The literal job of shop class is to teach you how to use those tools. If you have to show you know how to use them before you take the class, where do you learn how?
Warning “story of my hick upbringing coming”
I was in high school in the 90s when spring assist blades were “the thing.”
I also have a friend that speared himself in the sack while he was goofing around behind the cafeteria in the unsupervised screw-around-and-smoke-weed place we all hung out. Turns out his knife kinda rolled in his pocket and popped open.
It totally ruined our whole scheme junior year to skip the class after lunch. But he kept both of his, uh, fellows. The blood stains on his jeans got him the keen name of “period boy.”
Hick upbringing story now over.
I don’t know if kids are any smarter than we were at that age, but hey, what’s the worst that could happen. It’s only kids, knife rights are waaaaay more important.
Ah, but the First guarantees free speech. And money is speech, my friend. Money can buy knives. Ergo, knives constitute free speech ! Why are you such a pro-censorship Nazi, huh ?!
Yes. But then they’ll hear about the “sodomy and the lash” package also included, which are less fun to most.
I think the OP’s idea is to take the concept from the boy scouts, and spread it to schoolchildren of all sexes and scouting abilities (or lack thereof), presuming they are trained and proficient in knife safety. It isn’t “only boy scouts should have knives in school”.
A pocket knife is not a weapon. A dagger, dirk or sword is a weapon. A pocket knife could possibly be used by a trained knife fighter as a dangerous weapon, but in the hands of the unskilled, it’s no more dangerous than pointy scissors, which can also slice and stab.
I watched a grown man in the Army staple his scrotum to a wooden stool once on a dare. Come to think of it, I recall a classmate in grade school once tried to staple two of his fingers together, too. And as you mention, students aren’t even safe from dangerous leaves.
Yes, kids are ignorant, but so are adults. Kids aren’t some special kind of mental defective who can’t be held responsible for their actions. If a kid does something stupid, that shouldn’t be the teacher’s fault.
If we could get rid of the idea that any idiotic choice made by a student is the sole responsibility of the school, there would be nothing to worry about with pocket knives. If we can’t get rid of that idea… well I don’t see why staplers and scissors aren’t just as liable to be misused by the ignorant.
If knives were allowed, I suspect we’d see just about as many knife cuts and punctures as we do staplings and scissor cuts today. Yeah, it’s a minor hazard. That’s why we supervise students and train them in the safe use of everyday tools. But I don’t see why it’s any more of a hazard than hundreds of other things schoolchildren interact with on a daily basis.
I appreciate that. The biggest problem I have with these bans is that innocent kids are getting expelled or worse for nothing more than forgetting to remove a common, everyday tool from their backpack or car.
You were once a teenage boy yourself, weren’t you? You know what they’re like. That’s why.
In school, you need scissors and pencils. You don’t need knives.
In school? Somehow most of them have managed for many years without them.
^ I really like this post and think it is a cogent and well thought out response to the OP. Or, as the kids say these days: “Like”
The problem is that kid brains have finished developing yet and they are even LESS capable of being careful and sensible than adults, which, as you point out, also do stupid things even when then should know better.
Yes. Society is imposing draconian punishments are kids who, because they are not yet done developing, are less capable of following the rules every single time without any exception whatsoever than adults are - and adults not only forget the pocketknife or butterknife in the backpack, the do stuff like forgetting a baby in the backseat with tragic results.
We don’t summarily arrest everyone coming to the airport who forgot some banned item or other, 99% of the time the “contraband” is confiscated and the person moves on without it.
Humans forget things. We are expecting children to do better than adults, and punishing them more harshly when they fail.
I’m not even talking about teacher’s fault; I’m talking about teacher’s responsibility. A grown man who becomes a barstool cyborg gets to handle that problem himself. A kid who slices open his finger while trying to sharpen a pencil is a kid I’ve got to deal with, and while I’m dealing with him, I’m not teaching the rest of the class how to find the perimeter of a triangle.
