Stop me if I repeat myself … but maybe we don’t need elaborate explanations for poor performance in America’s public schools.
Maybe it comes down to this: they are run by people as unhinged as the administrators of the Stacy Middle School in Middleford, Massachusetts.
Yes, it’s time again for American Play Gun Theater, in which children (usually boys) pretend to have toy guns in their empty hands, emit fake gun sounds from their mouths, and scare the living Horace Mann’s out of government employees.
The current case? That of Master Nickolas Taylor,. He formed his hand to vaguely resemble a revolver (index finger as barrel, thumb as hammer — don’t try this at home, kids!) and mimicked some ray gun sounds towards two girls in lunch line, and then blew his finger tip, as if smoke drifted up from firing.
I am not aware of ray guns needing this, but it does have panache.
His punishment? Suspension. The 10-year-old malefactor needed to be taught a lesson, by gum.
Had he done something truly dishonorable, like cut in line, some punishment was probably in order. But if all he did was pretend to have a toy gun (two layers of pretense here at least!), then the worst probably should have been to put him in Pretend Jail, with no bars and no irons and some irony.
The lad’s father and grandmother came to his defense; the local newspaper put him on the front page.
The lesson? For supporters of today’s abysmal public schools: Don’t reload. Rethink.
And if I’ve said this before, point a finger at me and make ray gun noises.
But hey: I may raise my special Deflect-o-shield.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “Play Gun Theater”
It’s nothing new.
The inmates are running the asylum.
Cannot number the mass numbers of times that I and the unwashed cohorts of my neighborhood got together and, while arduously working out the subtleties of group dynamics, shouldered the enormous responsibility of saving the world from bad guys with guns. We knew, in that inborn wisdom of childhood, that the only effective last ditch solution for bad guys with guns was good guys with guns. We did not have to all depend on just pointed fingers. We could rely on good old American plastic and pot metal armament (from Japan). It damaged us in ways we could not imagine, leaving us with a built-in, automatic, knee-jerk distrust of community organizers and would-be emperors.
For crying out loud, Paul!
We can’t just let kids use pretend ray guns! What prevents them from going to the next step? Do you really want to wait for this psychotic serial killer in the making to get a real ray gun?
My heart goes out to his victims. I can only imagine how terrified those poor girls must have been.
I’m waiting for “The Call”! That will be to tell me to pick-up my 5 year old grandson from school for the same thing!
FYI My whole generation played “Combat” or “Cowboys & Indians”. The girls played too! Most folks I knew had firearms in their homes and relatives with WW2 weapons around.
Pretend ray guns are just “gateway” weapons to the more dangerous ones.
“RIGHT! THAT’S ENOUGH! No more ‘Star Wars’ for you, young man!”