<rant>
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 concerns me. If teenagers are afraid to make art because an adult might find their work to be politically incorrect, then we all, in the long run, will live in a world with less good art.
Ultimately, I think this trend is related to the increasing median age in core Western societies. As more people find the young to be alien and frightening, there is more and more push for “zero tolerance” of behaviors would in their own youth have been considered innocuous.
</rant>
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26 August 2007 at 11:26 PM
jeff
Wow they sent him home. When I was his age all I drew was related to army stuff and fantasy sifi other world kind of things. I still have some of the drawings, comics with lots of violence and mayhem.
And comics with silly cartoon stuff, it’s called being a boy.
This is very sad that our society wont let children be children, they need to have make believe.
26 August 2007 at 11:32 PM
jeff
I should have read the article first.
Those school officials need some reality checks, what on earth does a drawing of a fantasy laser gun have to do with being threating?
This is nuts, and I hope his parents sue these idiots back into the dark ages where they belong.
28 August 2007 at 3:33 PM
Incompetent
As long as we’re making loose and insubstantial connections (the Columbine reference in the article), Hitler painted landscapes. Therefore, landscape artists are potential genocidal tyrants who need to be locked away (You always wondered that about Bob Ross, didn’t cha?)