Absolute stupidity:
Adams School District 50 is defending its decision to punish a third grader for sniffing a Sharpie marker.
Eight-year-old Eathan Harris was originally suspended from Harris Park Elementary School for three days. Principal Chris Benisch reduced the suspension to one day after complaints from Harris’ parents.
Harris used a black Sharpie marker to color a small area on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. A teacher sent him to the principal when she noticed him smelling the marker and his clothing.
“It smelled good,” Harris said. “They told me that’s wrong.”
Eathan’s father, John Harris, says the school overreacted for treating Eathan as if he was huffing, or inhaling, marker fumes.
“I think it’s outlandish,” John Harris said. “It’s ridiculous.”
But it’s progress in the War on Drugs™. After all, Sharpies are gateway markers. Today, Markers. Tomorrow, Rust-Oleum!
taodon
I think it’s apparent that someone was sniffing something, but it wasn’t the kid.
John Cole
Possession with intent to deliver charges can’t be far behind for these guys.
And am I the only one old enough to remember huffing our mimeographed assignments in grade school? YEEHAW!
dbrown
The war on nigge … I mean the black gentlemen … has moved to grade school.
Keith
Hell, when I was in grade school, I had magic markers that you were *supposed* to smell. They came in various flavors like licorice, cherry, and grape (or maybe blueberry). Wonder if those are banned at that school as well, or if it’s just the ones with the solvent smell.
Dennis - SGMM
Young Eathan should have had the good sense to instead down a shot of Crown Royal and chase it with a beer.
Zifnab
Oh shit, better keep the kid away from these!
I should have known that Rose Art was nothing more than a liberal front group designed to hook our children on inhalants and make them run off into the woods to live like hippies.
Cassidy
From the HRC website:
Back when I was a little girl, my Dad used to take me out to my Grandfather’s house, and we’d sniff markers all day long down by the lake.
jake
Hey now, who supplied that innocent youngster (unless he is brown, I can’t tell from the photo) with the dangerous Sharpcotic? I think the entire staff should be waterboarded until someone confesses.
Jesus Skateboarding Christ. A very serious marker? A person in charge of educating young children thinks and says things like “A very serious marker?”
And by purged, he means shoved them up his ass to keep that telephone pole company. Maybe next week he’ll stuff all of the school’s janitorial supplies up there … just in case.
Whoa man. Gettin’ flashbacks. No wonder we’re all DFHs. Our tiny minds were fried by Very Serious Copies.
Congrats Michael, you found the heart and soul of stoopid.
JWeidner
You beat me to it John – I was going to mention the old mimeographs too. Those were pretty awesome. Fast Times at Ridgemont High captured the effect those had on a school room pretty well – teacher hands out the mimeographed sheets, kids all immediately pick them up and hold them to face, inhaling deeply.
Good times, man….good times.
JWeidner
Errr….you beat me to it Michael.
JWeidner
oh sheesh. Put me out of my misery. I’m having severe reading comprehension issues today.
jake
And Principal Nebbish looks exactly like I imagined.
And he don’t pruff reed 2 gud:
Or completely uninformed and idiotic, as the case may be.
ThymeZone
Isn’t there some kind of Zero Tolerance rule for stupidity in school administrators?
frogspawn
I’m off to Home Depot; anyone want anything?
Party on, dudes!
JC
Oh man, this is ten different kinds of stupidity – what the hell is going on with various school administrators?
The Other Steve
On a somewhat related note.
Can I just point out that cooking Passion Fruit Mousse or Napa Cabbage Slaw qualifies as elitist in my family?
Krista
Mr. Sketch! We had those for flip charts when I was in training, at one of my previous jobs. The green ones smell like spearmint.
Keith
And in a related note, Chris Matthews will be interviewing the marker on Hardball tonight to discuss its views on whether or not Barak Obama’s 2007 income makes middle America feel insecure, and Bill Kristol will be including some choice quotes from the marker in his next editorial that all Americans should read.
Dennis - SGMM
Make fun, all you elitists. Just don’t blame Principal Benisch when the kid shows up on a freeway on ramp carrying a sign that says “Will work for airplane glue.”
shera
Were we supposed to stop sniffing Mr. Sketch markers in elementary school? Because the blue marker smells especially good…
RodeoBob
There it is gang, in a nutshell. Some might wonder why a 3rd grader would prefer sniffing fumes to the classroom activites, others might mock the specific principal, but the real core of it is the world-view so neatly summarized above. 200+ years on the continent, and we’re still stuck with the damn Puritans.
“It was good. They told me that’s wrong”.
Sex without pregnancy, (some) recreational use of intoxicants, working less than 8 hours a day, taking more than 2 weeks of vacation a year, dressing comfortably, having romances with folks you feel romantic towards… it all wraps up into this pleasure-hating cultural value that says fun is wrong.
Brachiator
Just the reverse. Schools no longer tolerate administrators with a lick of common sense.
This kind of thing is right up there with another school’s war on playground fun (School Principal Bans Tag From Playground):
Hell, if I were a school kid, I would huff a Sharpie just to catch a break from all these clods with sticks up their asses.
Ted
This is absurd. I like the way markers smell too, but I don’t huff em to get some kind of high. Gasoline smells good too.
Dennis - SGMM
OT: I think that I just heard Matthews say that Pittsburgh is a more beautiful city than San Francisco.
JGabriel
Folks, this is really very serious. Everyone knows that early Sharpie sniffing leads to teenage huffing of Toner Cartridges.
