Writing in a note that, “I have no tolerance for any real, pretend, or imitated violence. The punishment is an out of school suspension,” the principal of Our Lady of Lourdes elementary school in Cincinnati, Joe Crachiolo, suspended a first grader for pretending to shoot another student with a pretend arrow in a pretend battle.
What’s interesting is that the principal seems to have a mental problem: He cannot distinguish reality from fantasy. How odd that a man with that particular deficit would be expected to care for small children, who seem more mentally fit than he is. If they thought they could possibly get hurt by make-believe arrows, they would stop playing and run for their lives.
Somehow, they manage to understand that play IS play. It’s not dangerous and it doesn’t turn kiddies into future killers.
The boys’ parents, Matthew and Martha Miele, have questioned the school’s decision, not just because it is overkill (which, Principal Crachiolo, does not mean anyone actually was KILLED — it’s just an expression). They also question the principal’s outlook on childhood. As the mom told WLWT in Cincinnati:
“I can’t stop [my son] from pretending to be a super hero. I can’t stop him from playing ninja turtles. I can’t stop him from doing these things and I don’t think it would be healthy to do so,” Martha Miele said.
“His imagination can go limitless places. We try to encourage that as parents,” Matthew Miele said.
Ironically, it is limitless imagination that has gotten us to this point in the first place. In a country already obsessed with the idea that all children are in constant danger for their lives, no danger is too small to punish. That includes even a non-existent danger.
Really, it is so interesting to think about how a non-existent danger is treated like a real one. I’d love folks to weigh in on that.
Meantime, there is a giant ray of hope in this story: The fact that it made the news and the media is obviously on the side of the pint-size perp. Consider this another stake — arrow? — through the heart of Zero Tolerance. – L
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67 Comments
This is a fight that will be played out again and again.
Keep fighting the good fight, Mr. and Mrs. Miele.
there go so many of the books and films that children read and watch
Roald Dahl is first one out
Bambi will be banned
too depressing to keep listing
These “zero-tolerance” policies are idiotic enough in and of themselves. But it’s doubly crazy that they occur in a country where we insist that ownership of actual guns be completely unfettered. How on earth does it make sense that weapons are apparently so dangerous that even pantomiming their use is punishable, but actually carrying them isn’t even something that can be regulated?
I just proofread my son’s paper last night on Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games so the irony is not lost that this archery is punished but then that same violence glorified in middle school assignments.
My son loved the Hunger Games trilogy. He is not a big reader but loved the action and characters (especially Katniss) and wrote a pretty good paper on bravery. It doesn’t surprise me he liked it and I’m THRILLED they are studying a book that so many kids enjoy. My son is also a hunter and uses a cross bow. Real arrows are not always used for violence- some people feed their families with the meat provided from hunting.
Equating violence with every arrow, real or imaginary, is the most absurd decision I’ve heard in a while.
Is Cupid also banned for Valentine’s Day??
Please reconsider this position. Playing pretend bow-and-arrow is only one step away from playing pretend Cupid, and we all know where THAT leads.
Cray.
So I guess they are modeling a better problem solving technique. When you don’t agree with someone or don’t like the way they are, you make them leave and keep them away from their main community for 3 days. Then they can return but only so long as they conform perfectly to the preferences of the leader (bully).
I am sure that will help build a kinder society. Don’t you?
(I mean, aren’t you?)
(Would love to be able to edit my typos.)
If a kid pretends to shoot another kid and if THAT kid pretends to die a dramatic death, we must all pretend to be very sad.
The school systems do a bang-up job of brainwashing…evidenced by the fact that the principal was able to deliver his “I have no tolerance…” speech with a straight face.
I was having a conversation with my kids last night about American culture. It being just after Halloween and all I was telling them (as I was mooching some of their best treats) of some of the awesome treats we have in Canada that you can’t get in the US, like Coffee Crisp (the very bar I was mooching) then we were talking about the fact that Kinder Eggs were not available and actually illegal. Illegal cause they have a toy inside and a child might try to eat it I guess and possibly choke. There have been instances of cars being impounded at the border for having one on board. I told them you can have a concealed handgun though—cause I guess those are not dangerous to children….
And now having an imagination is illegal at school.