As I said, we teachers aren’t sitting around thinking, “Damn, this job is boring, I wish something would happen once in awhile.” Things are happening constantly. Another chance for bloodshet ain’t welcome.
Even stipulating we’d see the same number, they wouldn’t magically replace scissor injuries. They’d be another source of injuries, increasing the total number.
That’s a different issue, and I think it’s appalling. But the solution is to back the hell off of zero-tolerance policies, not to welcome pocket knives in kids’ pockets at school.
Student stabbed with pocket knife
Man stabbed, killed brother with pocket knife
Man charged with fatally stabbing man with pocket knife
Fifth grader stabbed with pocket knife
That’s all from the first page of a Google search.
Kudos for finding a pic of the most puny Old Timer in existence. If you like, I have a one inch novelty Coke Bottle knife I could take a pic of. Unfortunately, those aren’t the only knives in the world.
So we want kids to have knives, we need to get the school board together to figure out the training criteria and other rules. They also need to debate on which knives are allowed.
What style? Locking or non locking? What opening mechanisms are allowed? Thumb assist? Flippers? Automatics? Butterfly knives? What about blade shape? Curved blades? Hooked blades? What about serrated and partially serrated blades? Multitools? Chisel knives? Mini flatbars with sharpened edges? What about box cutters, utility knives and Xacto knives? What about knife maintenance? Do we need to make sure the kids aren’t using knives that will open in their pocket or close on their fingers?
I would hazard a guess that a manually opening, non locking, sheepsfoot blade less than 3 inches would be agreed upon as an ok knife. I have a 2.9 inch sailor’s knife that would qualify. It’s one of the sharpest knives I own, it nearly took the end off my finger once. It also has a 3 inch marlinspike which I’d argue is on par with a knife in everyday usefulness. What is the school board’s opinion on marlinspikes?
Finally, the most important question I’d ask of the school board: What the hell does this have to do with education? Is this going to help with homework, reading comprehension, get test scores up, prepare students for college? They gonna do better on the SATs because of knives?
Obviously, we need more good kids with knives to stop the bad kids with knives.
Would anyone like to invest in my tactical knifefighting school for kids?
I can sympathize with the needs for restrictions on pocket knives in schools, and I also acknowledge that there’s very little utility in implementing a mechanism to allow them.
… But people who see “folding pocket knife” and think “weapon” are not adding rationality to the discussion.
Right, which is why the TSA only allows folding knives on planes.
And the TSA is your standard for rational and effective policy?? 
The TS-motherfuckin’-A handles shit. That’s what they do.
Hearing of boy, 7, affected after pencil-stab incident
Moore elementary student allegedly stabbed in eye with pencil by another student
Boy, 12, stabbed in neck with pencil
11-year-old arrested after pencil stabbing at Colorado Springs school
This is all from the first page of a DDG search.
By your logic, surely you agree that pencils should now be classified as weapons and banned from schools to ensure a safe learning environment?
No, and we’re all the poorer for it.
Want to whittle a neck pillow on that transatlantic flight? You’re out of luck. Last time I flew, I had to puncture the foil on my water cup with my thumb. My thumb. Like a goddamned caveman.
I don’t disagree, but a lot of that is in response to people saying they’re just tools, not weapons.
So, we’re in agreement that both knives and pencils can be used as weapons. But a pencil has a use in school, while a knife does not.
No, that’s not by his logic, good grief.
PENCILS: Huge benefits in the school, definite hazards, currently thoroughly integrated into school culture, so teachers all have systems in place for handling them.
POCKET KNIVES: Some marginal benefits in school, definite hazards, currently not integrated much at all into school culture, so teachers don’t generally have systems in place for handling them.
I am currently sitting within 20’ of hundreds of pencils. I have a pencil injury every three or four years, never a severe one.
I absolutely don’t believe that if pocket knives came to school and were carried and used independently by 8 year olds that the rate of injury would be comparable.
The fact that you can find injury reports for an article that gets used by almost every student many times a day in no way is comparable to injury reports for an article that very rarely comes to school.