Florida: Student arrested for cutting food with knife

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Why are kids today so different from those in generations before this one? Adults, especially parents, seem to be afraid of kids now.

Other generations guided their children into becoming trustworthy and responsible young people. This generation of adults behaves far differently. It works by extremes.

At one extreme parents seem to sentimentalize their own children beyond the bounds of reason, hovering over them so they can't possibly learn to stand on their own feet because they're never allowed opportunities to try, to fail, and to learn from their own failures.

At the other extreme adults behave as if they are in terror of children, fearful that they'll murder each other and everyone else, and terrified of trusting them. Something is very wrong with a society that must have Zero Tolerance Policies because nobody's judgment is good. And there's something especially wrong with it when kids aren't trusted with tableware, images, or forms of play common to all previous generations.

Not too long ago murderous children were considered the exception. It appears that they're considered the norm today and that all kids must be treated as potentially homicidal.

So what happened to the kids? Are they the result of an enormous genetic meltdown? Or is it that adults today are deranged?

I didn't grow up in a paranoid country and it wasn't paranoid while my children grew up to adulthood. What happened?
 
Titan6 and Winchester 73, what do you mean?

What connection do you see with the Kennedy assassination? It was awful but this country has survived a great many worse traumas and become stronger for them.

Not arguing. Truly interested and curious. What I've seen in the relatively recent past is destructive and self destructive. And it must be horrible for children at the extremes and everywhere in between too. What a pathetic way to live and to raise kids.

I hope I'm not stepping on people's toes. It's just that I do remember my own childhood and parenting years with exceptional clarity and no sentimentality. There was good and there was bad, but there was nothing at all like what I've observed these past several years. I'm puzzled and disturbed.

Does anyone else feel that way?
 
It really is too bad that the school intentionally hid this rule from this one student. It must have been quite difficult to accomplish.

She broke a rule and suffered the consequence. Her parents should be punished for being stupid as well.
 
Florida: Student arrested for cutting food with knife
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For the life of me, I don't understand how people can show such a lack of comprehension about cause and effect. The student was not arrested for cutting food with a knife. The act of cutting food with a knife is not an illegal act. The student was arrested on a weapons charge (stupid as it may be). It was the act of cutting food with the knife that got the attention of school officials, but that was not what the student was arrested for.
 
Double Naught Spy wrote:

For the life of me, I don't understand how people can show such a lack of comprehension about cause and effect. The student was not arrested for cutting food with a knife. The act of cutting food with a knife is not an illegal act. The student was arrested on a weapons charge (stupid as it may be). It was the act of cutting food with the knife that got the attention of school officials, but that was not what the student was arrested for.
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Exactly. Thanks for saying what apparently nobody else is willing to understand.
 
DNS said:

For the life of me, I don't understand how people can show such a lack of comprehension about cause and effect. The student was not arrested for cutting food with a knife. The act of cutting food with a knife is not an illegal act. The student was arrested on a weapons charge (stupid as it may be). It was the act of cutting food with the knife that got the attention of school officials, but that was not what the student was arrested for.
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Close but no cigar. She violated criterion 1, possibly criterion 2, but not criterion 3. Inasmuch as not all 3 criteria were violated, the ZT law should NOT have kicked in. She violated a school policy which was force-adopted by No Child Left Behind.

What kills me is the DA law has resulted in leaving a Hades-of-a-lot of children not only behind, but felons.

Remember, folks...It's for the children!!!

Doc2005
 
At one extreme parents seem to sentimentalize their own children beyond the bounds of reason, hovering over them so they can't possibly learn to stand on their own feet because they're never allowed opportunities to try, to fail, and to learn from their own failures.
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Except that parents can't fix the problem. Parents can't let thier child tote around a first knife (which invariably includes the inevitable first knife cut), because of rules like the one at issue.

Parents have to be wary of letting their child learn about guns, lest the child mention it at school, before they develop the discretion to know when to not talk about it.

Heck, I get random strangers yelling at me for letting my daughter go about barefoot in the summer, for not forcing her to keep her hat on in the winter, for not swooping in an saving her when she gets in a fight over a toy with another child, for letting her climb the tall ladder to a slide at the playground, for even letting her get more than three feet away from me when she is playing at the playground. The censure that is levied upon parents and children who take risks is huge.

A CPS worker told a neighbor a couple of years ago that *all* burns incurred by children are abuse or neglect, that there is no such thing as an accidental burn. Strange, because when I was five, I remember disobeyig my parents, climbing up on the counter to get a snack from the cupboard, and getting second and third degree burns over the palm of my hand. Apparently that was child abuse. I thought it was just accidental.

I've had friends tell me that it's such a shame that kids can't play outside alone anymore--nowadays it is too dangerous. The only danger that exists now that did not exist twenty or forty or a hundred years ago is that of governmental interference for neglect. Friends have had police called by neighbors reporting neglect because children were playing outdoors alone, with the mother watching from the kitchen window. The mother was warned by the cops that that is neglect and she needs to be more careful.