I wanted to report that my daughter’s 5th grade teacher is sensible. The other day, they were looking at something for science class that had wires and electronics and such. My daughter, having heard about the boy with the clock who was suspended, made a comment that “It looks like we’re making a bomb.” She was chided by the teacher, but nothing further.
When she told us, OTOH, we were horrified because we know what schools can do to a student saying such things. We reminded her that there’s a time and a place for joking, and that’s not about bombs (especially at school or the airport).
This made me think of “Madam Secretary”. In one episode her son tired of the in crowd insulting his mother, jumped and broke another student’s nose. A private school with zero tolerance for violence. The son to stay in school had to make a heart felt apology. He apologized for breaking his nose, but not for defending his mother. They still kicked him out. When Madam Secretary got vocal the dean threatened to have her removed. LMAO!!!!! She responded with “Oh your non violent security against my Secret Service detail? I’d like to see that.”. Her husband had to push her out of the conference room.
I sincerely hope these parents fight this all the way.
marie,
Don’t forget to bring in the pretend Grief Counselor.
I am also wondering if this idiot of a school admin. is so against violence, then how in the hell are they ever going to teach history. History is 90% violence. The United States of America would not exist had it not been for violence.
“Our Lady of Lourdes”
So almost certainly a private school.
If the parents keep giving the school money (in the form of tuition), then
there is a limit to how upset they can claim to be.
Makes me want to take a sip of water, and pretend that it’s hemlock.
“If the parents keep giving the school money (in the form of tuition), then
there is a limit to how upset they can claim to be.”
Even private schools are subject to all sorts of government regulation directly, and liability exposure due to crazy laws and precedents. They really don’t have a free hand.
Well private Catholic school…not like their policies are any better than public ones.
And please kiddies, check your brains at the door. This is school after all! Boys spirits are being crushed in our confused world. I’m someone who believes violence is necessary sometimes to stop evil things from happening. I would hope the principal would use violence on the off chance someone tried to harm a student, oh wait, he is against all forms of violence. What a brainless turd. I would yank my kids out of that school so fast…
I am so tired of these stories. As I ask in the title of my book, What if everybody understood child development? This principal clearly doesn’t (and shouldn’t educators be required to understand children?!); if he did he would know that this sort of play is NECESSARY for children. It’s how they make sense of the world around them, to learn to differentiate between fiction and reality, and to work out their fears.
Thanks for shining some additional light on this story, Lenore.
Would that same principle suspend a kid if that pretend arrow was not shot in a pretend battle, but during Valentine’s by someone pretending to be Cupid?
I think this is beyond ridiculous. Sure, if the kid being “shot” didn’t want to take part in the battle, or if the make-believe arrow was part of a threat, then he needs to act, but the fact the other kid was complicit in the whole thing clearly means there was nothing that needed handling.
Bring that kid back to school! Being unjustly suspended is way more harmful than a pretend arrow.
Wonder how the principal justifies the crucifix that is certainly on display?
Well, obviously and repetitively, I know, any focus on or “protection” against those on the sex offender registry at Halloween is addressing a non-existent problem. No increase in risk of sexual harm to children at Halloween; no correlation between registrants and Halloween; no correlation between “stranger-danger” to children at Halloween; no recorded instance of harm to or abduction of a child at Halloween by a registrant in any of the 50 states, including the 16 that have absolutely no restrictions against them. For more see http://nationalrsol.org/blog/2015/11/04/an-open-letter-to-new-york-governor-andrew-m-cuomo-and-doccs-commissioner-brian-fischer/
When I was in first grade our cloakroom looked like an arsenal. We all had plastic guns and at recess we would pick sides and play war. Our teacher was the referee.
Given the rash of imaginary arrow violence at Our Lady of Lourdes, perhaps this principal can start a new movement, with a catchy stranger danger type name. I suggest “Don’t be Stupid, Cupid” to educate the masses of the dangers of imaginative play, especially involving arrows and power rangers, an often deadly duo.
“I have no tolerance for any real, pretend, or imitated violence. The punishment is an out of school suspension.”
So I guess lockdown drills with implied “gunman on the loose” are not tolerated?
We wouldn’t want to expose our kids to that type of imitated violence either. Right?
The goal of “education” is to train children to be productive workers in jobs that have disappeared decades ago. Administrators are particularly prone to this sort of delusional thinking so this little story is just a minuscule example of what goes on every day in all too many schools where any deviation from the “good worker” behavior is stamped out with counter productive punishment.
