A friend sent me an email that began:
Scenario: Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1967 Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
I had to laugh because the exact scenario happened to me. Only it must have been 1976 or 1977 (in ’67 the shotgun would have been as tall as I was).
And then I stopped laughing because I remembered seeing a first-grader from one of our suburban schools who was kicked out of school for bringing a weapon to class. He could not return until a mental health professional had assessed whether or not he was a danger to others.
His crime? He was showing his brand new pocketknife to one of his friends.
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I used to bring a pocket knife to school…it was no big deal.
It’s a big deal now. Really big.
School systems tend to ignore things until it’s too late and then over-react. Then, the over-reaction becomes policy.
Would it be accurate to say that over-reaction becoming policy has resulted in an attempt to turn schools into large padded cells, which risks producing students (and staff) who can’t handle life in something other than large padded cells?
Oh come on…they outlawed tag in some school on the east coast. Even schools in the country are being pressured to not have competitive games–anything with a defined winner or loser–and things that might cause ‘trauma’ to a child. Please. Most of these kids need a little ‘good trauma’.
The problem is that in 1967 a kid who went to school with his shotgun in the gun rack probably wasn’t the kind of nutjob who’d go get it and kill off his teachers and then himself. Things were different, thats all.
And yeah, I’ve had a pocket knife in my pocket since about second grade. Pity that.
Oloryn,
I know of one school in NE Oklahoma that has erected a tall chain link fence completely around the building. It may be part of the background now, but when it first went up many of the students and faculty were complaining the prison-like atmosphere was not conducive to learning.
Josh,
There was a paper published recently by a British psychologist that argued a little bullying was a necessary part of growing up. He believes that we are running the risk of creating a generation of people who do not know how to deal with adversity.
OTOH, from what I remember, there was a chain-link fence around the grade school I attended in the ’60s, and I don’t remember the fence seeming prison-like. But then again, you say the fence was erected around the ‘building’. In my grade school, the area enclosed by the fence included an outdoor play area larger than the area taken up by the buildings. IF the fence was close to the building, I can see the prison-like feel.
the risk of creating a generation of people who do not know how to deal with adversity
That’s part of what I was getting at (I was emphasizing ‘padded’ more than ‘cell’).
I remember when we stopped having ‘open campus’. That was a big deal.
When I and classmates were in about the 6th grade we played mumbly-peg during recess and lunch.
Few are those old enough to remember this game. Every kid had a pocketknife and nobody ever got hurt, not even slightly.
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