Yet another asinine school administrator: suspends 7 yr old for throwing an imaginary grenade.

[backscatter712]

Grab the fainting couches! Another school administrator has the vapors because a little boy with an active imagination was caught in an act of pretend violence!

Yeah, suspend him! Deprive him of an education, label him and ostracize him! That'll teach him! I'm sure that will have only positive effects upon his growth and education!

Did I forget the ?

http://kdvr.com/2013/02/04/7-year-old-playing-an-imaginary-game-at-school-gets-suspended-for-real/

7-year-old playing an imaginary game at school gets suspended for real

LOVELAND, Colo. — A 2nd grader has been suspended from school in Loveland for a make believe game he was playing.

The 7-year-old says he was trying to save the world. But school administrators say he broke a key rule during his pretend play.

“I was trying to save people and I just can’t believe I got dispended,” says Alex Evans, who doesn’t understand his suspension any better than he can pronounce it.

“It’s called ‘rescue the world,’” he says.

He was playing a game during recess at Loveland’s Mary Blair Elementary School and threw an imaginary grenade into a box with pretend evil forces inside.

“I pretended the box, there’s something shaking in it, and I go ‘pshhh.’”

[dballance]

1. That is An Asinine Policy at That School

Like the mother said, not very realistic for kids his age. I know we played soldier all the time when I was that age and it was LONG before all the video games the all the Rambo-type movies. It was just what kids did. Obviously it still is. I sincerely doubt it creates Lanzas, Loughners, Klebolds, Harris-s, etc.

If they're still doing it in Junior High that's another question all together.

[backscatter712]

2. By the time I was in high school...

I had moved up to playing Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, paintball.

When I was in elementary school, I was playing with my dolls, I mean Action Figures, putting them in pretend battles, complete with their little guns. I was playing endless varieties of violent video games on my Atari. I was drawing pictures that today would have made it into a Saw movie. I was truly a twisted little kid.

No, I didn't grow up to be a serial killer or spree shooter.

[dballance]

5. Remember how D&D Was Going to Ruin The Youth of the Nation?

It didn't and I don't know of any serial killers it spawned. Nor were any suicides conclusively linked to the game. It's more likely that depressed, distant individuals were drawn to the game but they committed suicide for reasons not at all related to the game.

[backscatter712]

8. Oh, I played D&D too!

I still play role-playing games from time to time.

Yet in all this time, nobody's ever offered to teach me real spells...

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.ASP

[tblue37]

14. In one of the articles on my "Teacher, Teacher" website, I

describe some of the games I used to help my own kids, as well as kids I tutor, master math. D&D was one. They also learned character development and story arc when serving as dungeon master in D&D, but when calculating hit points or when purchasing gear for a quest, they had to add, subtract, multiply, divide, work percentages, and manipulate fractions. But since they were having fun, they practiced all that math for hours at a time without realizing how much they were learning.

The short title of the article is "Preparing the Ground for Math Success," if you want to read it:

http://www.teacherblue.homestead.com/mathprep.html

We are agonic animals, not just cooperative ones. We work out social ranking by competition, so kids instinctively gravitate toward games that involve fighting. Furthermore, we are a violent species as well as a cooperative (social) one, and children, like the young of other higher species, play games that allow them to practice skills they will need as adults.

The child wasn't practicing being violent or murderous; he was practicing the idea of heroically protecting his family, community, or home. With all the troop worship kids are exposed to in our present environment, it is only natural that they would consider acting like a soldier in a war to be the way to play that heroic protector role.

The administration at that school have their collective heads up their collective tushies.

[Downwinder]

20. must stamp out imagination.

[backscatter712]

33. Imagination interferes with obedience!

It must not be allowed!

[Ron Obvious]

18. Those D&D suicides....

I can't remember where I read this now, but that hysteria about D&D was partially fuelled by reports that around 40 (?) kids who were heavily into D&D had committed suicide. What the papers never mentioned was that, as further analysis showed, the expected number of suicides of a group of kids numbering the ones playing D&D would have been around 200. So actually, kids playing D&D were considerably less likely to commit suicide. Newspaper Headlines: D&D drives kids to suicide!

[backscatter712]

23. Between the panic about these imagined suicides...

Last edited Wed Feb 6, 2013, 01:27 PM - Edit history (1)

and the fundie freakout about D&D being "Satanic" or "witchcraft", people playing RPGs had to tread on eggshells for a long time.

[malthaussen]

34. I actually knew one such fundie.

Oh, the looks she used to give me (I was the DM), as I led her (fully adult) children down the path of Satanism!

