Zero Tolerance for Boys Means Zero Virtue for Men

Submitted by Mastodon on Sat, 2013-02-09 07:26

Article here. Excerpt:

'Alex Evans is a seven-year-old second grader at Mary Blair Elementary School in Colorado. Recently, he was suspended for throwing an imaginary grenade while pretending to “rescue the world” from “pretend evil forces.”

Little Alex, it turns out, violated his school’s “absolutes” against fighting and weapons, “real or imaginary.”

So-called “zero tolerance” policies of the sort on display at Mary Blair have long been in place in public schools throughout the country. Alex’s mother said that she thought that they were “unrealistic” for kids her son’s age. She is right as far as she goes. The problem is that she doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Such policies are indeed unrealistic, yet they are unrealistic for people of all ages. Moreover, they aren’t just unrealistic. They are at once idiotic and outrageous: Rather than enable children to become responsible adults, zero tolerance policies threaten to retard this developmental process.

Boys are particularly harmed by it. Alex Evans is a case in point. Here is a seven-year-old child whose only infraction is that he possesses an imagination that is both lively and heroic. Think about it: He delights in envisioning himself as a self-sworn enemy of all that is evil, a world savior.'

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Comments

I was at a high school this week as it was the host of a children's event where my son left his jacket. So I was there looking for the "lost and found".

I witnessed two boys getting suspended. I could overhear the principal on the phone to someone explaining the situation about the boys being in a hallway they were not supposed to be in during lunch time. The boys couldn't believe they were being punished and rolled their eyes, which infuriated the principal even more. She now tells the caller the boys are not taking the situation seriously. When she gets off the phone, she asks one of them to take me to the lost and found. As we walked down the hallway I told the boy I was sorry he was in trouble. He looked at me and said yeah, now I have a five day suspension for saying "hi" to a teacher.

I know teenagers are not forthcoming with a lot of incriminating details - so there could be more to the situation, but from what I could tell, whatever they did was not harmful or menacing to anyone else.

I am wondering how much class time boys miss-out on because of suspensions. I bet it's a lot. It is one more way schools spend more on educating girls. Suspensions are a big deal. They are on your permanent school record which follows you wherever you go. If a juvenile ever gets into a courtroom, the judge will ask for school discipline records and use it to determine the juveniles "history" and it will influence the judge. School records can also influence employment, college acceptance, and entry into the armed forces.

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Submitted by Kris on Sat, 2013-02-09 17:32