A judge upheld the harsh punishment of a student for “disruptive” classroom behavior.
In almost any other circumstance, you’d read that previous sentence and wonder what all the fuss is about. After all, making sure students do not engage in inappropriate or even dangerous behavior is something that we expect educators to do. But when you consider what the school in question decided was “disruptive” behavior, you’ll understand why people are raising such a fuss.
Back in 2013, second grader Joshua Welch chewed a pastry he brought for breakfast into the shape of a gun, pretending to fire it as young boys are wont to. That would have been the end of it, hadn’t administrators took it upon themselves to investigate this serious matter and conclude that Welch had committed a major offense.
As punishment for this act of infamy, the school suspended the hapless student, a punishment regarded as disproportionate by many but somehow found reasonable by a circuit judge.
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This is just ridiculous!
Oh this is silly, when I was a kid we used to run around with cap guns all the time, and we all turned out fine.
This is insane !
This summary of the case fails to mention that the boy had a long history of aggressive and disruptive behavior in the classroom, including punching another student in the nose and throwing a chair. Nor does is mention that after making the gun shape in class, the boy yelled out, “Look! I made a gun!” and then proceeded to use it and “pow” noises to “shoot” students who were sitting at their desks and at passersby in the hall. School officials had already tried a string of interventions; suspension was the final straw. Thank goodness the rest of the class was able to enjoy a calmer, more studious environment for two days without the boy present. No doubt he caused disruptions every day, carving in to instruction time. Reporting on this site should be thorough. It should not take bits and pieces of a story and publish them out of context in an attempt to feed readers what they want to hear. Doing so in this case casts doubt on every article on this site.