“…non-existent danger treated like a real one” sounds like our old friend “worst-first thinking”, which we discussed under “over protective child protective services” and “police state”.
Send the principal a copy of Free Range Kids, quick, someone! This is an emergency!
“Would that same principle suspend a kid if that pretend arrow was not shot in a pretend battle, but during Valentine’s by someone pretending to be Cupid?”
In a Catholic all-boys school that may be even worse 😉
I have been against this “zero policy” mandate from the beginning. Why? It takes away the ability of teachers, principals, etc., to use common sense. When I was in elementary school my older brothers and I had BB guns. When my only daughter was 8, she picked up a stick, pointed it at her dad and said, “you better run or I’m going to shoot you.” Imagination, which someone posted about on here is being punished. In my scenario, dad ran and hid behind a tree. 🙂 It was normal Play.
Imagination is being crushed…. deliberately. Masculinity, or at least self reliance is also being deliberately crushed. Learning to protect ones’ self or protect others is being discouraged so that we look to big brother for safety. It’s a slow, inexorable process, but you see it happening everywhere. Incidents like this are just examples of 100’s and thousands more. Death of society by a thousand cuts. It is deliberate.
“I have no tolerance for any real, pretend, or imitated violence.”
I have no tolerance for any real, pretend, or imitated brainlessness.
Good thing it’s not St. Sebastian’s. The first attempt at martyring him was with arrows (from which he was miraculously healed….. what if they were playing “Let’s Kill St. Sebastian” on the playground?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Sebastian (Ultimately he was clubbed to death.)
that mum: You can’t go across the border with a concealed hand gun. You have to declare it on either side. So it can’t be concealed carry as you say. If you are bringing one from Canada, you have to obtain an ATF license and explain your reason for bringing the weapon. Hunting for example. The weapon must be locked in a weapons case and unloaded. You are also subject to the state in which the weapon is brought. So if you are in a state that only allows open carry, you cannot have a concealed weapon. It’s not as easy as you think to bring in a weapon and it certainly cannot be under concealed carry instances.
As for the Kinder Eggs, that is because of a law from the 1930s which was enacted before the existence of Kinder Egg. There is a company that is similar to Kinder Egg in the US but they make it obvious to children who cannot read that there is a toy inside the egg thus they don’t violate the law. Nestle’s Smarties cannot be imported either because it would violate trademark with Smarties aka Rockets another American company. Having had a Kinder Egg I really don’t see what’s so great about them. The chocolate isn’t all that great and the toys “meh.” But that’s just my opinion.
I tried to think of something cogent to say but I am so overwhelmed with anger that I couldn’t write a sentence that would get published. Like Rae, I am sick to death to reading stories like this. We are bereft of sanity.
So no Robin Hood? Lord of the Rings?
Is there an imaginary mental weapon detector they have to be screened by to take these wild ideas out of their minds? TDA signs with banned imaginary weapons?
Avatar?
The Avengers?
Hunger Games? Catching Fire? Mockingjay?
All have very cool archery scenes…and kids like to pretend play, it’s healthy for them and keeps them out of trouble. Or IN trouble at this school, sadly.
Wait a second. Are we sure this wasn’t a pretend suspension?
I am a substitute and we tell the kids not to play guns because they do make guns out of ANYthing. But I don’t think anyone has been suspended for it. We just tell them not to do that at school. I am that way with my own kids a lot too because I don’t want them to think that violent behavior is common place, because we do have such a problem in this country with divisiveness and violence. I think we should be teaching our children-because that is what we are supposed to do TEACH not suspend-that shooting each other with arrows would be unacceptable.
Anyway, children’s behavior should absolutely be tolerated, and then corrected. Suspension is not correction it is punishment. Some people are into that I guess. :/
I think it’s great. This is almost as good of an ‘egg on the face’ story as Maryland’s campaign to destroy the Meitivs. It breaks my heart to imagine that Joe Crachiolo may be losing sleep because he made a douche bag out of himself.
“if the kid being “shot” didn’t want to take part in the battle, or if the make-believe arrow was part of a threat, then he needs to act”
I totally disagree. What’s stopping the kid from walking away if he didn’t want to play that particular game?
” What’s stopping the kid from walking away if he didn’t want to play that particular game?”
