While I can still recall my Kindergarten teacher locking a fellow student in a dark closet for talking too much in class, one would have been reasonable to assume that we now live in an age of greater enlightenment where draconian practices such as this have given way to greater understanding and patience.
As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth.
While we seem more than willing to sacrifice our own Christian principles so as not to offend other religions through the cessation of prayers in our schools, or yielding to protests regarding the call for a day of prayer by a State Governor . . . and let's not forget wishing someone Merry Christmas, our self-directed intolerance appears to be on the rise . . . especially involving our children.
It wasn't that long ago that a 6 year old's harmless peck on the cheek of a fellow classmate resulted in his being sent home . . . I guess the innocence of a first crush is a right of passage that is no longer tolerable. Someone better call Hallmark and let them know that their sweet and clever cards depicting young children in adult cloths sharing a romantic moment is socially unacceptable.
I wonder who the school will send home in this picture?
As for bullying at school, our recent segment of the 49th Parallel Forum in which my co-host Jim Bouchard and I discussed at length the Casey Heynes incident, provides further proof that in some situations academic sensibilities are anything but sensible. For those who may not yet be familiar with the Heynes story, Casey was the overweight big kid that had been so ruthlessly picked-on at his school that he actually had been contemplating suicide. Instead, and as the following video shows, Casey decided that enough was enough and even though the bully deserved a sound thrashing, he showed remarkable restraint by tossing the kid to the ground and walking away. The school's reaction . . . they suspended both the bully and Casey. I wonder who they would have suspended if instead of finally standing up for himself after taking two punches to the face, Casey would have become one of the sad statistics reflecting yet another child who felt that death was a better option than life?
So here we are, in what has been called a case of Zero Tolerance Gone Completely Insane, a 6 year old child was suspended for disrupting the educational process for crying too much in school. Now I have always known, and as illustrated in our next video clip, there is no crying in baseball. However, I was not aware that besides a stolen kiss and standing up for oneself against a bully, crying was no longer allowed during childhood.
Before anyone asks the question that came to my mind immediately upon hearing of the suspension . . . was the kid a problem student, and this action was therefore the last resort in an untenable situation? According to reports, the parents had never been notified of any behavioral issues with the child prior to the suspension. So what's going on?
On the one hand, we can support the building of the Ground Zero Mosque despite the obvious pain it seems to be causing if not a large, at least vociferous group. Yet we somehow find that tears being shed by a child in school is a significant problem that must be eradicated immediately and without advance warning. Makes perfectly good sense to me, how about you?
All I can say is, what's next . . . long prison terms for jaywalkers? Given what's happening today, it would appear that a 5 year old being locked in a dark closet (with tape on her mouth mind you) is actually an example of moderate restraint reflecting an enlightened view of proper school discipline.