These People Teach Our Kids!

Imaginary Grenade leads to school suspension!

A Colorado second-grader may be suspended from his elementary school after he disobeyed a key rule of no weapons, real or imaginary, when he tossed an imaginary grenade Friday during recess and went, ‘pshhh,’ to indicate that the imaginary device detonated, KDVR.com reported.

Alex Watkins,7, who attends Mary Blair Elementary in Loveland, said he was playing the game “Rescue the World.” He plays the role of a heroic soldier out to rid the world of an evil threat.

His duties led him to throw the imaginary grenade into a box he pretended contained evil forces. He said he didn’t make any threats and was playing by himself, KDVR.com reported.

The school has a list of ‘absolutes’ that states no weapons, even if they’re imaginary. A phone call Tuesday morning from FoxNews.com to the school was not immediately returned.

So a “Grenade” that wasn’t there, while playing a game BY HIMSELF, and this is a big enough threat to warrant SUSPENSION? Back when I worked in a daycare we had kids younger than this who would occasionally point fingers and “Pew Pew” at each other. We’d tell them to stop. Sometimes toy guns would come in, and school policy was we’d put the toy up for the day and return it to the kid when their parents picked them up.

We didn’t punish, we certainly didn’t suspend. If a toy was brought we’d inform them of the school policy on toy weapons. Frankly I don’t care about any of it, but it wasn’t my school, I just worked there.

“Honestly, I don’t think the rule is very realistic for kids this age,” Mandie Watkins, Alex’s mom, told KDVR.com. “I think that when a child is trying to save the world, I don’t think he should be punished for it.”

Yeah, I grew up watching GI-Joe before school, not to mention my parents were more lax than some when it came to watching movies with gun play. It wasn’t uncommon for me to “Shoot” at stuff as a kid…or swing an imaginary sword or lightsaber.

Zero Intelligence, and these are the people teaching our kids?

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11 Responses to These People Teach Our Kids!

  1. Rob Crawford says:

    The criminalization of thought is one of the most abusive forms of tyranny. To punish a kid for his imagination is to admit you want to create mindless, spiritless drones.

  2. George says:

    We keep seeing these kinds of things and saying “Oh man, how silly, look at how they are overreacting!” Believe me, they know exactly what they are doing. What lesson is learned with these “zero tolerance” policies? That guns and weapons are shameful, evil, and that even pretending to have them gets you punished. It’s “political correctness” run amok, and it’s designed to control your behavior. Get back in your closet!

    • Rob Crawford says:

      I think the lesson is “don’t think, don’t imagine, don’t try to be anything but what we tell you to be”.

      These policies are evil.

  3. Stuart the Viking says:

    I can see the damage that zero tolerance and absolutism in school rules is doing to my 8 yo daughter. Yes, I’m sure that the school doesn’t see it that way, but then they are in the business of keeping the kids in line, while I’m in the business of raising an intelligent, well adjusted, young lady who will hopefully one day be able to think for herself.

    My 5 yo daughter is the opposite of her sister in every way. Her I will have to teach how to work within a framework of rules and laws. Zero tolerance and absolutism are damaging there also. When she sees a stupid, unfair ruling (like the imaginary grenade thing), it undermines the school’s authority for her. From there, it’s just a small skip and a jump to pure anarchy. I would like to head that off if I could.

    Quite frankly, I don’t know of any kind of kid that this kind of zero tolerance absolutism is good for.

    s

  4. Eck! says:

    One word, Indoctrination.

    Every dystopian science fiction I’ve read has that basic idea covered. Wait till they
    start telling the girls they must get married when they graduate and have children,
    and of course punishing those that “other plans”. As to guns first you teach they are
    “bad” then teach even imagining them for good uses are “bad” to reinforce it. Then
    it is a short hop from cops enforce the law to they are the law. Its a death spiral
    to me.

    Seriously, I’m old enough to see left hand people being forced to right hand ,
    sexual nonconformists being electroshocked and those that didn’t obey sent
    to military schools. So this type of indoctrination is far from new to me.

    Eck!

  5. Joe in PNG says:

    Here’s the funny thing about this attempt at indoctrination. It’s going to fall flat on it’s rear end. After all, just look how wonderfully well the whole “drugs are bad, mmmmkay” thing is working out, not to mention plus the whole slew of attempted PC zero tolerance nonsense from safe sex to don’t smoke/drink/littering.

  6. fast richard says:

    You swung imaginary swords as a child? Oh My! When I was a kid we swung very real sticks when we played sword fight, then had arguments over how hard we had hit each other. That little bit of reality, learning that hitting each other with sticks could be painful, was probably good for us.

  7. Windy Wilson says:

    So play guns and sticks instead of swords are bad? I suppose Power Rangers were good, as they always used only empty hand martial arts and beat the bad guys who used weapons. And my cousins children would kick their grandma (my Aunt) and claim to be pretending to be Power Rangers.
    Far better to do a little tussling (to use my Scoutmaster’s word) and learn that blows hurt themselves and presumably others, too, so use care in administering force.

    “Zero tolerance” means “zero thought necessary, stop interrupting my time for drafting grant requests.”

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