And they call it Education

It’s hard to believe what schools are doing to our children nowadays. With enough shooting incidents, zero tolerance edicts, and twisted logic going around you would think the US Education System would somehow get it together.

But noooooo!

Here are three recent examples of where the school systems failed:

First, Mike Cameron, a 19-year-old senior at Greenbrier high school in Evans, GA managed to get a one-day suspension for wearing a, now get this, a Pepsi t-shirt on official Coke Day. Now, why a school in Georgia would host a Coke day is beyond me, and in truth just doing so is sort of funny given the proliferation of the drug that goes by the same name.

But still. Cameron was just arguing for equal time. Maybe he doesn’t care for Coke and wanted to show his allegiance to “that other cola” that isn’t RC? Or maybe he is a free thinker, which is hard to believe coming out of a school that reacts in lock-step fashion like that, and was just supporting his own preference.

Either way it’s no big deal. It’s not a T-shirt with some Godawful saying or supporting something that most people would frown on. It’s a Pepsi t-shirt.

What probably annoyed the principal most was Mike spoiling a photo-op where a bunch of students were lined up in the shape of a coke bottle, just before the snapshot Mike whipped off his shirt to show the Pepsi shirt he was wearing underneath. A kid’s prank; just what a kid might do. Heck, I know adults who would do that. But to school principal, Gloria Hamilton, it was unconscionable not to mention slightly embarrassing:

"We had the regional president (of Coca-Cola) here and people flew in from Atlanta to do us the honor of being resource speakers." Hamilton said in defense of Coke Education Day. "It's not a Coke-Pepsi war issue. It has nothing to do with that. It was a student deliberately being disruptive and rude." The event was organized as part of a $500.00 contest run by the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Augusta.

And then we have this:

It seems a nine-year-old Grand Junction, CO, girl shaved her head to show solidarity for her friend who is fighting cancer and lost her hair from chemo treatments. Nothing too harmful there, you say, we’ve seen this before, right?

But not so for the morons who run Caprock Academy. They told the nine-year-old that she was violating a dress code and couldn’t come back to school without a wig. Get a life.

Tim Kenny who developed the St. Baldrick’s Foundation knew his charity wasn’t done raising money to help fight childhood, but he thought he had pretty much buried the stigma of baldness that youngsters with the disease once bore.

That prompted Kenny to comment like this:  “The whole reason we chose head shaving was to be in solidarity with kids who are going through treatment. I can’t believe people could miss the point like this.”

Not being too familiar with the school, but knowing how men’s styles have changed over the years, I am willing to bet that someone either working at the school or closely associated with the school sports a bald-head. Do you think the school won’t let that person in the front door without a wig? Or, do you think, like some black tie establishments they keep a supply of wigs handy in the administration office; you know just in case Michael Jordan stops by to speak at the school. Is this whole thing absurd, or am I just out-of-sync with the times.

And finally we have this little gem.

It seems Timberlake Christian School, right here in good old Virginia, is taking aim at students merely because of their looks. The administration sent a warning letter home to an 8-year old girl’s grandparents who had adopted her and were raising her. It stated:

"You're probably aware that Timberlake Christian School is a religious, Bible believing institution providing education in a distinctly Christian environment.”

Oh horrors, what a way to start a letter to the parents.

And then they went on to complain that the girl’s tomboy appearance was disconcerting and caused problems at the school. They went on to state:  “students have been confused about whether (the student) is a boy or girl and specifies that administrators can refuse enrollment for condoning sexual immorality, practicing a homosexual lifestyle or alternative gender identity."

Of course, when called on the issue an administrator said that the problems go beyond the girl’s short hair style, and that certain things disturbed the classroom environment. Yeah, right. And people wonder why organized religions are losing popularity?

God forbid that kind of twisted logic escape the class room. Who knows, the next thing that might happen is the thought police will induct new members and reinstitute things like the stocks, dunce caps, or facile and stupid attempts to publicly shame people. Who knows what might come of that.