Was Suspended from School for Having Leatherman Micra. Seriously?

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Let me bottom line it:
Children should be forced to hunt one another for sport, spectacle, and televised entertainment.
No restrictions on weapons class, except those who use firearms will receive "sissy points."
 
This is an old topic and no one is saying anything new about it. I am moving it to Knife Laws to highlight the real topic, which is not the knives themselves. I will stop by tomorrow to see if we need to keep this exercise in repetition open.
 
Jesse B. said:
Let me bottom line it:
Children should be forced to hunt one another for sport, spectacle, and televised entertainment.
No restrictions on weapons class, except those who use firearms will receive "sissy points."
Click to expand...

If only there wasnt a movie about that youd be rich
 
Jesse B. said:
Let me bottom line it:
Children should be forced to hunt one another for sport, spectacle, and televised entertainment.
No restrictions on weapons class, except those who use firearms will receive "sissy points."
Click to expand...

Good lord. Watch out for the one with the Cold Steel battle mace. Would betting be allowed?

In all seriousness, it sucks to get caught breaking any rule or law, but look at it as a relatively cheap lesson.
 
Well, considering how public schools are worse than the TSA on international flights, you should have known better than have any knife, no matter how small, at school. Have you not seen the news where kids are getting suspended for drawing a picture of a gun, having an L-shaped pop tart that a teacher felt resembled a gun, or for simply making a childhood finger gun sign? As ridiculous as zero tolerance policies are, they are what they are, and you gotta play by the rules or pay the price.
 
I kind of hate to say it but I can't completely blame them for getting you into so much trouble if it was(is) a rule that they openly enforce. Not to say that the whole situation isn't completely stupid. That also depends on where you live. I'm in California so of course the school rules are completely over the top with safety and things like that. It sucks for anybody like me or many of the other people on this website when the rules are way too strict to apply to our use of knives.
 
Let's keep this in perspective here: this kid could have had a Battle Mistress in his bag and no one would have known about it. The issue isn't that he had a knife in school, per se, it's that he made the decision to take it out in view of a teacher for something as trivial as a loose thread.

Honestly, I'd be inclined to agree with the OP if he'd been searched or something and got suspended for it, but he KINDA left the teacher no choice. I mean, forget about the safety issue, as others have mentioned, taking no action puts that teacher in a potential legal pickle and could derail her career.

Forget legality for a second, it was a sheer lack of prudence.
 
Sucks what happened to you, but if that's your school policy, that's what you should've abided by. Careful or not, little or not, a knife is a knife...as stupid as it sounds. Believe me, you'll encounter more situations like that in life; for example, once you get a job and have to start paying taxes, you'll start to get, shall we say..."annoyed"...when you realize your money is going towards stuff you don't agree with...and there's nothing you can do about it. But you know what I say? "Render to Caeser what is Caeser's...on your own time, do whatever the heck you want".

For future note, If you want to carry a sharp implement on you every day at school LEGALLY, the only option I see is for you to become a homeschooler...which is why I never had the pleasure of dealing with the butt-backwards United States education system and their stupd Zero Tolerance policies.

Of course, I never got any snow days off, but that's beside the point :D
 
maverick3981 said:
Stab someone with a pen/pencil and get all writing material banned from your school. Happy days!
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Exactly my thoughts. Not sure why people think small sharp objects are that dangerous...especially a micra. I could see it if it was like a 4 inch folder I could see why there would be a fuss, but you could probably do more damage stabbing someone in the the throat with a sharp pencil and no one bans those.

That said, if you know its a bad idea to have those on campus... I wouldn't risk it. Lots of places are really anti knives/sharp objects and its just not worth the hassle or the money (when you get those things taken away).
 
I realize that times have changed. Certainly there is no evidence the general population is more violent. (Check when our "champion" serial killers were born.)

FBI statistics show that being at school, and indeed even going and coming to school, is very safe compared to other places that kids hang out - such as home or in the neighborhood. And that specifically includes our violence capitals such as DC, Chicago, LA, Newark, and Detroit. Only in the imagination of some is there this Great Danger at school.

And the evidence that "Zero Tolerance" reduces violence (or drug use)? There is none.

If knives cause violence, how does anyone get out of a knife show alive? Or escape their kitchens at home?

I mean suspension for a nail clipper? Please!
 
Oh good god. They should ban pencil sharpeners too! It's got a sharp razor in them!
And that mechanical pencil of yours seems like it can deal a lot of harm with the tip!
Not to mention the forks and knives in the cafeteria. The spoons too, heard of the "spoon killer"?

But seriously, I think the teacher is over reacting. She's being the kid, not those that she's teaching. There's a fine line between enforcing a rule and blowing things out of proportion. I don't think that Mirca is a legitimate reason for suspension; I'd probably walk into the school the next day with a Dark Knight waki from Barry Dawson.

That being said, I carry either a Boker mini vanquish or a massive BM 710 with me everyday. I'm 19 and I'm taking my diploma. I'm in an engineering course and my knives certainly saved some of my grades, my friend's too. My friends think in nuts, it's probably normal since I'm in Singapore.
 
Again, all the kid had to do... Was not use it in front of the teacher. He didn't really have a reason to do so. It's not like his class assignment was to make a feather stick and he pulled out a knife and got in trouble for it. It was a string! On his pants! AND he had a perfectly usable scissor on hand. Now, would he have gotten in trouble for using the Leatherman's scissor? Who knows. Personally, I doubt it. The teacher wouldn't have noticed a scissor.

