Maybe they were just happy to see you.
The policies are not in place to ensure no frustrated sophomore ever stabs himself with a compass in Geometry I or commits Murder by Stapler. Anything CAN be a weapon–ask a prison warden. The question schools faced as they drafted weapons policies back in the 90s was, “What constitutes a weapon?” not “What could potentially by any stretch of the imagination be used as a weapon?” (Guns were already off the table, so to speak, as of 1990 and the federal Gun-Free School Zone Act.)
A lot of people raised the “Knives can be useful!” argument back then, too, hence the allowance for pocketknives with blades less than 3". Switchblades were another matter. Some school boards had very interesting and passionate arguments over what constituted a knife-as-weapon. Mine did. And as is always the case when liability is in question, most boards undoubtedly turned, as mine did, to their districts’ attorneys for guidance.
I attended a fairly rough urban high school in the early 70s. Knives were banned, and I was glad of it, because there probably would have been one or two stabbings a day in that place. As to why the school didn’t also ban other potential weapons like textbooks, rulers, compasses, etc., my theory is that the most violent students were too stupid to repurpose those items. Also, killing someone with a mundane object like an unabridged dictionary would have required too much effort and persistence for those lazy adolescent sociopaths. As with guns, knives are far from the only thing that can be used to kill and injure people—but they sure make it a lot easier.
The knife prohibition is not for accidental safety violations, so a totin’ chip would not be necessary.
A “not murderin’ chip” is what’s really needed, but if that were a teachable thing, school violence wouldn’t exist.
The kids should have the tools they need for what they are doing, as long as the can handle it safely. In scouting, knifes, axes saws are useful tools to have on hand (though the move towards LNT lessens this a bit), and the tools can be used when the opportunity arises. Though because of concern for safety of the children they are qualified to use these tools, and a qualification which can be lost. It is awarded as a privilege, but all in all it’s just carrying a needed tool.
In school if the opportunity for a knife, ax or saw comes up it will be in a shop class with predefined times and lessons. It is not the same learning environment that the kids will get in the wilderness. In class everything is planned out. Children can be given the appropriate tool for the task at hand and their ability level. There is no scholastic reason for students to carry these. Now if you want to make the case for carrying them for trips to/from school that would be a separate issue.
They are already banned and the thread was started by asking about a plan to change that and allow some students to carry knives. Isn’t the burden of proof on the other side?
I have a more vested interest in this issue than most :).
There are kids that I would absolutely trust with a pocketknife. And there are times I’ve used knives with kids: for example, when we studied plants, we used a bunch of big serrated sharp plastic knives to cut up veggies and fruits to examine and sample them. And I usually wear a pocketknife on my keychain and know its utility. So I’m not averse to them across the board.
But I also know that some kids are impulsive and angry. And some kids aren’t coordinated. And some kids, lemme be nice about this, are working hard to develop the common sense that God gave a hard-boiled egg.
The impulsive and angry kids are the ones we’ve talked about. One of these kids might decide to poke someone with a knife.
The uncoordinated kids might think they’re exercising knife safety and end up slicing up their thumb, because they didn’t pay attention to its placement.
The common-sense-working-on-it-kids might decide to see if they can throw their knife in the air and catch it, or might throw it at a wooden structure to see if it sticks (never mind the other kids walking in front of the structure), or might see how deep they can cut their skin before the blood wells, or might suck on the blade because the cool metal feels nice, or might–well, you get the picture.
As a weapon, a small pocketknife isn’t really any better than a pencil. But as an attractive nuisance, it’s got all sorts of possibilities. Early in my teaching career I realized I could never predict all the ways kids could be stupid (this after we came in from recess one day and a kid said, “Mr. Dorkness, Steve ate a leaf!” and I spent the next twenty minutes doing some botanical identification to make sure he’d eaten something nontoxic). A pocketknife not only opens up new possibilities for being foolish, but it also amplifies some of them.
Yeah, there are kids I would easily trust with a knife. And yeah, if a kid brought a knife to school, like 95% of cases I’d try to get it handled quietly and discreetly with nothing more than a firm word not to bring it back, because I’m not freaked out by them.
But it’s not like the life of an elementary school teacher is spent in boredom, waiting just waiting for a crisis. We’re already putting out fires all the time. One more opportunity for classroom bloodshed is trouble we don’t need.
Keep the knives at home, please.
Not in the classroom they don’t. The upside is that morons and teenagers (often one and the same) don’t have immediate access to a designed weapon with which to carry out whatever stupid idea they just came up with. Anybody who thinks that these knives would remain safely in pockets all day is delusional. There is not a single solitary reason a student should be possessing or using a knife of their own on campus. None.
The standard is “No knives.” You have the burden here, not the school. The school can ban damn near anything it likes that doesn’t run afoul of First Amendment issues. To my recollection, knives aren’t mentioned in the Constitution.
