What could be more perfect than the tale of the Maryland 7 year old suspended from school for nibbling his breakfast pastry into the form of a gun? This: the school is now offering counseling to any students traumatized by the incident. [Lowering the Bar]
26 Comments
Why just offer? They should mandate it! Those kids won’t realize they’ve been traumatized until a good group of psychologists get their hands on them.
Hello, Mr. Psychologist? Yes, I’ve been traumatized by the random and unjustified suspension of my friend. Whenever I look at a pastry now, I’m terrified to bite into it for fear that someone will think that whatever shape is left is worth expelling me…
Well, I WOULD recommend high dose pharmaceutical intervention…. for the teacher.
Gun out of a pastry. Reminds me of an old prison movie where they make a gun out of a bar of soap to use it in a breakout. After reading this latest article, sounds exactly what the kid was trying to do — breakout of prison.
I can’t imagine a child needing counseling for this, I agree. Probably no one seeks the counseling and the world moves on. Can’t we just chalk this in the “harmless” file?
The author of this post says the parents of the kids who are traumatized but this have really screwed up. Let me tell you something about the area where this school is: not so good. So, yeah, there may be some bad parents there. Let’s keep an eye on the really screwed up kids even with the bad parents.
I believe you’re missing the point of this post, Ron: it’s not the kids. It’s not the parents. It’s the people running the school. Do you think it’s possible that the people running the school might have overreacted an eentsy-weentsy bit? Or is this within what you envision as the normal parameters of running a school?
Bob
This is how you do gun control. Spend the first 18 years of child’s life relentlessly scaring, demonizing, and punishing them. No gesture or thought is to0 mundane. Each Pop Tart gun requires to full weight of authority to come crashing down. Keep that up and the next generation will never pick up a gun for fun or defense.
Thank God for Hollywood undermining this message constantly with cool heroes reigning down justice one bullet at a time.
“Take the Money and Run”, Woody Allen carves a gun out of soap, a la John Dillinger, but it happens to be raining. Hilarity ensues.
Come on now! This was a valuable learning experience!!
The other kids learned that authority figures are nuts and can be ignored, unless they’ve targeted you, in which case, the Man is going to take you down no matter what. Random acts of author-o-tay = fact of life.
Even if this isn’t the all-encompassing lesson it might be, it surely confirms what they’re seeing on the street.
I think the scariest part of this (and many others like it) is that these school officials are unable to use rational thought on the difference between an actual danger and a pastry with a couple of bites missing, and yet have been entrusted with the job of educating children. Stupid and irresponsible overreaction aren’t strong enough words.
I love that the schools won’t discuss it due to “privacy issues” when the parents and children in these cases are all over the news. So whose “privacy” are they protecting? All part of them protecting each other.
Shtetl G has a very good point.
What about the teachers? Weren’t they traumatized, too? Must they suffer their private agonies in silence?
Seriously, if it’s really a traumatic event….
Lets title this one correctly. It’s not “traumatized by pastry” it should read “traumatized by the antics of the adults about the pastry”,
We just keep pushing the silliness farther and farther. It’s true. We don’t want students bringing weapons to school or toys other things that look like or reasonably like weapons. There is no need to justify that policy. But a pastry made to look vaguely weapon like? *sigh*
It reminds me of the stories where a diabetic child is suspended because he brought sugar pills to school. Are our educators so afraid of any kind of liability that they are unwilling to make a common sense judgment call?
Jim,
“Well, I WOULD recommend high dose pharmaceutical intervention…. for the teacher.”
For the overwrought teacher who got the student suspended, I would recommend a high velocity intervention with a clue x 4 upside the head.
“I didn’t get to eat all my breakfast …”
First they came for the pastry and I said nothing because I eat yogurt and granola for breakfast ….
Maybe we should mandate food that can’t be weaponized?
Bob, I tried to make clear about it is an overreaction. So we agree on that.
Can you now turn to the overreaction of these comments? (Not to mention the unbelievably weak attempts a humor.)
Never tried to eat with three toddlers armed with spoons and cream o’ wheat, have you, Scott?
Bob
Two phrases epitomizing the school’s silliness stand out in this discussion: “Weaponized food” and “It’s a pastry”.
Thank God they disarmed him before he was able to shoot the Pillsbury Doughboy!
“Maybe we should mandate food that can’t be weaponized?”
You’ll have to pry my “40 cloves of garlic chicken” from my cold, dead fingers first.
/I don’t care if the Humor Police laugh or not.
Use food to make an “inappropriate gesture”? Isn’t that one of the few uses for cafeteria food? It certainly isn’t for any internal use.
ras,
“You’ll have to pry my “40 cloves of garlic chicken” from my cold, dead fingers first.”
If you actually eat that, I don’t think prying it from your gold dead fingers would be terribly difficult. 🙂
Thread winner (on-topic): #2
Thread winner (indirectly-inspired): #21 (although I must say that I never had an issue with school cafeteria food–the high school had a good one and none of my elementaries had one at all. Granted, these were private schools…)
“/I don’t care if the Humor Police laugh or not.”
The battle cry of the unfunny.
I’m not a comedy cop by any stretch. I’m just saying that when you value coming across as funny in a “let me make a dumb crack that takes this to an illogical extreme”, the result isn’t always so great. I’m just pointing this out. Please, by all means, carry on as you were.
[…] Maryland state senator J.B. Jennings introduces bill restraining school discipline of students who simulate “guns” by way of pointing fingers, nibbling breakfast pastries into shapes, etc. [Easton Star-Democrat, Joanne Jacobs, earlier] […]