Never Give a Six Year Old a Pocket Knife

From the New York Times:

Zachary Christie is a six-year old student in Newark, Delaware who is facing 45 days in reform school because he brought his new Cub Scout eating utensil to school for lunch.

Read all about it

Now, I am going to be a little bit edgy here. Who gives a six year old a knife? And even if you give him a knife, who gives it to him in this day and age without serious instruction that it is not to be taken to school, or to be taken out of the house, or to be used without parental supervision?

Yes, I know knives are all around us. So are a lot of dangerous things we try to keep out of the hands of six-year-olds.

While it's easy to say putting a kid in reform school is the wrong idea here (and it is), someone needs to mention the duty of parents to use common sense and provide oversight to their kids, especially those under age 10.

As to the judicialization of school discipline, I am against it. There needs to be discretion on the part of schools. That said, the reason discretion has been removed is that it has so often been abused.

Of course, a rigid system will break just as often as a flexible one will, and that's the rub!
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