10-yo suspended for using broken pencil sharpener

A 10-year-old Hilton Head Island boy has been suspended from school for having something most students carry in their supply boxes: a pencil sharpener.

The problem was his sharpener had broken, but he decided to use it anyway.

A teacher at Hilton Head Island International Baccalaureate Elementary School noticed the boy had what appeared to be a small razor blade during class on Tuesday, according to a Beaufort County sheriff's report.

It was obvious that the blade was the metal insert commonly found in a child's small, plastic pencil sharpener, the deputy noted.

The boy -- a fourth-grader described as a well-behaved and good student -- cried during the meeting with his mom, the deputy and the school's assistant principal.

He had no criminal intent in having the blade at school, the sheriff's report stated, but was suspended for at least two days and could face further disciplinary action.

This is wrong on so many levels - not so much the existence of a "no-tolerance" policy on weapons, but the irrational application of it. How about the sharpened pencil as a weapon? I'll bet MacGyver could wreak havoc with the contents of a fourth-grade classroom.

Then there is the involvement of the police, instead of having the teacher simply reprimand the child in private. Instead, the child is subjected to interrogation (at the expense of taxpayers' money) and is indoctrinated with a fear of authority figures and the necessity of obedience to the state.

By way of contrast, when I was a high-school senior (1964) some members of our class inadvertently set fire to a wastebasket and then in an effort to prevent the fire spreading, compounded the error by injudiciously heaving the flaming wastebasket out of a fourth-floor window resulting in its landing on the lawn in front of the headmaster's window. His response? He called me to his office and asked me to convey to the class his disappointment and asked that we not do something that stupid again in the future, thank you very much. I guess those were simpler and more common-sensical times.

Credit to Boing Boing for posting the story. Image credit here.