might feel like you’re missing pieces of the story. But crazy stories like this happen ALL THE TIME in US public schools because of zero tolerance policies.

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They also decided the teachers were incapable of thinking, and instituted policies that forbid teachers from exercising any discretion.

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I disagree. This incident with the slope actually happens incredibly often at my current school. For example, guys who are just messing around will often draw ridiculous pictures on each other’s books and sheets, even though the teachers know full well i would never do that to my own book, I’m still punished. Of course I could straight up snitch on the criminal, but who would want to do that?

So, this story may actually be on the straight and narrow?

Several of the recent “Zero Tolerance” incidents, including this one, seem to indicate that students are being taught very strongly to lie, conceal incriminating evidence, and engage in cover-ups, since no leniency is provided for honestly coming forward to authorities if a student unwittingly ends up in the middle of a troublesome situation. Thus, the kids are getting quite good training for an eventual career as politicians, bankers, or corporate executives.

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BoingBoing and Reason Magazine together again!

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She got what she deserved! This school here is teaching these little rat bastards to keep there mouths shut, so my children won’t worry about stoolies buttin’ into their “business” when it’s time for them to earn their scratch.

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If you make getting beaten up against the rules, then no one will let themselves get beaten up. Brilliant!

In my own private junior high school story, there was a bully who repeatedly picked on me. Finally, one day at the beginning he walked up pointed at me and laughed in my face. I snapped and beat him silly, if only because he was too socked to do anything. We both of course got punished for fighting.

On the bright side, in the subsequent conference with the principal my father went ballistic, saying “If I wanted my son to be picked on I’d send him to a public school. It’s cheaper, and they’d do a better job!” The school declined to ask back both the bully and the principal the next year; I even had the sweet revenge of the bully begging me to put a good word in for him!

Oh I’d say it started before 1999. Back when I was in 7th grade, circa 1997, a friend of mine was a recent transfer from one of the big middle schools to our small little charter school. The straw that broke the camel’s back for her parents (she’d been home schooled prior to going there) was the fact that school called a parent meeting over the fact that she brought her knitting to school (as part of a presentation) and “knitting needles could be used as weapons” (they were the big wooden kind too), and so could be grounds for expulsion (the school was more reasonable in that they weren’t going there, but the fact that they could have, sheesh). That whole story lead to a year-long joke among our group about how “X isn’t allowed at school, because it could be used as a weapon,” with X being everything from students to dry erase pens to shoe laces.

Whatever started this malady, it wasn’t Colombine.

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The only option in those circumstances is to act like a prisoner in a prison: fuck up folks who do that to you where those in authority can’t see or prove it. See how our schools make nice, well-rounded young adults?

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Yup. See my comment above :frowning:

  1. I submit that on some level, this kind of craziness is a somewhat uniquely American variation of “future shock”

  2. I’m glad I finished school before things went totally off the rails

  3. I’m glad I don’t have kids who are subjected to this batshit insanity

Yeah, so? The bit that we got fits reason.com’s anti-nanny-state obsession, and that’s what matters!! Jeez, get on board, why don’tcha? Simple thinking is so much easier!

Yeah, for what, the 138th time?

I meant executive as an institution, i.e. people who enforce given rules. If one of the two are not sane, the result is not sane.

I fail to see your point. Why can’t you draw on your own book?

The school owns the books, and lends them to students each year. Drawing in them is prohibited because they want to keep them in good condition for next year’s students. At least, I am assuming so; that’s how it usually works.

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