But, full disclosure, I did employ the Elder Gods in my campaign.

-- Mal

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. For a while wrote material for them evil companies.

So here I am, stack of DnD books, working on a scenario for characters 1-5...

Lady comes over and starts ranting on how I am going straight to hell, I should see the light...you've heard them.

So as she got her breath....

"Look lady I am Jewish, I am already going to hell."

Oh the look in her face was precious...somewhere between surprise and shock.

[malthaussen]

37. Good one! n/t

[11 Bravo]

39. Priceless! I would have paid to see that!

[Downwinder]

3. Is this a charter school?

[backscatter712]

7. No, a public school from the town I grew up in. n/t

[Cali_Democrat]

4. "The 7-year-old says he was trying to save the world"

I like this kid

He said: “I was trying to save people and I just can’t believe I got dispended,”

Shame on the school admins

[SpartanDem]

6. Who comes up with this garbage?

[backscatter712]

9. I think I hear a song coming on...

Last edited Wed Feb 6, 2013, 12:58 PM - Edit history (1)

[KakistocracyHater]

10. American schools are practice prisons for kids now

they don't teach much, except rote memorization to pass a test using a 'secret sauce'TM formula that's total bullshit.

Restart the SPUTNIK EDUCATION PROGRAM; hmmmmnnn, America was shocked by a techno development in another country, iow it found itself BEHIND the times........let's see, what enabled America to go to the moon.....invent the internet.....umm letting 1 of the stupidest states to write the textbooks? HELL NO!

[backscatter712]

11. Mostly, what they teach is obedience.

If you learn a little math or reading on the side, that's OK - they want about 10% of the population to be able to understand advanced intellectual concepts - they're the ones that get the privilege of advanced education and the ability to think critically (while enslaved under mountains of debt,) while the other 90% learns how to show up to work on time, perform the ritual taught to them correctly, and not ask questions or challenge authority.

[KakistocracyHater]

12. but to listen to them it's ALL ABOUT THE TEST!!!111!!!!!

but yeah, practice prison includes that, too

[backscatter712]

25. The testing thing is part of that.

LEARN TO FILL IN THE LITTLE BUBBLES CORRECTLY!

[Arkansas Granny]

13. And 60 years ago, we played cops and robbers or

cowboys and Indians, complete with imaginary guns, or maybe even cap pistols. It's getting ridiculous.

[Ron Obvious]

19. You mean...

You mean 'Cow Persons and Native Americans', surely!

[Arkansas Granny]

22. I stand corrected. I've slapped my hands for good measure.

[bowens43]

27. this is exactly our problem, we worship violence and killing.

[guardian]

15. communities need to

take action and fire these stupid asshole school administrators/teachers. Anyone that stupid should not be allowed to be around children at all. If they have their own children then they should be removed from the home and placed in foster care.

[CBGLuthier]

16. Hey. THIS KID is a great AMERICAN!! He thinks he can save the world by blowing it up.

Pin a fucking medal on him and make him a General.

[Javaman]

17. you know what's darkly amusing by all of this?

This child was born during war. Probably has been influenced by various forms of war propaganda, yet, he gets suspended for throwing an imaginary grenade.

[JanMichael]

21. I didn't even think of that; good point

propaganda to the nth degree-- but, little boys and girls always play "pretend." We used to throw magnolia seed pods at each other in NC.

[Downwinder]

30. Apple core!

Baltimore

Who is your friend?

[11 Bravo]

40. You are! SPLAT!

(I remember it well.)

[backscatter712]

24. Touche! n/t

[bowens43]

26. so maybe the kids should be able to ignore ALL the rules

or is it just rules that seek that disallow the promotion of violence, fire arms and explosives that you oppose?

[backscatter712]

28. Why don't the administrators try coming up with rules that actually make sense...

instead of inflicting arbitrary nonsense on kids?

[kestrel91316]

29. Small-town CO is chock full of RW authoritarians, who punish rule-breakers

with glee.

[backscatter712]

32. Ain't that the fucking truth?

Loveland in particular has a lot of authoritarian douchebags.

[slackmaster]

31. His punishment should also have been something imaginary

No Unicorn rides for him.

[liberal_at_heart]

35. Who are these people that come up with these ridiculous ideas?

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. Well...lemme see how many reasons would I face expulsion

In our modern school?

Writing poetry. (Check)
Writing fiction. (Check)
Drawing (check)
Playing imaginary games. (Check)
Creating fantasy weapons. (Check)
Bringing a knife to school. (Check) part of my lunch.
Video games. (Check)

Are we raising free thinking kids to adulthood? Nope. We will pay a price for this idiocy