Zero Tolerance for Truth in School

At one time in my life I was a teacher. I loved the children and I enjoyed teaching them. It was very hard work but teaching kids how to be good citizens was well worth the effort. Now schooled have a different mission. They are trying extremely hard to teach kids how to lie, deceive and hide the truth.

Read this article.

Honesty doesn't pay: This seems to be the lesson officials at Indianapolis Stonybrook Middle School wish to send their charges. The Indianapolis Star reports:

Elliot [vogue], 14, said he was walking to the school entrance in the brisk weather March 3 and had placed his hands in his coat pocket when he felt the Swiss army pocketknife in the pocket.
"I went straight to the office right inside (the front door)," he said.
He said he handed the knife to Teri Donahue, the school's treasurer, and told her he had brought it to school by mistake.

As a result of Elliot's actions, the school's principal, Jimmy Meadows, suspended Elliot for the maximum 10 school days as allowed by law and recommended Elliot be expelled. A confidential expulsion hearing is scheduled for April 10.

As the family's lawyer says, "Their message is to be dishonest, take more chances."

The common sense that at one time ruled the school day has seemed to disappear from the scene. I cannot imagine why a school principal would take such a radical and stupid action. These kinds of things are happening on a regular basis and no one seems to be learning any better.

Once, while flying back to the USA from Russia I discovered a Swiss knife in my carry on luggage. I do not know how it got there but I quietly slipped it into a safe and hidden place unit I could put it in my checked luggage. I intuitively knew the crew would go nuts and put me in chains if I actually turned it in to them.

I was reared in a fundamentalist Baptist home but I never, ever ran into the kind of legalistic, narrow minded thinking there that I am seeing every day in American schools and airports. When will people raise up and demand changes from the people we elect, select and pay to serve us?

I hope Elliot's family sues the school district and wins 10 million dollars to teach the board and administration a lesson they should have learned in kindergarten.