Don’t you understand? The kid was SHOT! Pretend violence is just as bad as real violence!
There’s a great chapter about this (why kids should be allowed to pretend to use weapons, perpetrate violence, etc.) in Heather Shumaker’s book “You Don’t Have to Share.”
The only “danger” I see here, is that principal. She’s an extremist. Extremists on ANYTHING about EVERYTHING is very dangerous. Especially those that have a level of power and authority. They tend to abuse it to push their own agenda. Which is exactly what this dummy principal has done.
Can’t they just pretend to suspend him?
No violence? At all? Whatsoever? Pray tell, how do they explain where their hamburgers come from? Or why predators have sharp teeth or are even called “predators”? A zero-tolerance policy for violence even knocks out shows like Teletubbies since sometimes the Tubbies smack things.
Heather,
Nope, sorry!!!!!!! You’re wrong. There is nothing that needs to be taught, nothing that needs to be corrected. This is good, normal and healthy play. You personally may have issues with this type of play, but that does not give you the right to impose your personal beliefs on your students.
You do realize that the history lesson will now consist of, “The Colonists politely asked the British to leave them alone. And the British smiled and wished the Colonists luck. Then left.”
No shots fired. No dead soldiers. Just a polite conversation over tea, on the docks.
This very school offers soccer and football programs. I’d say a tackle could be considered orders of magnitude more “violent” than a pretend arrow, but I guess they are not going to cancel these programs anytime soon.
If they are suspending first grade boys for pretending to shoot, our first grades will soon be very empty. Ridiculous.
Trying to imagine how history lessons go at Our Lady of Lourdes:
The Civil, um, Heated Verbal Disagreement. Sherman said mean (but not violent) things to people in Georgia, and Meade and Lee said mean things to each other in Gettysburg, but nobody was violent and everybody just decided to stop stealing black people’s crayons.
World Animated Discussion I, in which the British, French, and Americans persuaded the Germans, Turks, and Austrians not to be mad about it.
World Animated Discussion II, in which the Japanese and Americans worked it out over a nice sushi dinner, and Hitler was persuaded to stop calling the Jews names and learned to share with the French and British. He went back to painting.
Nonetheless, I have a hard time imagining how their religion classes go without mentioning violence. There’s an act of violence that’s central to the Christian faith, after all.
In my imagination I’m sending this idiot principal to a pretend guillotine.
My six year old son is guilty. He screamed as if being axe murdered at the mere anticipation of his flu shot. But wait, aren’t we supposed to grow out of most of our irrational fears?
“How on earth does it make sense that weapons are apparently so dangerous that even pantomiming their use is punishable, but actually carrying them isn’t even something that can be regulated?”
because the ultimate goal is to create a citizenry that won’t object to the actual guns being banned as well.
It’s the Stalinist way: start with the young, mould them to your ideology and when they’re adults they’ll follow you blindly, turning on their parents when told to.
That’s why the zero tolerance policies regarding anything that even hints at looking like a weapon. That’s why schoolchildren are given forms to fill out about what according to those ideologies are “subversive activities” by their parents (owning weapons, who they vote for, what they eat, etc. etc.).
The children are being groomed for their future (and current if only they knew it) roles as drones and willing slaves to the elite.
@Heather:
” I think we should be teaching our children-because that is what we are supposed to do TEACH not suspend-that shooting each other with arrows would be unacceptable.”
IMHO one needs to consider the specific scenario at hand. Is the targeted person some fantasy enemy, or is it the real person?
If the kid with the pretend bow plays Legolas and is shooting some ork who is enacted by the other kid, then that’s perfectly ok in my opinion.
What i can see as problematic is if the kid is pretending to shoot his fellow co-student and actually imagines it as shooting that co-student.
However, since those kids are friendly with each other (after all they play together) i would in case of doubt assume that it’s an ork or criminal or alien monster that is being shot. Not a friend.
I commented on my facebook about this. It’s ridiculous. I couldn’t be a kid in this decade/century. I can remember as a kid in the late 70’s/early 80s, sword fighting with sharp sticks and being poked through the lip (all the way to teeth). If I lived in this age and my mother was like some parents today, the other kid would have been arrested and the mother sued.
Matthew and Martha Miele, please move to my state and attend my kid’s school. Granted, it is a combination homeschool/public school, but once your son is in 4th grade….he can do archery. With real bows and arrows! Or, wait until middle school, as the middle schools also do it. The hardest part though, is waiting until 4th grade. My son watched the older kids with envy until he was old enough to participate.
