Long reply, no insults this time:
RyanH said:
I do believe that school's have the right to take a strong stance on ANY act that can be interpreted as having the potential for violence. And that includes long-term suspensions.
ANY act? So what's next? No football at recess? No sports at all? Suspending him long term is an overreaction of the highest order and most foolish.
How often do you see a fifth grader drawing pics of guns? Maybe a younger child might, but a 5th grader who draws guns actually has what it takes to fire one, if he can obtain it. I would be troubled as a parent or a teacher if my kid was busy drawing weapons of DEATH, at such a young age.
There is a logical incongruity here. In one sentence, you say that a "younger child might" draw guns. Then you say that
"I would be troubled as a parent or a teacher if my kid was busy drawing weapons of DEATH, at such a young age". So is it a younger kid that could be drawing them at teh appropriate age, or an older one? You are saying both. What is so abnormal about a 10 year old boy drawing a picture of a gun, that he needs to be separated from his peers?
Also, the phrase "weapon of DEATH" is emotionalism not logic. Guns can kill or be used for recreation and sporting purposes. Ted Bundy killed 3 girls at Florida State University with a piece of a log. Should trees be deemed "weapons of DEATH?" Trees therefore can kill, or break down CO2 into oxygen. A gun is no more likely than a flower to kill someone OF ITS OWN ACCORD. Should playground baseball be banned because a bat could crush a skull? All of these are foolish.
It is the emotional characterization of guns that drives sad decisions like this.
I'd rather he be consumed with activities you know will take him some where----i.e. reading a classic, playing soccer, painting a landscape.....
There is absolutely no connection between those activities and success in life. Likewise there is no connection between drawing pictures of guns and failure or criminal lifestyle. This is. logically speaking, gibberish.
You can't wait until harm is caused to prevent it...PREVENTION... If you do wait, then you might have another Columbine. Schools should do whatever it takes to deter any sight or mention of guns when kids are involved.
I agree that well-thought out prevention is necessary, but certainly not knee-jerk reactionary attempts at thought. Columbine is forever etched into our memory, but it is largely because it was an upperclass community where "it couldn't happen here". School shootings have been common in inner-city schools long before Columbine. Columbine was a true tragedy.
However - Once again: guns exist. They are real. Maybe we would have better prevention if we educated our children in self-contained caves from which children never emerged until they were 30. There would be no school shootings then. In the same logical vein, we could have a 15MPH strictly enforced speed limit, to prevent car fatalities. These two solutions would engender near-100% prevention in their realms. Are they good ideas? Of course not.
If the kids were older, in college, then it would be a different situation. By that age, one has the intellectual maturity to realize the consequences of firing a gun. But, what is a teacher supposed to do when she sees a pic of a gun has been draw---say, "Oh lovely, I love that pic of the gun you drew?" A school can't condone, endorse, or take any chances when it comes to guns. If so, then it could be your child or someone else's that loses his or her life way too soon.....
You keep using the phrase "firing a gun" as if a real gun were brought to school or fired on school grounds. This wasn't even a photo of a gun, which might indicate the child knows the whereabouts of a gun. This is a drawing, a sketch....probably something the kid did while bored in art class.
I'm an avid supporter of the 1st Amendment, but only when your exercise of it doesn't interfere or have the strong potential to interfere with another person's safety.
Strong potential to interfere? You're really reaching...this is an example of school officials being stupid, and now they will likely be too small to admit their mistake.