Saying “NO” to reality!

In the latest outbreak of zero tolerance, a school has forbidden a student from bringing to school a picture of her Marine Corps brother — because he is holding a gun in the picture:

If a student wants to share a photo of her brother’s chosen career, the Marine Corps, it stands to reason that a weapon will be part of it.
Unless, that is, the student attends high school in the Salem-Keizer School District. Then she’ll be told that the photo violates the district’s zero-tolerance policy for weapons.
That’s nuts.
This is the same weekend, remember, when Salem is festooned with yellow ribbons because hundreds of our National Guard troops have returned home from a yearlong stint in Iraq. Welcome home, soldiers, but could you digitize the weapons out of your photos before visiting our local high schools? We don’t want our impressionable kids to get the wrong idea about what you’ve been doing.
In most cases, the district is right to forbid students from carrying or displaying any kind of weapon at school, even on a T-shirt. This city has had problems in the past with gang violence. A school shooting this week in Minnesota serves as a painful reminder of the allure guns hold for some troubled kids.
However, “zero tolerance” can be an overly rigid approach to solving problems. That’s true in the case of Shea Riecke, the McKay High freshman who hoped to bring a photo of her brother, Cpl. Bill Riecke, to her social studies class.
What a great chance for an alert teacher to engage kids in a discussion about a career that some of them quite likely will choose — will be recruited for, in fact. The photo shows three Marines stationed in Iraq, one bare-chested, carrying a fully automatic rifle and a machine gun between them. They look young, serious and yet brash.
How much more it says about their situation than the alternatives the school district is said to have suggested — a photo of Cpl. Riecke in dress blues or the same photo but with the weapons removed by computer enhancement.
(Via G. Gordon Liddy, who protested that “pictures of guns are not guns.”)

How dare anyone suggest that common sense should be involved in education?
A picture is an image is a depiction is a thoughtcrime is a gun!
And I’m very concerned….
Because if an “image” of a gun is the same thing as a gun, then what about images in textbooks? Should students be allowed to study such evil images as part of their “history”? I think it’s high time that depictions of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and Vietnam had all “images of guns” airbrushed out.
And why stop with gun images? Isn’t it also time for a crackdown on words that evoke these images?


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3 responses to “Saying “NO” to reality!”

  1. Mike Avatar

    I was outraged, as usual, until I went to the newspaper article and found out that this is Oregon.
    Case dismissed on account of stupidity and Terminal Leftness.

  2. Van Helsing Avatar

    Nice to see students are being taught to respect the principles of honesty and freedom of expression.

  3. ric -- also in Oregon Avatar
    ric — also in Oregon

    A comprimise was reached, a different, but unedited photo will be used in the classroom.
    TV news story along with both photos at:
    KATU
    The Statesman Journal told me they expect to have an update.
    Comments at Marine Moms