A friend of mine in Georgia has a son who’s a junior at a school whose principal announced that on the last day of class this year the kids can bring water guns to school. There are a few rules (basically no damage to school property) but otherwise they’re allowed to shoot each other and ‘armed’ faculty members. They can’t bring any water guns that look like a real weapon, though I don’t think there even is such a thing available for sale anymore.
Many parents are irate. Many think it’s fun. What do you think?
Under those circumstances (only on the last day of school, nothing that looks like a real weapon), I don’t see any problem. Nothing ever actually gets accomplished on the last day of school, anyway, and it sounds like a good way to let off steam.
This would have been the best last day of school ever. One year, they allowed water guns during my school’s “Park Party Day”, when the whole school (7-12) went to the city park for games and stuff, but the park building inexplicably hadn’t had its water turned on for the spring yet, so they didn’t last long.
A whole high school full of wild last day of school kids, and now they’ve all got water guns. Right, that’ll be all friendly and fun-filled for about thirty seconds. Is this a first year principal by any chance? And do let us know how it goes. LOL.
I don’t really get the outrage either. There’s some complaint that it will give bullies a great chance to gang up, but unlike most times the bullied will have a chance to fire back. I can see the janitor(s) being pissy about it having validity but I just don’t see the “Columbine” references outrage.
Unsanctioned water guns were the last-day tradition at the junior high and high school near my teenage fast-food job, along with shaving cream fights. This was when Super Soakers were first released. The school always tried to crack down, and the kids would run rampant and go all over the neighborhood; after a few hours, the revelry would degenerate into mischievousness; vandalizing cars and buildings, going after non-students, etc. I really disliked that day (I worked there for several years, so I had to deal with the celebration multiple times), since the event was unsanctioned and the kids would swarm our parking lot and nail customers who had no clue what was going on, run around and risk getting hit by cars (or angry people), etc. We had to go out and break up fights, keep things from escalating into rocks/baseball bats, etc.
By sanctioning and making “official” something like this, it sounds like the principal/school is being proactive and responsible in dealing with something that’s probably already occurring in that district, reining in the activity and “destruction” into a supervised and controlled environment, and removing the need to defy authority and perhaps go overboard. I just hope their computer labs and such are locked during the watergun fights!
I actually tried to get a Water War Day started at my high school: weekend, voluntary (nobody had to come), balloons allowed, etc., but admin wouldn’t allow it due to liability issues (this was in 1984 before there was as much talk of that as now) and because they didn’t trust students to clean up any mess (probably valid).
They’re still kids. Why can’t we let them be kids once in a while? Let them have a wild day. All too soon they’re going to be adults where there are never water gun days. And like Student Driver says, there’s going to be insanity anyway - why not divert it into an event?
This idea makes a mockery of the school’s attempt to make education a burdensome task, intended to destroy all vestiges of creativity, and turn children into programmed zombies who will serve the needs of the academic elite. The last day of school should be spent with intensive testing and criticism of the children’s lack of abilty to remember the dates of obscure events and their obvious inadequacies in choosing clothes and music. And finally, it is extrordinarily disrespectful to teachers to have students squirt teachers with water when the teachers are not allowed to physically assault the children in order to maintain their robotic acquiescence to lesson plans.
I have no problem with the idea…sounds fun. And if I were a faculty member, I’d show up with the biggest, baddest water gun I could find. One of those kind with the backpack water tanks and a way to pressurize the gun for more power…
In elementary school I once brought a toy gun, that looked not really real, but at a quick glance perhaps. Anyway the teacher and principal told me that I can’t bring that toy to school. I asked why, they were stumped.
Sampiro, is there a way for non-interested kids to opt out? That’s the only thing I’d be concerned with. Under normal circumstances you can leave the water pistol fight when you’ve had enough - being locked into one for 4 hours when you’d rather not seems a bit much.
In my college fraternity, the last day of finals was the traditional “light firecrackers with cigars and throw them at people Day”.
I’m thinking that the first kid of an irate parent who slips and hurts his head on the water from a water gun fight is going to create a legal liability for the school. I wish it weren’t so, but I think this is amazingly stupid from a liability standpoint.