Criminalizing Normal Childhood Behavior

[talon]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/05/national/main6177041.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.3

What is it with some schools criminalizing students?

Most schools would send a child who vandalized school property to the principal's office, made the child clean up the mess (assuming it was only ink, which it sounds like this case was - although it's possible she carved the words in with the point of her pen), and possibly do volunteer work about the school and/or write a paper. They wouldn't haul a child away in handcuffs for such a minor offense. Children are still learning what's right and wrong, even at 12 years old. It may have seemed cool at the time, and there's also the likelihood that the desk contained prior scribblings, which may have made it seem an acceptable thing to do.

Common sense has certainly left some schools, and I hope it's not epidemic.

Otherwise, I might have to visit a few schools and talk to them. They absolutely hated that when my kids were in school, and hated it even more when I would visit them because they gave my children preferential treatment (like the time they banned trench coats and suspended any students wearing one to school, but allowed my daughter to wear hers unscathed - by the time I was done "talking" to the school authorities, all the students were allowed to have their trenchcoats back - and that was only one incident in years' worth of incidents. When my youngest child graduated from school, the princiapl nervously asked me if I had any more children coming along.).

I know it's hard to discipline children at school but that's no reason to criminalize them for doing things kids do as part of their maturation process.