You just created an imaginary scenario to allow you to blame the child. Please promise me that you won’t breed.

A fully sharpened pencil is more dangerous than the little razor blade in a sharpener. Why didn’t they suspend every single child with a pencil that was ‘too sharp for the safety of other children?’

…That’s right. The teacher is *never* wrong, especially when he/she/it *IS* clearly wrong. Can’t have their authority undermined, can we? Otherwise we might find out all their other flaws, like not knowing half of what their lesson plans mean, or having that bottle of MD 20/20 in their top drawer underneat the grade book.

[dripping_sarcasm_mode=OFF]

Second that. Was just thinking about jumping the Godwin shark as well.

This is what should have been said. The kid knows he screwed up. The worst part is that the teacher would have been fired if she had done this. [GWBush voice]Sometimes you’ve got to let the generals in the field make the decisions and not Monday morning quarterback them.[/GWBush voice]

Now this kid has got a rap sheet, which is totally going in his permanent file. And we all know there’s nothing worse than the permanent file.

But it is in fact a result of a “zero-tolerance weapons policy” such as are so beloved by hoplophobes the world over.

If more people knew about this kind of outrage and actually did something about it, I think it has a chance of getting better. I think that most people who actually do know about things like this don’t do anything for a number of reasons. First of all, just not caring. Thinking it’s just an isolated incident, there are other things more important, it can still stop an actual threat… Then there are the people who fear what a change may do: cause reprisals against them or their children, have an incident that ‘may’ have been stopped by a policy like this happen…
Thirdly…is the same as the first…not caring. This is a little blip on the radar. Yes, it’s stupid and demeaning to the child (and our intelligence). Besides, tomorrow there will be something else that will outrage us, and we’ll do the same thing. That being nothing.

This whole thing just is way too big. Why suspend a students who brought something which could be considered a “weapon” with no obvious intent to use it for anything other than a mundane task?

Gah.
I don’t get the idiocy of a lot of the adults out there.
[/Junior in high school]

That Teacher should get a medal for successfully disarming a Weaponized 4th grader!

God Bless America!

What about the homicidal kid who keeps his sharpener intact, knowing with a turn of the screw he can do away with his love-rival in a gory sharpener assault? Swiftly to the jugular. Or with a compass. Aren’t there 1,000 ways to use a ruler to incapacitate? How about poking out an eye?

Poor kid is right. Napalm the buttnut who pursued this, and all their evil henchpeople who bothered to type it up.

Welcome to the 21st century – with these treatments, the next generation can be relied on to be less capable than the last.

Look how far we have come. 50 years ago kids could bring rifles to many a rural school and it was no big whoop, now the police are called for a pencil sharpener.

You have a bright future as people with your perspicacity are in high demand.

No, wait. That guy was a troll. Screw’im.

We now return you to your reguarly scheduled thread on a kid getting abused by corrupt and inept teachers for using a broken pencil sharpener to sharpen a pencil, already in progress….

I commend the kid for his frugality. He was using that pencil till he couldn’t anymore, and using that sharpener’s blade even though the plastic was gone.

FOR THE LOVE OF BENJI, WHAT A FUCKING WASTE OF TIME AND RESOURCES!!!!

Think?

… What nobody seems to realize is that in the aggregate, humiliating the little boy was on that list too. Capital S Suspect.

Who did any thinking?

No. Adults have been trained that the answer to a broken item is not to fix it, or use it as it is, but to *buy a new one*. Maybe even a fancier one. Maybe Steve Jobs has announced the iSharpener and that’s what they’ll buy because regular sharpeners are no longer cool.

This is not a guarantee.

There are likely high schools that operate differently than the ones in my experience, but mine had pretty intense populations.

Zero Tolerance violates many of the underlying principles of our legal system:

- It presumes guilt.
- It strips intent out of the equation.
- There’s no requirement to demonstrate damages.

It’s awfully close to thoughtcrime.

One thing is sure: if I involved police here for this kind of incident, I’d probably be arrested for contempt.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Take the naked blade from the kid so he doesn’t cut his damn fingers off, but suspension was not appropriate and bringing in the cops was lunacy.

Parents should learn to tell school districts to go fuck themselves.

Seriously, is it that radical an idea to have a rule for kids in school that says “x is not allowed” and expect it to be followed? Do you not think a school should be able to protect itself from potential negligence lawsuits by having a formal process to enforce safety rules and following it?