No, this is not just parents. This is living in a culture of fear, where I am reckless beyond reason for not having a cellphone and where eight inches of snow in Michigan is a disaster. Where high school kids experimenting with exlosives is terrorism, and where there are no accidents--bad things are the parents fault, and kids learn by obeying *always* everyone in authority and may never do things alone, because *everything* requires supervision. "Safety first" works well for guns. It works less well for playgrounds. Sometimes adventure and fun and learning need to come first. Not anymore though.
 
delta9:

By golly that is a great post!!! The points you make point to and affirm the need to allow children to play, to learn and to grow. It seems to me that the Nanny State is trying to raise our children. That has brought the crazies out of the woodwork to the point that they feel they have the right to tell others how to raise their children.

Seems to me that your own post could be summed up as to hint, "Let's let children be children?" I like that!!! Thank-you for that uncommon sense!

Geno
 
Someone please call the local PD and ask them to inspect the teacher's lounge, cafe or whatever they call it now-adays.... I will bet $100 there is a knife in the teacher's eating place. Why aren't all of those teachers using "weapons" on their meals charged as felons? As long as everyone's hysterical, aren't scissors just "two weapons held together by a pin, highly usefull in stabbing and mauling". Last I heard, schools have a lot of scissors on campus, so where does the "useful tool" and "felony weapon" line exist?

BTW - any 10 year old with good sense will cut their food before eating it. More children die from choking each year than from a 10 year old knife attack... No I don't have a cite for this, it's just common sense.
 
Delta9, I understand that parents and kids have things rough today. I said it. What I wondered is if anyone had an insight into whether things are rough today because kids and/or parents are different today and need to have things rough.

For what it's worth, in another thread a few days ago some people argued adamantly that if a gun was stolen it was prima facie evidence that its owner was negligent in preventing the theft and should be prosecuted for any crimes committed with it. The stimulus was teenagers who shoot other people and then themselves. The people arguing for a law to punish those gun owners were also gun owners, but they sounded like Mayor Michael Bloomberg to me.

This is vicarious responsibility gone wild and a society in which ordinary people--like school principals, teachers, social workers, parents, high school and college kids, and a heck of a lot of people of all kinds who post messages in Internet gun forums--are infatuated with The Rules and want to punish everybody if possible. Including little kids if they can get at them.

Nobody seems able, or interested, to look beyond the rules. What's going on today? Is it possible that everyone has fallen off the edge and finds satisfaction in punishment. Doesn't anyone else see everyone getting hurt and wonder whether people have changed so much.
 
I am reminded that this nation came into being in 1776, because of a group of men that refused to give unquestioned obedience to authority - its rules, regulations, and even laws. Quite the contrary, they believed in a government that was subservient to the people, and not the other way around. Also their view of government did not include bliss-nannyism and its constant intruding into people’s private affairs. I think that if they and foreseen zero tolerance we would have had an 11th amendment in the original Bill of Rights.
 
For the life of me, I don't understand how people can show such a lack of comprehension about cause and effect. The student was not arrested for cutting food with a knife. The act of cutting food with a knife is not an illegal act. The student was arrested on a weapons charge (stupid as it may be). It was the act of cutting food with the knife that got the attention of school officials, but that was not what the student was arrested for.
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from dictionary.com

weap·on (wěp'ən)
n.

1. An instrument of attack or defense in combat, as a gun, missile, or sword.
2. Zoology A part or organ, such as a claw or stinger, used by an animal in attack or defense.
3. A means used to defend against or defeat another:
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at what point did she engage in combat or aggressive measures that resulted in her tool (a steak knife) becoming a weapon?

knife, pencil, rock, chair, scissors, white out (poison), baseballs, bats, forks etc... all CAN be used as a weapon... but until they ARE used as a weapon, they are simply tools... she was never in possession of a weapon... she was in possession of a tool that was misinterpreted by people that think that they know more than a 10 year old... obviously they must... im sure the school is being praised for being astute and removing a danger from the school, while the 10 year old is sitting at home wondering what she did wrong...
 
Any knife is listed in the school policy book as a weapon
That makes her knife a weapon
Trying to change that fact with semantic arguments does not make it less of a weapon
Some of those other items you list are also on the schools list of potential weapons
while the 10 year old is sitting at home wondering what she did wrong..
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The school policy had to be signed by the parents of the student or by the student themselves signifying that they had read and accepted those rules
All she has to do is read it to have that question answered
 
Joab:

You're missing trhe point of ZT. She had a knife which can be called a legitimate weapon. She knew that she brought the knife. But, she did not bring with with intent to harm or kill. In light of the 3rd point, TZ does NOT kick-in. That is the legal standard.

Ergo, she broke the school policy but she did not violate ZT. See the difference?