Is anyone else reminded of that scene in ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High‘, where a student hands out freshly a freshly mimeographed test and everyone in the room sniffs it first?
I suppose this school would suspend them all.
.
w vincentz
What is this world coming to? Geesh, the mimeograph fluid was good, as was making bouncy balls from the rubber cement.
So, who supplied the sharpie marker that found its way into the hands of the evil kid?
One of my friends that went to a Catholic school used to pretend to pass out so his 5th grade nun teacher would come over and attend to his medical emergency, all the while, he was getting an up-skirt of her pure privates under her habit.
Oh these kids! Sweet Mother Mary with a lubricated dildo, what next?
JGabriel
Should have read the early comments first: I see that I am indeed not the only one reminded of ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’.
C’est la vie. (TM Things elitist people say, or so I hear.)
Bob In Pacifica
Poor kids around the world are huffing shit, no real shit, for the methane.
Ted
The Corner has an abundance of methane. Perhaps they could start selling it.
Dreggas
Sharpie’s? AMATEUR!
In my day it was the rubber cement…good times…good times.
Psycheout
If you prefer honest and thoughtful perspective rather than mindless snark, which is just about all Mike D. is able to provide, take a look at some sober and serious coverage for a change.
It’s obvious that Mike doesn’t have children, considering the flippant way he addresses (or rather doesn’t address) the serious issue of huffing. It can be deadly and often is.
But Mike just doesn’t give a damn, does he?
libarbarian
Allow me to play the Devils Advocate and ask…..
Is a three-day suspension REALLY that much of a punishment to a third-grader? You guys don’t still believe that “permanent record” lie our teachers used to tell us, do you?
MNPundit
Ah…. memories. Those markers really DID smell awesome. I sniffed them when on occasion but managed to restrain myself.
tim serbo
weak, psickout. better trools,pls.
/returns to lurking/
Rich Blackmoor
It says Non-Toxic on the marker.
It doesn’t contain the kind of solvent that gets you high.
The War On Some Drugs is the greatest domestic policy failure in US history.
All drugs should be cheaply and freely available.
When $5000 can make 400lbs of heroin that can be sold in the US for $58,000,000, do you really think the black market in drugs will ever stop?
Huffing solvents that are legal and freely available will damage a person ,smoking illegal marijuana is less harmful than coffee and has been shown to have many beneficial properties. The possible prevention of Alzheimer’s is one of them.
Fraud Guy
Ah, but I have you mimeo hounds beat.
When I was in grammar school, for 4 years my mom was the secretary for the school PTA. Once a month, she typed up newsletters to go out to all the children in the school.
Guess who got to run the hand cranked mimeograph machine that came with the PTA job? Who got to handle the hundreds of fresh off the mimeo flyers and sort them for the classes, surrounded by that sweet aroma?
And, no, I did not go on to a life of drug induced frenzy. In fact, I have never done recreational drugs.
Delia
It’s a punishment to the parents who no doubt have to make all sorts of emergency child care arrangements. I know these things.
As to the stupidity of school administrators: it’s virtually a requirement these days. I think they teach it in school administrator school. When my daughter was a senior, the principal, being all entranced with some new education theory, had plastered banners all over the high school bearing slogans like “We Are Active Learners!”
Although, come to think of it, my old high school principal was pretty much a small brain dinosaur and that was a long time ago.
LiberalTarian
As a child formerly knocked out several times during various playground antics, I can say I am fine. *grin*
p.a.
I’m not defending the school in any way, but I have had a Sharpie bust in my pocket while I was sitting snoozing through lunch at work. When I woke up I thought I was having a stroke; seeing double, unable to focus, room spinning, people talking to me sounded like we were in an echo chamber. I must not have looked too good, they were asking if I was ok and were about to dial 911. As my had was off my chest my head cleared and I realized what had happened.
Almost made me nostalgic for my adolescence.
And no, I haven’t been snorting Sharpies before any of my previous posts on this site…
redterror
“Principals make hundreds of decisions everyday based on our best judgment. And in that time, smelling that marker, I felt like, ‘Wow, that’s a very serious marker,'” Benisch said.
And you, sir, are a very serious dumbass.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Mimeos never did it for me; they just always smelled bad. Old-school Marks-A-Lots, though, those were awesome.
Jesus, how did any of us over 40 survive childhood? Seriously. No bicycle helmets, free access to spray paint and permanent markers, allowed, nay, encouraged to go play out in the neighborhood and leave Mommy alone. BB guns, buck knives, other implements of mass destruction, with nary an adult in sight to “supervise.”
b. hussein canuckistani
Yeah, but look at us. Criminals and degenerates to a man (sexist!). Who here hasn’t spent time in jail or on the run from the Man because we didn’t learn proper values in grade 3? If my principal had taught me that smelling markers was wrong, I’d be a prominent conservative politician today.
grandpajohn
As a retired high school teacher, I must admit, that one thing that cannot be taught in high school or college is common sense. And in my thirty years of teaching I ran into a goodly number of both teachers and administers who were very skilled and knowledgeable but had NO common sense.
Now my first thought on reading this was how the hell does a third grade kid know not to sniff markers if no one has set him down and explained the possible results of doing so.
So instead of suspension,common sense and logical thinking would indicate that a more proper response would have been to taken the child aside and carefully explained to him why he should not sniff markers .
Problem is that todays zero tolerance mode of school policies, which is basically a cop out and a CYA to having teachers and administrators show and use professional skills and abilities in doing the job they are hired to do, does not allow for the application of common sense. There is no time or place for reasoning and explaining about actions both good or bad and the results of those actions