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Like the maniacal kid in that scary movie, all the horrors associated with the American education system will be back as soon as Labor Day passes.
Personally, I don't think our schools or their students are all that bad, but there are those who are sure to become hysterical over some facet of education before the first semester is concluded. That's just par for the course in the upper middle-class yuppie society we live in.
Now I believe in calm, common-sense approaches to social problems, but people like me are in the minority. Today calm is out and hysteria is in.
Well, if we're going to get hysterical I might as well exercise my yuppie right and be the first in line. I can go off the deep end as well as anyone.
Let's start with the problem that draws the most media attention--weapons in schools.
There have indeed been some horrifying incidents in recent years where students have attacked teachers and other students with guns. No one wants to see that happen and every precaution should be taken.
But amid the weapons hysteria there have also been third-graders who have been tossed out of school because they brought a table knife to school to spread their butter.
Zero tolerance! That's the policy of the day. Well, if that's the rule, let's get everything out of our schools that can be used as a weapon. School officials should make no exceptions.
Let's start with a No. 2 lead pencil. Do you realize that one student can put another child's eye out with one? A sharp No. 2 lead pencil is essentially a spear and a spear is most certainly a weapon. A pencil through the heart is as deadly as a knife.
This is a computer society and we are past the point where we need to write. Children should be using keyboards, not pencils. Any student found with a sharpened pencil on school property should be suspended.
Water is another dangerous weapon that has no place in a safety-conscious school. At least six people have drowned in the Fredericksburg area since June. That's more than were killed in all of America's schools last year.
Our schools are filled with watery booby-traps that are disasters just waiting to happen.
Do you know how many commodes there are in the average school? Do you know how easy it would be for a student on the rampage to stick another student's head down into a commode and drown him or her? It is a frightening prospect, to say the least.
Every day I worry constantly that some crazed teen-ager will kill my 17-year-old son by sticking his head in a commode and holding it there.
Friends, water kills.
If we are going to have commodes in schools, they need to be unloaded. Take the water out of them and keep it out.
It would be even safer, however, to remove the commodes entirely. Outhouses would be much safer for our schoolchildren.
No student could drown one of his peers or a despised teacher in an old-fashioned outhouse. The worst that could happen is that the victim would die from the smell.
I have also found that almost every school in America has solid walls. These are real weapons. One student could easily ram another's head against a brick or cinder-block wall and kill or paralyze him.
No school with a hard wall is a safe school. Building technology has come a long way in recent years and educators should be given 60 days to redesign all schools so walls are made of foam rubber. Our poor little children deserve nothing less.
There should be no motorized vehicles on school property, either. More children are killed going to and from school than have ever been shot during student rampages.
Cars and buses are even more dangerous weapons than commodes and should not be tolerated. Any student or teacher caught with one should be suspended.
There are countless other dangerous weapons that should not be tolerated in schools.
Baseball bats and field hockey sticks are nothing more than sophisticated clubs. And if students were caught pounding on each other in the halls like they do on football fields, they would be arrested and suspended. Under a zero-tolerance policy, football has no place in our schools.
And if our weapons policy is really going to be one of zero tolerance, let's get all the guns out of schools, not just the politically correct ones.
Let's arrest those gun-carrying VFW and American Legion color guard units who parade onto school property before football games and suspend any junior ROTC student caught with any kind of a weapon.
And those people who fire guns to start races at track meets should be put under the jail and kept there.
Do I think weapons in schools are a joke? You better believe I don't!
But it is also no joke when a third-grader is scarred for life because she wants to butter her bread.
If we are going to get hysterical about such things as weapons in school, let's do it right. If we're going to throw common sense out the window, let's go all the way.
And if we're going to insist on a zero tolerance policy, then let our tolerance level really be zero.
If we're going to get hysterical, let's have a real hystericalectomy. That's the yuppie way.
DONNIE JOHNSTON covers the Culpeper area for The Free Lance-Star. Write him at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; or by fax at 540/373-8455.