The other matter here, and this will likely offend some, but this is the way schools work. The police do not run the schools!! I repeat...the police do NOT run the schools!!! In fact, the police can not and had better not step a toe into school property to speak to a student unless the parents have been contacted! Even at that, I hold legal controlling authority to say no...not here...not now. I personally have escorted my share of state police officers to the property line with impolite orders to never return without a warrent!

When I was the principal, I ran the school...no one else...period! The children are minors, not adults! They have legal rights and someone needs taking to the woodshed over this child's case. The problem with current school administrators is that they do not understand school law. A second problem is that many administrators are too spineless to defend children.

If a genuine crime has been committed, such as a ZT violation (meaning that the student brought a weapon to kill or harm) that is when the administrative team should call the police for crimial charges.

Doc2005
 
Let me offer up an even more perverse misuse of educational law and abuse of the police. In about 1995, a law was passed Re: students smoking. Instead of suspending a child, administrator could opt to call the police and have the student issued a ticket which carried a $50.00 fine. I mean to tell you...the nanny state started several years back...transfer education to legal control. The police officers about went nuts over this. They are trying to solve murders, and principals were calling them to write smoking tickets?! These recent laws associated with NCLB, and the case of this student, are just dumb.

Doc2005
 
Robert Hairless,
Its seems to me our whole mindset about weapons began to change after John Kennedy's 1963 assasination.
Before that most high schools had gun clubs on campus. Students in NYC carried rifles and shotguns openly on subways and buses with nary a remark much less the police being called.14 year olds in small town American hardware stores could go in and purchase a .22 rifle with no problem whatsoever.It was normal,it was done everyday and there were no school,work place, shopping area,post office shootings to speak of.
Then everything changed.JFK in Dallas,Malcolm X in NYC, the Texas Tower in Austin,MLK in Memphis,Bobby in L.A.,George Wallace in MD,2 failed attempts on Gerald Ford in 1975,Reagan in 1981 in DC.
And all the mass killings at McDonalds,Luby's through all the 1990's school shooting's ,climaxing at Columbine in 1999 into this century.
It just seems to me that Lee Harvey Oswald's massive obscenity that day unleashed some previously shackled demons to begin preying on American society.And those forces continue their maniacal,insane,insensible depredations up to this very day.
And in concert ,beginning with the GCA OF 1968 and then 1986 and 1993 our firearms freedoms began to slide down that slippery slope until today we have over 22,000 worthless,ineffective ,gun control laws on the books.
I really believe this mainly began that horrible day in Dallas.
But then again, perhaps like poster Nolo's signature line,"Maybe I'm just insane."
 
I don't have children in school anymore, however, I do have some grandkids that are and some that will be in the future, although not in the town I live in. After reading several of the threads dealing with such issues, my approach would not be very THR in the Super's office.

It seems that at some point, good sense has got to kick in or there will be some very ugly ramifications.

Realistically, how is this over-zealous application of ZT reigned in? Just asking.
 
Owens:

You have to do it proactively. Seek an audience with the school board and have them detail the policy and procedures. Have them detail the protections to substantive and procedural due process. If these do not exist, or if the policy is tainted, challenge it. The single best defense is to be aware of the process of requesting any and all disciplinary action being stayed until after the appeal process is exhausted! Exhausted.

If your Brd of Ed is imprudent, replace them, and run for the Brd.

Doc2005
 
Doc, i too was a victim of ZT... back in HS, on a monday after a boy scout campout, a fillet knife fell out of my back pack in my anatomy-phys class... i was removed from school... was not arrested, probably because my father worked at the school... i was expelled for 6 months and forced to attend an "alternative" school... the same school that drug dealers and habitual violent kids were sent to... the rest of that year was a fight to stay alive... i spent countless days getting beat up, punched, kicked and generally abused by the other students... the fact that i was the only one there from a middle class background didnt matter to anyone other than the students, and they used that as a reason to beat on me... as far as the school system was concerned i was a criminal just like the rest...
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That's just like the story my wife tells about her school "bussing" experience. She was subjected to sexual harassment and forced to walk home alone one day when she missed the bus.

It's amazing how little the administrators actually care for the students and how deeply they love their rules.

As long as schools have baseball teams they can't say squat about steak knives. And don't get me started on bus drivers. I ride a bike after all.
 
PedalBiker:

I know; I have seen it!.. I was the Vice-president, then President of the MASSP for our Region. I was the one trying to get administrators to be proactive, involve the parents, etc. More than once I sat in meeting with students and talked to brick walls, with teachers, bus drivers, administrators, Board Members...you name it. Uncommon sense. Local control is the key. NCLB, and the associated laws, need to be dropped. They collectively are destroying our children's lives.

I am surprized that nobody has hit the fact yet that the NCLB and ZT laws are unconstitutional...and they are! They constitute a collective of non-funded federal mandates...Federalism.

Doc2005
 
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