The Stupidity Continues

I have written before about zero tolerance policies. With what has been happening lately, I am compelled to revisit a subject that should not exist. It was once, when a grammar school student misbehaved the punishment was tailored to fit the crime. It could be anything from being made to sit in the corner to a trip to the principles office. If said student really messed up a parent was brought into the mix. 

It was not a perfect system. Some teachers were more tolerant than others. Some played favorites. But the one thing that made the system work, most of the time, was that human intelligence was brought into the equation. Children's mistakes became teaching moments and kids learned the difference between harmless and harmful. They learned the difference between having fun and being hurtful. Teachers understood that boys and girls were wired differently. Boys didn't play quietly. They roughhoused and made noise. 

One would think that the educational system would be the heart and core of teaching our youngest and most needful, about honest educational right and proper discriminatory thinking. If all negative behavior is treated alike and all negative behavior is treated in the harshest terms, it confuses young minds. Little boys have been playing cops and robbers since cops and robbers were invented. Now at recess if the chase each other and point their finger shouting bang bang, it becomes like real cops and robbers because someone in charge will feel obliged to act as if they were the police.

When I was a boy, we played cops and robbers, we played war, and we played cowboys and, dare I say, Indians. And despite all my exposure to  that "violence", I have yet to shoot anyone. And I have never heard of any of my old playmates getting in trouble through violent behavior.

But the stupidity gets worse. A lad bit his pop-tart into the shape of a gun. Down to the office he goes and bring in the authorities before someone is seriously injured by leaking jelly. One lad made something resembling a gun out of Legos. It was smaller than a quarter. Well he got hauled off pretty quickly. We all know how dangerous a miniature lego gun can be in the wrong hands. But the crowning moment in institutional stupidity has to belong to a Nebraska school system. A school official told the parents of a three year old deaf child that he must learn the execute his name in sign language differently. The reason being that the correct way of signing his name in the "Signing Exact English  System" requires him to point his fingers. Intolerable, some misguided soul may mistake a three year old's fingers for a gun.

As I have said before and will probably be forced to say again zero tolerance is zero brains. I'm just waiting for the first teacher to be taken out in cuffs because she or he pointed at a student just to attract their attention. Then stupidity will have come full circle. They say, "you can't fix stupid". But can't we please try.