Occasionally you hear or see news articles about various incidents where a young kid drew a picture in art class or during some free time, of a character using knife or gun or some similar “violent” scenario, and the kid is suspended or expelled and/or may be referred for a psychiatric evaluation.
In recalling my youth and grade school in the mid to late 60’s most of the boys in the class would have been sent for mental evaluation or booted out in these situations. We would often compete against each other to see how realistic and gory we could make a particular scene, and the most talented at this were well respected.
In this context my questions are this.
1: Between the 60’s and today, how did some teachers some to acquire the notion that these normal boyhood inclinations in fantasy drawing are now considered evidence of a disturbed mind? Who is teaching them to be on the lookout for this, and act on it?
2: Why isn’t some academic authority with common sense stopping this nonsense? Is “zero tolerance” really supposed to apply to drawings of things as well as the things themselves?
3: Why aren’t other teachers stopping this nonsense through peer pressure. Surely they are not all hyper sensitive loons? Surely there are some mothers and fathers of boys in the teacher population that would know this is nuts.