Toy Guns Don’t Expel Students, School Boards Do
An immediate reaction to the article of two Korean boys expelled for an incident on the school bus would be a knee jerk condemnation of the school officials. Instead of going emotional, let’s attempt to ‘smack a boot to their collective heads’ using some reasonable common sense.
Thoughtless Boys Will Be Thoughtless Boys
In the first paragraph, cultural difference is mentioned as the reason the boys were playing with the airgun in the open. I am of the mindset that is a weak excuse because I am not convinced there is an element of Korean culture that will allow youths to play with toy guns as the boys did on the bus. A more plausible excuse would have been the lack maturity and responsibility from the boys. The simple fact is they behaved improperly on the school bus.
The next paragraph goes to some detail of the chain of events to what occurred. What grabs my attention is the fact that neither boy was injured from being shot at and a sheet of paper was held as a target. Nothing was said from other students on the bus. Were they terrified, angry, indifferent to the gunplay? No information was given about the airgun, but, my experience (and the article mentions the bottle of blue pellets) suggests it was a spring powered airsoft. A brief lesson of airsofts can be found here.
Match The Time With The Crime
I think community service is reasonable, but I would have specified assignment to a firearms instructor and gun range as opposed to trash cleanup or some other unrelated task. At a gun range with the firearms instructor, the boys would realize just how important gun safety and etiquette is needed. Ten days is two school weeks lost. Two or three days would have been sufficient.
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, School Boards of the Stupid
Not satisfied with the two weeks suspension and ignoring most of the boys’ scholastic achievement, the bubble-headed school board expelled them for the first half of their freshman year in a closed session. They claim they were interested for all of the students’ safety. I think it was more irrational fear and loathing of anything resembling in appearance of a firearm or the mere mention of the word in any variation. Too bad the boys did not incite a food fight by mashing quiche muffins into another student’s hair or flinging moon pies across the bus.
The cultural differences I see are immigrant families striving to get the best education for their children and the public school system too busy protecting their hold of ignorant policies.