In my first year as a teacher, I had a nasty experience.
As I was teaching a 6th Grade class, an 8th grader stormed into my classroom looking angry, adorning a vicious look and immediately approached me, put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger.
I flinched in pure, unadulterated fear.
Turns out the gun was a plastic toy. Albeit, a lifelike plastic toy.
The kid involved thought the nasty trick was hilarious. So did the entire 6th Grade class.
I was stunned that after I described the event to my Principal and the enormous negative effect it had on my mental state, the best he could do was give the kid in question an in-house suspension.
That’s right, the kid wasn’t even sent home! The parents weren’t even called in!
So, you can imagine that I am very sensitive about threats against teachers, especially when they involve guns.
But, even after recounting my brush with gun violence at the hands of a student, I find this story absolutely rediculous and an extraordinary case of overreach:
A Pennsylvania elementary school called the police after a kindergartner with Down syndrome made a finger gun at her teacher. Officials concluded there wasn’t a threat, but the girl’s mother said they went too far.
Maggie Gaines called on the Tredyffrin-Easttown School District to update its threat assessment policy after her 6-year-old daughter Margot was questioned by administrators for making a gun gesture at her elementary school teacher and pretended to shoot her.Gaines said it was a harmless expression of anger. But Margot’s school in southeast Pennsylvania determined her actions appeared threatening, so they conducted a threat assessment
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