I thought that with the end of Campaign 2012, we were to be given a break from tales of  unbelievable lunacy. Apparently that is not the case.

On January 3rd, The Washington Post carried a story about a boy being suspended from school for a day. Now, there’s nothing new about a boy – or girl – being suspended from school; it happens all the time. What caught my attention was the age of the “perp” and his crime. The boy was six years old. There’s a number of things that will get a six year-old tossed such as bringing his mother’s underwear to class for show and tell, flipping off his teacher or passing around the interesting magazine he found at the bottom of Daddy’s sock drawer. Sadly, none of those infractions took place.

Instead, the boy was shown the door for the outrageous crime of – mothers, please avert your eyes – pointing his finger like a gun and saying “Pow”. The boy’s walking papers said that this was a threat to shoot another student. Oh, the humanity! I must have been the Al Capone of DuPont Elementary school as I did this kind of thing around once a day back then. Probably the only reason that I – and every other boy in Mrs. Merner’s class – was not hauled in for questioning is that back in those days, adults had more important things to worry about. Things like impending nuclear annihilation. Those duck-and-cover drills apparently had a much higher priority.

There has always been a certain degree of dumbness amongst school administrators but those in Montgomery  County, MD deserve their own room in Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum. The question is, “Who ratted the boy out?” Was it “Big Brother”? Did the student who was “threatened” flee in terror to the principal’s office? Or was it a teacher? I do know that in 1958, Mrs. Merner would have said something to the effect of “Howard, we don’t do that in class.”

The boy’s parents are – and rightfully so – seeking to have this heinous crime erased from the kid’s permanent record which, as we all know, follows you for the rest of your life. I sincerely hope that the parents have retained competent  legal counsel as there is obviously more than one person in the Montgomery County school system who would really benefit from unemployment right about now. Thankfully, they didn’t confiscate the “weapon”.

Since things are slow for me at the moment, I magnanimously offer my services to the Montgomery County school system. I may not have an education degree but I certainly more than make up for it in the common sense dept.

Sources:

• School suspends boy, 6, for one day – The Washington Post, January 3rd, 2013
• 6-year-old boy suspended for pointing finger like a gun got off easy – The Washington Post, January 3rd, 2013