@Dhecwo- You could still be a kid in this decade/century. Kids are surprisingly adaptable.
I tried my best to raise a no weapons/non-violent child. But the boy make swords out of Legos or bend his sister’s Barbie into a gun and sticks and pocket knives made spears. I finally gave up around age 4 and let him choose his free play. We’ve had massive nerf gun wars in our neighborhood and epic water gun and balloon battles. He was recently reprimanded for using my sweet peppers in the garden for target practice for is airsoft gun. I was removing the seeds from the peppers when I noticed a small orange ball in several and wasn’t sure if it was an extra large seed or an unborn twin until I realized he was shooting up the garden!
Most kids this age play video games (surprised no one’s mentioned THIS accepted imaginary violence) that use guns, swords, and all kinds of violence. They may be playing them on their phone in before and aftercare as I type this. Good luck ridding your school of all violence. I suppose he will monitor all electronic usage as well??
“Most kids this age play video games (surprised no one’s mentioned THIS accepted imaginary violence) that use guns, swords, and all kinds of violence.”
Yeah, but when they do it at school, the teachers take away their GameBoys and phones.
“I couldn’t be a kid in this decade/century.”
We had zero tolerance for drugs and zero tolerance for fighting by the time I was in high school in 1981. Somehow, almost everybody made it through.
It’s the same logic as prohibiting sex play. It may seem like victimless crime, but it’s high treason against political correctness. That’s the real problem.
I’ve been to orphanages and mental institutions in Europe where little kids are routinely tied to their wooden pallet beds with homemade straightjackets all day long, and beaten if they escape. They could be adopted, but when I post about them, I get one or two “likes” and comments.
Meanwhile, over in First World La-La Land, we’re so free and safe and well-fed and taken care of that we deem child’s play the thing to eradicate.
Outside of the idiocy of any punishment for imaginary anything, why are we punishing 6 years olds with suspension at all? I always thought it a stupid punishment for older kids, most of whom would love an extra 3 days off school, but it really makes no sense for a 6 year old. It is way too abstract of a consequence for that young of a child.
James,
When I was in the third grade, almost the entire grade divided itself (boys, I mean) into ‘gangs’. They planned actual violence for a couple days in a row. On the day of the fight, the two groups threw rocks, sand, and sticks at each other. It took the school twenty minutes to calm the other boys down. (I wasn’t one of the ‘in’ crowd. I wasn’t allowed to join either gang. I don’t remember why. I remember some other outcasts trying to be a peacemaker third ‘gang’.)
All that happened to them was denial of playground privileges for two weeks. (although I’m sure it was worse for them at home, it was 1982, after all.) There were kids with scratches, bruises, and other minor injuries. All they got was having to sit on the playground, write sentences, and watch the other non-violent kids play.
Can you imagine if something similar happened today?
Egan … the child wants to pretend to be Legolas, a character written by a Catholic author.
“We had zero tolerance for drugs and zero tolerance for fighting by the time I was in high school in 1981. ”
Drugs? Yeah they were not tolerated. Fighting? Been there done that those same years, and no police, no suspensions. Good lecture from our Vice Principal, lose of some team sport participation for awhile, and that was about it. And it was not a blanket punishment for both parties. If one was deemed to be in the right, then so be it. That is how it worked in 1981 up here, and we all made it through just fine.
Hmm, what’s the principal’s opinion on imaginary cannibalism and vampirism?
“what’s the principal’s opinion on imaginary cannibalism and vampirism?”
I believe the official Catholic position is that transubstantiation is real, not imaginary.
What? This is a prank, must be a prank. No one in his right mind will believe that this is a true story.
Because if this is reality the parents from that school should immediately order the board to dismiss this principle. Such a person is definitely not capable of caring for and teaching of children, because he lacks imagination and empathy.
he lacks imagination and empathy.
you just described a lot of school principals….
This kid not only got suspended … but 10 years in a maximum security facility — https://img0.etsystatic.com/067/2/11066769/il_570xN.783314684_cmfw.jpg
This kid not only was suspended … but 10 years in a maximum security facility — https://img0.etsystatic.com/067/2/11066769/il_570xN.783314684_cmfw.jpg