The point is, we're all reasonable people here, and I personally think the action was something short of that. Anyone who's held a Micra realizes that it's twice the work to take the knife out than to use the scissors. Is it possible that this kid was trying to floss or prove some sort of a point, and karmic justice was done? When you think about the specifics, it's actually rather amusing.
 
Many schools include scissors - even plastic scissors - under their "Zero Tolerance" bans. A girl here in this area was suspended from elementary for bringing scissors - blunt-ended scissors - to schools.
 
Tom, I'm not saying I don't believe you, I have no reason not to. However, we're talking about an entirely separate issue here: a guy going out of his way to use the knife on his Micra to cut a loose thread on his jeans. That's the alpha and the omega of this situation.
 
maverick3981 said:
Stab someone with a pen/pencil and get all writing material banned from your school. Happy days!
Click to expand...

As technology increases, the use of rudimentary tools deminish. Including the pencil and pen. There will be a day when the pen and pencil are no longer used and will be seen as arcahic devices of savagery/ignorance instead of learning and teaching devices. That is the way of the world most of us live in. And with the increase in technology as we use it today, the archaic device known as the knife, the sharpened blade, has lost its place among tools and has become something to vilify and scorn.

With that, I leave you to think about this: People may believe that it was fire that vaulted us to the top of the food chain, but it is the sharpened edge that has kept us there.
 
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Tdhurl1103 said:
It's coming, so I wouldn't make too many jokes about it. As technology increases, the use of rudimentary tools deminish. Including the pencil and pen. There will be a day when the pen and pencil are no longer used and will be seen as arcahic devices of savagery/ignorance instead of learning and teaching devices. That is the way of the world most of us live in.
No knife policies, I suspect, were created by people who fear, people who depend on the police as their only means of security, and have never had to use a knife for anything outside of the kitchen. So, when these people feel fear at something they never knew, they vilify and scorn its use. Even when their own common sense tells them the blade is simply a tool to cut things with.

People believe it was fire separated us from the animal, but it was the sharpened edge that kept us there. Plain and simple.
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It probably has nothing to do with any sort of legitimate "fear." The teacher does not want to lose her job by not covering her own ass. People really want to be martyrs against straw men. Or are we not addressing the issue the the OP brought up anymore? What is it, exactly, that the defenders of this particular individual's actions want? Every kid with a Buck 110 on their belt, used every time a kid needs to tear out a sheet of paper from a notebook, or cut a random thread from their jeans? Kids don't NEED knives in school. I was in public school from 5-17 and in a public university from 17-22. I've had a knife in my pocket every day since I was nine. I never needed to use it in school, no teacher ever saw it.
 
Tdhurl1103 said:
As technology increases, the use of rudimentary tools deminish. Including the pencil and pen. There will be a day when the pen and pencil are no longer used and will be seen as arcahic devices of savagery/ignorance instead of learning and teaching devices. That is the way of the world most of us live in. And with the increase in technology as we use it today, the archaic device known as the knife, the sharpened blade, has lost its place among tools and has become something to vilify and scorn.

With that, I leave you to think about this: People may believe that it was fire that vaulted us to the top of the food chain, but it is the sharpened edge that has kept us there.
Click to expand...


Watch many cooking shows, do you? :D
 
What do I want? How about "OP put it away. Now class . . . ." If she did not have the discretion to do that, it's not on her.

If we pitch out every kid who displays something she does not "need" in school, the buildings will be empty.

This kid may have violated a clear rule. That was not prudent. It may have been unthinking. Kids do such things. If we pitch out every kid that does something imprudent or unthinking, the buildings will also be empty

He did not do anything threatening to the sane.

The Zero Tolerance jerks create a big consequence for what may be minimal transgressions. There is no sense of proportion. And there is no reduction in violence (or use of drugs) that has been documented by anyone. So what do we teach our youth? That the educational system is irrational. (Maybe that's to the good. But as a former teacher, I would hope for better.)

In Third Grade my teacher had arthritis so bad she had to use fat pencils - too fat for the sharpener. "Who will let me borrow their knife to sharpen my pencils?" Every boy's hand went up. Another time, true. But we are not better for it.
 
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Thanks for all of the input, guys. It was temporary lapse in judgement, but we all have had those days when we haven't had enough coffee. I just want other people to be aware of this, and what could happen. I'm taking responsibility for my actions, but I'm still in disbelief of how the school handled the situation. The new school classroom is in an office building, not an actual school campus. This means that none of the zero tolerance rules apply there.

What I've learned is that as a knife enthusiast and hobbyist, I have the responsibility to be discrete, and find better times to use my tools. Thanks again for all of the thought provoking discussion on this.
Rock on, guys!
 
Thomas Linton said:
What do I want? How about "OP put it away. Now class . . . ." If she did not have the discretion to do that, it's not on her.
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In my city, to be a public school teacher, you need a bachelor's and a master's degree. At that price point, to be EXTREMELY cynical, you're not putting your job on the line because you're objectively alright with a kid taking out his Micra, opening the tool, selecting the knife specifically, and cutting a loose thread with it. Tom, I think we're on the same page. Discretion is key. OP didn't display any. Whether or not a Micra is generally acceptable, I mean, that's not even the issue at hand here. Frankly, I don't buy into the OP's story that the teacher started flipping out like there was a fox in her henhouse, because he had absolutely no need to use the knife on his multitool. It reads to me like some bastardized form of yellow journalism, coming from a braggadocios 16 year old.
 
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