Why? Just because some ancient book of myths says not to “take the Lord’s name in vain”? If so, then why should everyone have to follow rules only believed in by the fanatics who value that ancient book of myths?
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Man, I wouldn’t last at that school. A punctuated “Jesus Christ!” is one of my favorite exclamations.
What’s kinda funny, is my elementary school was in a small, rural town of <4000 people. We had some pretty religious teachers. I remember that in 3rd Grade Mrs. Nordling wouldn’t give out A+s (my dopamine at the time) because “only Jesus was perfect”. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember anyone getting in trouble for “Jesus Christ”. Maybe we didn’t say it as much back then. I know a handful of times kids got in trouble for cussing on the playground though.
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Proselytization should not be allowed in public institutions. What’s next? Kids shouting Allahu Akbar? Oh My Buddha? Nandi droppings? Oy vey???
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There’s still limits.
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So it is. Both times from Martin Silenas. Here’s one.
“The Consul reached into his traveling bag and took out a strange device, larger than a comlog, oddly ornamented, and fronted with a liquid crystal diskey like something out of a history holo. “Secret fatline transmitter?” Brawne Lamia asked dryly. The Consul’s smile showed no humor. “It’s an ancient comlog. It came out during the Hegira.” He removed a standard micro-disk from a pouch on his belt and inserted it. “Like Father Hoyt, I have someone else’s tale to tell before you can understand my own.”
“Christ on a stick,” sneered Martin Silenus, “am I the only one who can tell a straightforward story in this fucking herd? How long do I have to…” The Consul’s movement surprised even himself. He rose, spun, caught the smaller man by the cape and shirtfront, slammed him against the wall, draped him over a packing crate with a knee in Silenus’s belly and a forearm against his throat, and hissed, “One more word from you, poet, and I’ll kill you.” Silenus began to struggle but a tightening on his windpipe and a glance at the Consul’s eyes made him cease. His face was very white.”
— Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, Book 1) by Dan Simmons
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Apparently, you didn’t. Please stop trying to gaslight us:
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I’m surprised no one has said it yet… Christ. What an asshole.
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Umm… wut? Why would you imagine using “Jesus Christ!” as an expletive would matter one way or another among my friends or family? That’s the point everyone here is trying to make. It doesn’t mean shit to anyone who is not a Bible thumper, your own protestations notwithstanding. Go back to your parenthetical “perhaps incorrectly.” Read that again. Think about it. Embrace it.
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Now that’s just filthy talk!
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Almost a Dead Milkmen reference:
Anyway, 10:30, the other night, I go out in my yard, and there’s the Wurster kid, looking up in the tree.
I say, “What are You looking for?”
He says “I’m looking for my burrow owl.”
I say, “Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick. Everybody knows
the burrow owl lives. In a hole. In the ground. Why the hell do you think they call it a burrow owl, anyway?”
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Username checks out 
[ETA: day late and a dollar short, story of my life]
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PEBKAC fucks, even
(The greatest swear of the 21st century thus far 
)
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No, it cannot–see the first commandment.
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I’ve read a couple of stories about this. It seems unless I’m missing something, it’s not so much “school punished child for blasphemy” as it is “school sends note to mom suggesting she talk with her child about language, mom calls Fox affiliate in a rage saying school punished child for saying the name of our savior because school is trying to eliminate God.” It feels like the first days of the War on Christmas all over again.
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The school overreacted and that overreaction snowballed; IMO, there was no need to send a note home to the parents in the first place.
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That’s a disciplinary action that goes in the child’s record. Such records are used to escalate subsequent punishments and even play into the school-to-prison pipeline, as they can be introduced as evidence in juvenille criminal proceedings.
So no, “sending a note home” is not a trivial thing that’s been blown out of proportion.
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Apparently there’s some consensus that “Jesus Christ” is an ok thing to exclaim and should not be considered problematic. And then I see some people who seem to be legitimately like “the school is outlawing Jesus!” IDK… This story is really confusing.
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Did you click thru to the article? That wasn’t a note sent home. It was a formal displinary write up. As @DukeTrout and others have explained, this is a document that will remain in the kid’s file. Just the fact he has a write-up means any discipline can be escalated.
A note home would have either been an actual little note on the daily sheet teachers use regularly at that age or an email or text thru an app like dojo. This is what a normal teacher would do for a normal first-time issue involving unacceptable-for-school language like fuck or other real cusswords. Much less something as petty as saying Jesus Christ when he dropped the Legos.
Instead, this teacher decided to spin the wheels of the administration level discipline process over something that isn’t even a cuss word. No prior verbal warning, no actual note home (which would be normal for a minor classroom infraction), no redirection appropriate to that age.
I too wonder about the race of the child. This stinks of the kind of discriminatory discipline meted out to children of color. It is way overboard punishment for something that should have been a simple and gentle correction, even if the teacher was mortally offended by the kid using JC as a swear.
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I’ve read a couple of news articles. I have no opinion on whether the note is an overreaction or not and I’ll leave others to debate that as much as they like.
The piece I’d not seen mentioned before though is that this seems to be the mom turning it into a war on Christianity commentary. Regardless of how people feel about the propriety of the school’s reaction, I think most can agree this was not an attempt to ban kids from expressing a religious thought as mom seems to be suggesting. For what it is worth, mom appears to be white.
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