If as that child I had some particular thing recently happen, like my uncle was in jail for strangling my aunt, and the adult did that, saw that I cried, and then kept doing it, even after I told him why it upset me so much, I would think it would be reasonable to presume some psychopathology on the part of the adult. I would be a scared kid. Wouldn’t you?
(To jtgain)
I can agree with you if the school administration had framed it in that context. But as the linked article shows, they suspended the kid for “threatening to kill” a classmate and the kid went home and asked his Mom what “Connecticut” was. They took a minor childhood disruption and painted the kid like a serial killer.
They treated the finger pointing above and beyond what continued insubordination (like sticking his tongue out) would have warranted, and did so only out of irrational fear of gun violence. If you could show an out of school suspension for regular childhood taunts like “Anna Banana” or the sticking out of tongues, then I will withdraw my objection to the punishment. But it seems as if they overreacted only because of the gun aspect.
Seriously, the kid is 6 years old. You can’t get a room full of College Seniors to follow rules like that, how can you expect a 1st grader to comply? Do you really believe the child appreciated the “harassing” nature of pointing a finger at another child? Remember, whether he said “pow” is in dispute.
The impression that I get from the last article is that this all evolved over one day. A suspension makes less sense.to me in that case.
You know I teach third grade, right? I certainly expect my third graders to comply, and when I taught second grade, I expected them to comply, and I guarantee I’d expect first graders to comply if that’s what I taught.
I haven’t read that linked article (I’ve read others on the case). If that’s what happened, that strengthens the case for the school, not weakening it. Mere harassment is unacceptable. If the kid in question was making threats to kill another kid, that makes it much less acceptable, not diminishing it to the level of hijinks.
There’s a Margaret Atwood quote I think of about once a day: “Little girls are not cute to one another. They are life-sized.” You might not think it’s reasonable for a six-year-old to be frightened by a threat from another six-year-old, because kids are cute to you.
Another six-year-old lacks the context to understand the threat, however. Kids are life-sized to one another. They know about the rage and hate that can lurk in the hearts of a child. And if they know about a recent school shooting, the harassment might end up being a lot more effective.
What in the world does asking what Connecticut is have to do with whether a kid is breaking the rules? Please let this mean my ignorance of geography enables me to stop paying taxes or obeying speed limits.
Serious overreaction. While he behavior was not good, this could have been remedied with a simple private lecture from a teacher.
(By the way, I got here from Sevencl’s pit thread.)
How do you know this?
That’s the point. It wasn’t resolved through multiple private lectures.
What college students are you talking about? None of the college seniors I teach have any problems comporting themselves appropriately.
Ivy League stealth brag?
Absolutely!
The new link above states that, “The child was reprimanded twice earlier the day of the incident” and implies that there was no history before that. In other words, because a six-year-old failed to change his behaviour over the course of one day (apparently before his parents were even notified and thus before they had a chance to talk to him), he was suspended. That’s absurd!
And, if I’m correct that all this happened over the course of only one day at school, and that he was suspended before his parents even had a chance to speak to him, then the mom was entirely justified in her protest and appeal (and the principal an idiot).
Well, not exactly. It means there was no history of the finger gunning before that day. But nevertheless, still seems like a rapid escalation.
Not at all the impression I get. From the article:
But then later…
That sounds to me as though he’d been counseled repeatedly about the behavior prior to that day, and then again spoken with about the behavior twice on that day. If a school is able to act that quickly in response to harassment–getting a kid to meet with the school counselor on the same day–I’m in awe of their bureaucracy. Without saying anything about my school, I’ll just say I find that kind of alacrity to be unlikely.
This quote, I think, demonstrates a real problem here. The parents and their attorney are free to tell us whatever they’d like. But they’re also free to hide information from us that makes their case look less-than-stellar, and it seems clear they’re exercising that prerogative. The school, meanwhile, can’t offer us specifics. We should understand that the version of the story we’re getting is the one that an attorney has spun to be most positive to the child.
Depends. Would that be an assault weapon?
i must question the likelihood of this. can a normal six-year-old really relate that closely to the horror that happened in another state, with no images or experience to tie it to the event? my impression is that most kids that age would only relate to dangers that are immediate and apparent. more a barking dog and less standing next to a busy street.
it seems to me that it is more likely that it was the teacher who was affected by the child’s actions and, sharing your thoughts, escalated matters over a short period of time.
P.S. all of these of course, is no comfort to Timmy (our imaginary child totally unrelated to the OP) who was bullied since the beginning of the school year - if only the bully has used finger pistols, then the adults would have done something!
Not at all my experience. Kids at even much younger ages are perfectly capable of freaking out about things far less likely than a school shooting. I remember the terror I had as a kid that the bomb in the toilet was going to explode and kill me.
What separates us from kids in this respect isn’t our capacity for being afraid of unlikely things; it’s our capacity to recognize what’s unlikely.
In fact, when they made me skip more classes, I enjoyed it so much that I ended up not going back to school…
He was suspended for a trivial matter. Kids repeatedly misbehave all the time in school. this is no different than talking out of turn and you would never hear of a suspension over something like that.
What the school did was so beyond stupid that those responsible should be disciplined. If I were the parents I wouldn’t settle for a reversal.
