Girl, 13, Suspended For Pointing A “Finger Gun” At Teacher

Sometimes I think enterprising kids might be going for the suspension. After all, they get 3 days off. Who wouldn't want that?

As to the harassment of her schoolmates, I doubt it amounts to more than tongue-in-cheek name calling like “terrorist” — I mean, can they really be taking the charge seriously?! So, the girl in this article was in Middle School. I don't think this will follow her into adulthood.

My daughter thought her reputation and life were ruined when she drew on a fellow student's coat. Yes, she did have to replace the coat and go to detention for 3 days. I thought we were being more punitive than the situation strictly warranted, but we wanted the lesson to stick. And, despite her fears that the other students would never like her anymore and would think she was a “bad kid”, it turns out that it was just a tiny short lived wonder.

You miss the point entirely. This has nothing to do with a kid trying to get a three day suspension, or the level of harassment they got from it. It is about a kid being suspended for pointing their finger at the front of a classroom and being charged with making terroristic threats for doing so. It is asinine.

No, I agree that it's asinine. I was just struck with a side issue.

More on topic is that this COULD be construed as a threat in some environments. I imagine if this was an inner city school with a lot of gang action, and if the “shooter” was a gang member (or thought to be), this could actually have been a threat. I don't know enough about this school to say whether the teacher's fear was validated in that way. On face value, it just seems ludicrous.

If this school district encompasses both types of school, as ours does, this zero tolerance thing would be a prudent thing that made total sense for some schools in the district, but not others. And, with classic bureaucratic fairness, who is to say that a kid who presents with baggy jeans, suspicious colors, and an attitude is actually a gang member making a threat, and not just as innocent of intent as the honor roll student? You can imagine the first kid's parents screaming about the unfair profiling of their child, and only a few would blame them.

People who have fear in their heart always think people are out to get them. Just find peace and live your lives!

This zero tolerance bullshit really pisses me off. If this girl had made some sort of threat to this teacher prior to or in addition to this incident, I could understand the teacher’s concern, but I haven’t read anything indicating this. If this teacher truly felt threatened by this girl’s action, maybe she ought to reconsider her profession. I couldn’t find the name of the teacher from what I read, but in my opinion her name ought to be thrown out there for public ridicule. If she feels so strongly against this child’s terroristic threat, she ought to let it be known. Instead, she’s hiding refusing to comment. This teacher’s nothing more than a ruthless bitch that enjoys tormenting the youth of today. Now that I think about it, I had a couple of teachers like that in school.

The whole zero-tolerance thing is bullshit and does nothing to stop problems, as far as I'm concerned. This was a few kids joking around, there is nothing terroristic about it. It sometimes seems like a few teachers use the “zero-tolerance” to make their job easier….the amount of kids suspended over ridiculous things = smaller classrooms??
My oldest son was in grade 5 or 6 and got suspended for the zero-tolerance rule. His offense? He had a can of orange colored hair spray in his backpack that he took to school so he and his friends could color their hair for hallowe'en (it was Oct.31 and the teacher told them they could ress up)….When I went to the school to question this, I was told he could spray the hairspray and ignite it to hurt someone….really??? Like a flame thrower??? wouldn't he require a lighter for that too?? They had no answer for me but my son had a few days at home for bringing a “weapon” to school…….

“In a lot of cases, disciplinary measures are decided on by an A = B methodology as laid out in a student handbook. It’s asinine that bullying can continue to go on in schools until some chick hangs herself or some dude pops off a few rounds in a cafeteria – but elsewhere in these same schools, you have people getting suspended for writing on a desk.”

I agree with you Morbid!!! It really is asinine!

I totally agree that this is asinine. It is very irritating that my kid can be beaten up, teased, set up (oh, how I hate that one) or bullied in many other ways and the bully usually gets away with it or gets off with less than a slap on the wrist. But bring a plastic knife to school in your lunch bag……holy shit, that's terroristic! THOUGH, I do not like that kids “play shooting” should be considered innocent. Not these days and especially not in certain circumstances (inner city schools, older teens who aren't in the cowboys and indians stage any more….). Now, this situation most likely didn't warrant the punishment given. They probably did go overboard big time here, where a talk may have just sufficed. There should definitely be room for logical consequence instead of the same standard punishments to all in this “zero tolerance” system. One kid is different from the next kid. There are so many varying factors that should be thought of. Seriously, why don't we just create a computer program that hands out the punishment if no logic is to be used. Shit….there's a thought. My grandkids are going to have a robot for a principal……..

Well, to be fair, I thought guest was referring to the overeaction of the school and the teacher in the article. She thought her life was in danger because a 13 year old girl pointed her finger and said “pew pew…” ?!?! I know some individuals at work who have a very high fear factor, and man they can be annoying, always worrying, misintepreting, second guessing, making assumptions…blah blah blah. I'm no teacher, but I used to work as an assistant in Special Ed and was employed at all 3 levels ( grade, middle, and highschool) and you know, I observed a lot. If anyones interested, theres a great book called 'Bad Teachers' written by a man who's seen it all. I tell ya, I have very little faith in our public school system, and having worked in it for 15 years I finally got so depressed and burnt out with the whole scene I left for good. In fact, this morning I saw on the news a new technique being employed by a growing number of parents called “Non Schooling”. Its not the same as home schooling in that most of its advocates are NOT religous and it seems pretty cool, diifferent, nonconformist…but cool. George Carlin said he wished people would get rid of those silly ass bumper stickers 'Proud Parent of Honor Student At Jefferson (or whatevah) Elementary School' and replace em with sumthin like ' Proud Parent of a D-average student who wont be programmed into becoming a miserable drone”…wasnt exactly those words, but you get the point. George rules, in my opinion.

“in fear of her life” wtf!! utter bullshit, looks like miss teacher likes to blow things out of all proportions,

“in fear of her life” i mean really what is the need for all the drama, i wont get over that for a while, thats a serious over reaction, omg!

Ever seen the movie idiocracy?

Sure have! It's one of my favorite films, to date. I certainly hope society never gets that intellectually challenged, but sometimes, I do wonder if that's the direction we're headed.

You just named a few of the reasons I home-educate my teen-aged daughter! I have a zero tolerance policy for boring lessons and indoctrination! Because so many like-minded parents have refused to send their spawn to these insane schools, it's now becoming near impossible or illegal to teach our own children rather than sending them to these bitch teachers. Insanity!

These fucking “politically correct” tards make a HUGE deal out of a bent key and a “pew pew finger gun” but IGNORE the fact that one of their students is being severely ABUSED by her parents on a regular basis, or that she hadn't attended school for three days because the monsters had nearly beaten her TO DEATH!!

Accusing this kid of terrorism is dumb as hell, and we can thank the legacies of GWB for this, since his entire M.O. for getting done the messed-up things he wanted to get done involved convincing America that a terrorist was behind every damn rock…it was the clarion call of the entire administration, and the fact that this kid is being accused of terrorism is just one node of a continuum of unacceptable garbage such as illegal wiretapping and the evisceration of habeus corpus and the Miranda rights…and so on. It's a fucking travesty, all of it.

Edmonton, and if I didn't live here, I wouldn't visit here either.