Adorable Child (AC) switched back into the public school system this year, and one immediate result is that she no longer has to be driven to school; it’s across the street.
This is, from all angles, an excellent arrangement… except for today, because at 3:30 pm (when school dismisses), it was raining outside.
Hard.
So Polimom implemented the “rain plan” — which means I walked over to the school with two umbrellas.
I arrived with plenty of time to kill (about two minutes), and passed it talking with another parent. I told her that in the future, I’d probably just make sure AC had her umbrella in her bookbag with her, to which the other mom replied,
“Ummm. You better check first with the school. They might have a problem with that, as a type of weapon.”
Say what????
I’m sorry to say that I didn’t give this earnest, dedicated mom the respect she deserved. Instead, I followed my ever-so-slightly irreverent brain (with my mouth) down the path it wanted to travel:
“But… then… fists are weapons. Does that mean that we should require kids to leave their fists at home? But then… there’d be those stumps, ya know?”
And it went downhill from there, as I chased this silliness around for a minute or two.
“And those dangerous pens and pencils! What will they be able to write with if they can’t use them? AH! If we curtail the bloodflow from the stumps to a trickle…”
She was sincere about those umbrellas, I’m afraid… which means she was horrified at my response.
Am I missing something?
I went to public schools. There is a never ending list of things that are potential dangers to students in the eyes of school administrators. Lots of girls never did understand why they couldn’t wear open toe shoes, even though they were banned for safety and not for being too casual. That rule was never really explained well.
Anyway, my reaction to some school possibly banning umbrellas was really one of no surprise. I admit it does sound a bit too far, but having been around public school children in elementary grades, i can see where maybe some kid managed to injure another one, and from that day forth, umbrellas were banned. Odds are it is not common, and most kids wouldn’t hurt each other with one, but it always starts with one student.
I really think we need to stop taking everything so seriously.
Seriously.
The tip of a pencil broke off in the white of my right eye when I was in first grade. The tip is still there and can be seen in good lighting. Maybe pencils should be banned?
Actually, you would have to cut off the blood flow entirely – or else drain all of it out of the childrens’ bodies before sending them to school. After all, blood is a carrier of a wide variety of dangerous diseases, and it has been used as a weapon in the past.
Better yet: how about let’s just ban schools, and convert the buildings into the prisons that we know we will need in the future. Make the kids wear pink underwear and orange jumpsuits, and eat green bologna (maybe that sheriff from Maricopa County AZ could be the new Education Tsar.)
Glad my son is out of school, BTW.
~EdT.