Skip to content  Zero tolerance   In Ari­zona, a 13 year old boy
was recently sus­pended from school for mak­ing a draw­ing that
resem­bles a gun. There is no indi­ca­tion that he has
a his­tory of pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with vio­lent visual imagery,
has made explicit or implied threats, engaged in vio­lent
behav­ior, tor­tures ani­mals, or any other issues that would
make a draw­ing of a gun part of a pat­tern that respon­si­ble
adults might rea­son­ably be con­cerned about. A 13 year old kid
makes a doo­dle of a gun and gets kicked out of school.  I
con­sult in schools and have worked with extremely dan­ger­ous
ado­les­cents. I spent the last three days teach­ing a course
for spe­cial edu­ca­tors and school psy­chol­o­gists on how to
pre­vent and man­age vio­lence. So I’ve seen lots of kids who
need inter­ven­tion and dis­ci­pline. I think that sus­pend­ing
a kid for mak­ing a draw­ing is an incred­i­ble act of
bureau­cratic cowardice.  This may have only a periph­eral
asso­ci­a­tion with art, but it still con­c