OK. And that’s where the card comes in. Not every Boy Scout is allowed to carry a knife; you have to first prove to a responsible adult that you’re up on the safety. The kids who wouldn’t be safe with a knife wouldn’t get the card, and wouldn’t be allowed to carry. Honestly, this would be a vast improvement over kids getting into an art class or shop class or whatever where they do use dangerous tools, and being exposed to those tools (some of them) for the first time, and not knowing what to do with them. Yes, there’s supervision in a shop class, but the kids still outnumber the teacher 20 to 1, and it’s physically impossible to watch all of them all of the time.
Again, nobody at all is suggesting that children should have access to things which are designed as weapons.
Oh, really? Go reread DrCube’s posts and get back to us on that.
Since this is a boy scout thing I assume this means the girls are just shit out of luck? Or do we just assume a girl can’t use or never needs a knife? Or is she supposed to find a “man” to help her in those circumstances?
For darn sure when I was in the girl scouts there were no badges or chips or certifications for knife use, or any other tool use. I guess we just assumed girls could learn to do this without special notice or reward. Seriously, we girls were taught how to use tools and went on about using them, no missing fingers, occasional cuts but nothing I recall that even required stitches.
Or did the OP just carelessly assume that “boy scout” referred to everyone instead of just, for example, “boys” or “scouts”. Not a member of either category just out of luck?
Or maybe we could be a bit better with the use of inclusive, or at least not-exclusive, language?
Again, in terms of liability, the school would have to ensure: a) each kid with a chip has undergone thorough psychiatric evaluation b) that evaluation is repeated frequently (Kids and circumstances change.) c) the evaluation is fail-safe and d) no non-chip students could gain access to that knife at any time. Put that in place or convince a school board liability isn’t an issue, and you might have a shot at getting a district to change a policy.
Scouting is a voluntary activity, and generally the kids want to be there. I had lots of Scouts over the years (Oh, the popcorn and cookies I bought!), and 99% of them were good kids. Public school is an entirely different matter with different liability issues. Most of my teaching career spanned the years after knives were banned from our schools. While some kids thought the ban was stupid, not one of them ever complained there was something they were unable to do at school because they weren’t allowed to carry knives other than pocketknives–and believe me, when they had complaints, they spoke up. Even had that been the case, I doubt the school board would have reconsidered.
Yet again, it comes down to the L-word.
Read what happens when these “totin chips” are in action:
Tell me that I want to deal with kids who have been vetted by a responsible adult who cut themselves while swordfighting with their knives.
So the chip selects for the kids that are willing to jump through the hoops. I’m still wondering if there’s anything beyond a gut feeling to back up the idea that those who successfully jump through the hoops are actually more responsible or safer.
I find this argument preposterous to the point of wondering if it’s performance art.
A kid does not need a knife at school, and the inconvenience of not having one is completely negligible, and everyone in this thread knows it. No one who doesn’t carry a pocketknife is inconvenienced by it in a school, and it’s ridiculous to say they are.
My kids don’t carry knives at school. Do you know how often they come to me and say “I need a knife for school”? Never. I never carried a knife at school, and can think of exactly zero times that was an inconvenience. What a silly, silly idea.
I was obsessed with boats in Kindergarten and I thought it would be awesome if the school was flooded and we had to get around the halls in little boats. This thread reminds me of that.
Kids not knowing how to use dangerous tools in shop class can be solved by allowing them to carry pocket knives?
Funny… when I went to shop class the first thing they did was show us the tools, explain their use, and emphasize safety rules. You know, the same thing you do when you teach a kid to be responsible with a knife. Or anything else.
I knew way too many stupid kids in school to allow anyone to carry knives, even with a so-called “totin’ chip”. Who’s to say they wouldn’t allow a friend to borrow it, or have it stolen, or whatever?
Right. It’s like they’re making the usual anti-gun-control arguments, but forgetting that a hallmark of the anti-gun-control arguments (beyond just stating “The Second Amendment Says It, I Believe It, That Settles It!”) is the cost-benefit analysis of having a gun in the uncontrolled real world.
So let’s lay it out: In the uncontrolled real world, a gun is a tool for self-defense. Not necessarily against people, which is a usual NRA argument, but also against coyotes and raccoons and bears and cougars and other wild animals which infest the lifted-truck coal-rolling regions from which I hail.
Schools are controlled environments. We know this because we pay people to control them, either through taxes or through private school fees or through taxes redirected to private industry in the form of vouchers.
If a school is uncontrolled, someone isn’t getting their money’s worth, and the solution isn’t to sprinkle knives into the mix, it’s to pay to have the school sufficiently controlled such that adding free-floating knives to it would be pointless.
If you turn your attention away from the self-defense argument, the same logic applies: In the real world, people have to cut things. You never know when it will come up.
In schools, forcing students to cut things is a waste of time and, therefore, money. It would be an arbitrary roadblock to allow things which need to be cut to intrude into the school day.
So I agree: This is a parody of anti-gun-control arguments which makes them look quite silly. Yes, both knives and guns are useful tools, with guns having a much more limited scope of usefulness than knives, all things considered. However, in a controlled environment, you can legitimately say that you’ll never need certain tools, and if a school isn’t controlled, getting it under control is the first priority.