WESTMINSTER [Colorado]– Adams School District 50 is defending its decision to punish a third grader for sniffing a Sharpie marker. Eight-year-old Eathan Harris used a black Sharpie marker to color a small area on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. A teacher sent him to the principal when she noticed him smelling the marker and his clothing."It smelled good," Harris said. "They told me that's wrong." Eathan shyly shook his head "no" when a reporter asked if he knew about "huffing."
Principal Chris Benisch stands by his decision to suspend Harris, saying it sends a clear message about substance abuse.
"This is really, really, seriously dangerous," Benisch said.
In his letter suspending the child, Benisch wrote that smelling the marker fumes could cause the boy to "become intoxicated."
A toxicologist with the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center says that claim is nearly impossible. Dr. Eric Lavonas says non-toxic markers like Sharpies, while pungent-smelling, cannot be used to get high. "I don't know whether it would be possible for a real overachiever to figure out a way to get high off them," Lavonas said. "But in regular use, it's just not something that's going to happen."
Adams County School District 50 leaders were unfazed by the poison control center's medical opinion. "Principals make hundreds of decisions everyday based on our best judgment. And in that time, smelling that marker, I felt like, 'Wow, that's a very serious marker,'" Benisch said.
Despite the medical evidence, Benisch promised to draw an even clearer line on markers.
"We've purged every permanent marker there is in this building," he said.
Don't confuse him with the facts...
ReplyDelete...One more incarnation lost due to ignorant adults screwing a kid up, and not even knowing how stupid they are.
Rule #15 of this VideoGame Terra:
All institutions are, at their core, destructive of the individual.
The sanity of any generation is directly accounted for by the sanity and actual KNOWLEDGE of the previous generation which 'raises' them. Ergo, if we ever, ever, EVER want a sane society, we must educate an entire generation in parenting and mentoring and educating - which must also include teaching them that what trips they lay on children have LONG term effects.
Like so many educators in America, this dip doodle has gotten the idea that the children are not human beings, but are instead 'product' to be shoved down the assembly line, eventually to be shoved onto the delivery truck of graduation. 'Thinging' the children (treating them like things instead of PEOPLE) has manifest repercussions, and the educatiors just don't tend to get it. That is exacerbated by the tendency of educators - overall - to think that the educational system is designed for THEM and their convenience, not the benefit of children. They (more than anyone will admit) believe that the children are actually just a nuisance.
And the administrators are worse than the teachers. At least the teachers get an occasional bit of influence from the children to bring some sanity back into their lives. The administrators nearly always see children only when there is a problem, so they don't see much at all of the health that the children bring to the campus.
Unfortunately, that health is beaten out of far, far too many. At way too young of ages.
Yes, this sounds like a really, really cynical POV. I agree. But for those living in Pollyanna land, it is the true foundation of the problems in our educational system. It didn't happen because of immigrant kids or school busing or lack of programs or lack of money.
Me? I had a GREAT school experience, for the most part. I only had 2 years with horrible teachers and 10 with amazing teachers. They taught well by not being caught up in institutional thinking. I bless them all more than they will ever know. Being spoiled by that, I have a very high standard: If I (the poorest kid in my class) could get that kind of teachers in a lower-middle-class school district (50% blacks, too), so should everyone. But it ain't gonna happen, is it?
In a sane world, that administrator would be taken out and put on a garbage truck...