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Students Banned From Bringing Pencils To School
mernilio writes "According to UPI: 'A Massachusetts school district superintendent said a memo banning sixth graders from carrying pencils was written without district approval. North Brookfield School District interim Superintendent Gordon Noseworthy said Wendy Scott, one of two sixth-grade teachers at North Brookfield Elementary School, did not get approval from administrators before sending the memo to all sixth-grade parents, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported Thursday. The memo said students would no longer be allowed to bring writing implements to school. It said pencils would be provided for students in class and any students caught with pencils or pens after Nov. 15 would face disciplinary action for having materials 'to build weapons.'"
I'm not sure a sixth-grader has the arm strength required for such a feat. What I'm curious about though, is why the teacher felt this memo was necessary in the first place; TFA doesn't mention this.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
What I'm curious about though, is why the teacher felt this memo was necessary in the first place; TFA doesn't mention this.
When I was in grade school, we used to fling sharpened pencils like crossbow bolts, using several rubber bands for higher tension. It wasn't uncommon to draw blood from these toys... and there would be quite a firefight whenever the teacher turned his or her back toward the class to write on the board. So, I think that's why the summary mentions "materials to build weapons," but it's still a stupid idea to ban pencils.
If you take apart the cheap-ass Bic mechanical pencils, use a rubber band in a slit in the eraser and then wrapped to the pencil clip, you have yourself a pocket "gun".
I'm betting the teacher was tired of that.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
As Boortz has said, sending your children to a government school in the U.S. is tantamount to child abuse.
... and the public-educated pupils from American schools are the clever ones. Private schools in America appear to just exist to take money from parents, and store the children during the day.
A while ago I used to help out with an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) class - we had American exchange students. Students who had made their way to university from state schools in the US read and wrote at about the equivalent of a UK 14- to 15-year-old. Students from a private school background were essentially retarded. They managed to read at a UK high-school level with some encouragement, and struggled to write at that level.
Actually, I am pretty sure that measure is to counter violence, but since when has "weapons control" laws ever resulted in decreased violence? [...] But does that stop murders and mayhem? Nope! It just making the killings more gruesome and painful.
You explicitly said that strict gun laws did not decrease the amount of violence found in Japan and that it did in fact make the murders committed there more gruesome.
Not to mention that declaring all non-perfect solutions to be of negligible effect is a fallacy in itself. We may be unable to completely stop murder but that doesn't mean that measures taken to reduce homicide rates (such as making firearms less available) are automatically pointless.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Based on the rest of your post, I don't think you are advocating this position (merely stating why someone would do this). Still, I'd suggest that anyone who agrees with this notion to read Harrison Bergeron, where "equality of outcome" is the central theme. This is where we will eventually be led.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
At my high school during deer and duck seasons in the fall, there were enough rifles and shotguns in the student parking lot to start a small war. There was also an ethic that said using anything but your fists in a fight was the ultimate cowardly act. Sadly, neither of those is true today. Now, get off my lawn.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.