Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Danger! Danger! Danger!

Though we've been homeschooling for almost two years now, we still utilize Tate's D/HoH teacher under his IEP. We meet with her once a week and work on keeping Tate exposed to ASL.

One of his goals for this year was to follow signed two-step directions.

Is it just my boys or do most boys want to jump right in as soon as they've grasped the very first step?

Instructions? Who needs 'em! I know what I should do...

So our wonderful D/HoH teacher thought of something that would appeal to three boys, in hopes of getting them to slow down and pay attention.













They made origami tanks.

Big success!

It wasn't until we walked up to the office, carrying our projects, to sign out and leave that it hit me. If there were any liberal-weenie teachers in the vicinity we could be in big trouble. "Why?" you may reasonably ask?

Well, obviously, we were in flagrant violation of the Official School Anti-Weapons Policy!

You think I'm kidding, right?

Wyatt had a teacher who confiscated his drawing of a wartime scene showing a submarine being hit by a torpedo.

Really.

Well, she was obviously taking her responsibility to keep students safe very seriously.

*eyes roll*

Which does make me wonder, are they even allowed to learn about wars anymore? How do they think we got our independence? Talking the British to death?

6 comments:

Kristen@nosmallthing said...

oh, seriously? That is ridiculous. I mean about them taking his wartime picture.

I think the origami tanks are pretty cool. My boys would love those!

The Squirrel said...

I was just talking last night with my mom and my daughter when Mom reminded me of an 8th grade still life painting that I did, were all of the fruit had turned into weaponry... pears=grenades, a pile of grapes=a pile of ammo, etc. I'd still be in therapy if I'd pulled that under the current regime!

We will come to regret our political correctness someday, I think.

~Squirrel

Herding Grasshoppers said...

My Dad told me that when he was a college student (early 60's) he was in a speech class and have to give some kind of a demonstration. He brought one of his rifles to school and showed how to clean it. (Didn't bring any shells, just the rifle.)

I can understand, in these times, how that might reasonably be discouraged.

But the ridiculous extremes this had gone to just boggles the mind.

If his picture had shown some kind of graphic/disturbing violence, I could understand her concern. Ditto if it were glorifying violence for its own sake.

Funny thing is, that teacher announced her pregnancy later that year, and I heard she had a boy...

wonder how things are going now?!

The Squirrel said...

I heard she had a boy...

Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?

(c:

~Squirrel

leah said...

I can't believe they took a young child's drawing, thinking it was a threat to safety! They wonder why boys are falling behind in school- let's see: take away and reduce recess, eliminate interesting topics, and dash creativity and original thought into the ground.

Sigh...

I get reasonable things (preventing actual weapons, responding to written, legitimate threats, etc), but zero tolerance policies have gone too far. The kid that was suspended for taking tic-tacs to school (under a drug policy), the kid who handed a teacher a razor he found on the playground (he now had a weapon), etc. Some things are just plain silly!

Mrs. Squirrel said...

I adore the tanks! They're wonderful!

I agree. People get offended way-way-way too easily and they take advantage of each opportunity to overreact way-way-way too much!

A little bit of discernment can go a long way to preserving: 1.) Those historical facts that have kept us safe from (or got us out of) danger; 2.) those sparks of creativity that can open up vast windows of research & opportunity, and 3.) those boy-children who want to grow up to be men!

Keep up the good work!
OooRah!