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Post by Caitshidhe on Dec 21, 2011 16:57:04 GMT -5
Obviously all sides of this story aren't out so it's hard to make a good call, but the gist is this: A ten-year-old Smyrna, Tennessee boy is punished in school for allegedly waving a slice of pizza around that apparently resembled a gun. His punishment is to have lunch separated from the rest of the students at the 'silent table' with other children who are in trouble for the rest of the semester, which is only six days. He also had to spend time with the school's resource teacher learning about the importance of gun safety. The boy's mother says the discipline is way overboard and that they don't even have a gun in the house. I understand completely that guns are not something about which we should joke. Having said that... ...really? Over a piece of pizza? The school says that he threatened other students, but even so. What did he say or do that was threatening? Or was it just the gun-shaped-piece-of-pizza? I'm all for schools effectively and consistently disciplining kids when they break big rules, but what was the thinking behind this? The kid isn't going to shoot up the entire building with a piece of pizza--it all just sounds like a huge overreaction to me. |
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Post by RavynousHunter on Dec 21, 2011 17:46:50 GMT -5
Honestly, I'm not surprised. If you can get nearly fucking suspended for trying (and failing) to throw an orange into a garbage bin because the whole fucking area is crowded, then...yeah. Drawing stick figure wars is disturbing to these prancing ninnies. A kid screwing around with a gun-shaped bit of pizza is the same level as them playing Cops and Robbers (or whatever your local variant may be) with their friends and vaguely gun-shaped sticks.
I think these sissified pricks need a good, old-fashioned beating with the ever-lovely Perspective Mace.
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Post by Old Viking on Dec 21, 2011 17:53:41 GMT -5
The ones to worry about have guns that look like pizza slices.
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Post by ironbite on Dec 21, 2011 18:00:45 GMT -5
....WHAT WAS HE GOING TO DO!? GET GREECE OVER EVERYBODY!?
Ironbite-jesus fuck people....calm the fuck down.
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Post by brendanrizzo on Dec 21, 2011 18:23:56 GMT -5
I'm trying to figure out how you can have a slice of pizza that looks like a gun...
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Post by RavynousHunter on Dec 21, 2011 18:24:32 GMT -5
Chomp it down until it does?
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Post by anti-nonsense on Dec 21, 2011 18:25:47 GMT -5
the person with the pziza cutter failed at pizza cutters?
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Post by ironbite on Dec 21, 2011 18:29:36 GMT -5
Said in the article he ate it and it became the shape of a gun. I'm assuming he had one of those square pieces of pizza that schools use.
Ironbite-but again...this is so fucking stupid.
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Post by Rat Of Steel on Dec 21, 2011 19:45:25 GMT -5
....WHAT WAS HE GOING TO DO!? GET GREECE OVER EVERYBODY!? No, but if we stuffed all those kids into a 747, we could get everybody over Greece. ;D |
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Post by clockworkgirl21 on Dec 21, 2011 19:58:06 GMT -5
"Nicholas, stop waving your pizza around and eat it. If you keep disrupting lunch, I'm going to have to keep you in at recess."
Right there is the common sense action no one had.
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Post by itachirumon on Dec 21, 2011 20:47:50 GMT -5
"Nicholas, stop waving your pizza around and eat it. If you keep disrupting lunch, I'm going to have to keep you in at recess." Right there is the common sense action no one had. Because pretty much every elementary school, everywhere, is universally stupid. With every single admin having the intellect of, or below, the children they're watching over. Seems to be a common thing at all levels. |
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Post by Mlle Antéchrist on Dec 21, 2011 20:57:36 GMT -5
So a kid waving around his pizza results in stern punishment, yet endlessly bullying someone to the point where they're suicidal barely gets a slap on the wrist. Christ, zero tolerance is so backward.
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Post by Caitshidhe on Dec 21, 2011 21:53:23 GMT -5
Isn't it?? I mean geezaloo, does this school have so little to worry about that it's going to punish kids for waving a vaguely-gun-shaped piece of food around? (Not that a kid genuinely using a toy or imaginary gun to threaten or 'kill' classmates isn't a bad thing--it's just, you gotta know when official action is and isn't appropriate.)
Actually, I'm wondering if this school in reality has a LOT of way more serious problems. I have no studies or numbers or anything, but from my limited experience I can honestly say that schools that hand down severe penalties for minor infractions are only picking on the minor ones because they feel intimidated, helpless, or otherwise at a loss with regard to the major problems. My high school would regularly suspend kids for slightly breaking the Gestapo-like dress code, but did nothing about kids being beat up or bullied or racial intolerance.
Just a thought, really.
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Post by Rat Of Steel on Dec 21, 2011 21:53:39 GMT -5
So a kid waving around his pizza results in stern punishment, yet endlessly bullying someone to the point where they're suicidal barely gets a slap on the wrist. Christ, zero tolerance is so backward. That's because its true purpose has never been to quash bullying. Giving the victim at least as much punishment as the bully when the victim finally fights back is meant to instill the lesson that is the true purpose of modern "anti-bullying" measures: when someone more powerful than you exerts his or her authority over you (deservedly or otherwise), do not protest or offer any measure of resistance, but simply roll over and bare your neck in humble acquiescence.  |
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Post by Sigmaleph on Dec 21, 2011 22:49:11 GMT -5
Y'know what really bothers me? The two-level weasel words. How dubious does a statement have to be to precede it with "some say" in a phrase that already begins with "allegedly"?
(Everyone already covered what a ridiculous overreaction this is, so I focus on irrelevant details)
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