8-year-old boy suspended for sniffing marker
Today, my wife showed me an article about an 8-year-old Colorado boy who is unlucky enough to attend a school run by morons. When he took a sniff of a Sharpie in class, the principal suspended him.
I agree the the principal sent a "clear message." The message is that this poor decision and his refusal to acknowledge it makes him unfit to be principal of a school. LinkA teacher sent him to the principal when she noticed him smelling the marker and his clothing.
"It smelled good," [Eathan] Harris said. "They told me that's wrong."
Eathan shyly shook his head "no" when a reporter asked if he knew about "huffing."
[Principal Chris] Benisch stands by his decision to suspend Harris, saying it sends a clear message about substance abuse.
"This is really, really, seriously dangerous," Benisch said.
In his letter suspending the child, Benisch wrote that smelling the marker fumes could cause the boy to "become intoxicated."
A toxicologist with the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center says that claim is nearly impossible.
the latest
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You were micro-huffing? For shame, Mr. Frauenfelder.
That principal needs to read Free Range Kids.
so why isn't his stupid bastard of a so-called principal being charged with "distributing drugs to children"? Gods! I'd really, really like to punch him in the face.
I wonder what that principal ate as a kid ... chalk? paint chips? {insert vulgar pejorative here}?
unfit to principal, you say? after this he is sure to be promoted to superintendent!
Skinner!
Yeah, the principal's reaction is just typical ignorant anti-drug hysteria, but what makes it even more perplexing is they specifically make markers that smell like fruit and stuff. They're totally harmless.
We all know that marker pens are gateway drugs, next thing you know he will sniff glue, then weed, then heroin. WHATEVER. Plus, is it really that bad he should be suspended?
A quick explanation to the child that it may smell nice, but for some things it might be dangerous to do so thats why they weren't happy.
I'm so glad that I could enjoy school without this crazy stuff.
Yikes! And when I think of all those years basking in the sweet, sweet fumes of ditto worksheets and desperately volunteering to run the ditto machine. That was a high that got one through fifth period and set the stage for stronger substances to come. Now the poor tots are reducing to marker-sniffing?
The tragic lives of kids today...
The city closest to me has a bylaw that requires sellers of permanent markers and of spray paint to obtain proof of age before making the sale. In this case, the claim is that it will help stop graffiti (as if it's hard to obtain permanent markers or spray paint).
it's solvents (like that terrible smelling Xylene) that makes people high. You can only find that in really large metal cylinder markers (that smell terrible) now a days.
The most common method is to throw some markers in a bag, seal it and let the solvents 'gas up' making the bag poofy, then inhale.
p.s. I don't huff, never huffed, hate smells associated with huffing, and use a gas mask when working around ink, paint, and solvents (because that's my job).
Incompetence and zero tolerance policies once again combine to form a monumental pile of fail.
Upside: elementary school suspensions mean exactly nothing, so the kid just got an early lesson in the incompetence of authority and the absence of common sense in beaurocracy. This is probably more than he learned in daycare / coloring class all year.
lucky they don't use mimeograph machines in elementary schools these days.
i got sent home early once for drawing on my arms (ok, and many of the other arms in my first grade class too) with a sharpie. i'm pretty sure we all enjoyed the smell too. And that was 1979. If only they'd handed out suspensions back then... i'd feel a lot more badass than I do now.
"Eathan, you know that drugs are not the answer. They make you lose touch with reality.... Now take your Ritalin, we have to prepare for the End Time."
If that was my kid, I'd get a lawyer and start sending out some letters: legal warning shots over the bow of the school board, press releases and notes to state senators and such.
Because really, how dare they expose a minor to hazardous art supplies?
Sometimes you gotta fight stupid fire with stupid fire.
omg he purged the entire school of sharpies! that's the real crime here folks as any teacher knows!
Somebody has to teach the childrens that all pleasurable things are wrong! WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!
Public schools - that's the problem; they're run by ultra-sensitive boneheads. Sigh.
Just too stupid for words. I bet this guy has guilty memories of eating paste and volunteering to run the mimeograph....and this type of punishment has no effect on the average 6 year old-they can't figure out what they did that was wrong. I hope his parents take him by the Costco and get him a lage box of sharpies of his own. A good place to start the discussion on why authoriy needs to be questioned.
cbnsch@dms50.rg
"Public schools - that's the problem; they're run by ultra-sensitive boneheads. Sigh."
That's what comes of socialized education, I guess!
Do you really want to slag off the entire public school system in one fell swoop? Because it doesn't seem at all fair to me. And it certainly doesn't seem fair to all the many really smart, really capable people I know who work at public schools.
Thanks for the e-mail address, Elysianartist.
guess I can understand the overcautious and overzealous reaction. We do after all live in a very sue happy society, and better safe than sorry. I think what really bothers me, is that even having a toxicologist report in hand stating that Sharpie fumes are non-toxic, and non-addictive, and not a problem. The people in charge stand their ground. What should happen is a retraction and apology and instead, to "send a clear message" they let the punishment stand, and remove all permanent markers from school property.
The only clear message I am hearing is one of willful ignorance, if we want our children to learn about personal responsibility, we should take responsibility for our actions.
Don
"If we want our children to learn about personal responsibility, we should take responsibility for our actions."
And we should start by not being cowed into submission by lawsuit-happy lawyers and insurance companies. I think that would also be a good lesson for the kids, don't you?
I think that "better safe than sorry" attitude is one of the more worrying aspects of cases like these.
I agree Nick, But I can at least understanding the misconceptions that the school authorities were under. What troubles me is their refusal to now admit they are wrong. Even with clear evidence that they are wrong.
Don
Next will be flowers.
Gort @ #18 - the problem isn't the public school systems. it's that they are so vulnerable to us, the taxpayers and general public, to suing them out of existence. in trying to be able to answer to everyone and being so goddamn politically correct, public school systems end up being ineffective and unable to do the right thing.
wake up everyone! it's not about making every single person feel "good," it's about doing the right thing.
/unexpected rant that was my last paragraph
Life is like a box of markers....
My god! They're still allowed to use markers!!!!
It must be stopped!
When the teacher would bring back a stack of still-fresh papers of the ditto machine, half of my 2d or 3d grade class would take a big whiff of that sweet smell. By this standard, it was like Studio 54.
I agree with some other comments:
If the school provided the markers AND the school claims that the smell of the markers could cause intoxication in students AND that smelling these markers is punishable by suspension THEN:
The school staff needs to be prosecuted for contributing to the delinquency of a minor and fired.
On the other hand, if the medical experts that say that the markers couldn't do what the principal claims, then the child and family deserve an extremely public apology and the system needs to reprimand the principal for incredibly poor judgement.
Once again, zero tolerance makes zero sense.
I'm guessing that the Mr. Sketch markers that almost certainly exist in his school's art department send a really mixed message then....
That sweet smell from the mimeograph machine was usually methanol.
Sharpies - 15 years ago - used Xylene (which is part of gasoline) as a solvent, but now they use n-propanol.
Material Safety Data Sheets are a good place to look for information like this. They are required for most toxics you might encounter in the workplace. Your company OSHA person is supposed to have them.
Wow. Each and every day we become more and more like sheep being led by dumb Shepard's off a cliff while they are saying, "Think of the children!".
Yes. Indeed. Think of the children, and how we are raising a nation of sissies and wimps.
Our children's immune systems are becoming so weak because we sanitize everything they touch--so they get sick more often, and with much more symptoms.
We over prescribe medications to make our children sit down and behave in class--when all they would need is to go outside and burn off that energy and they would sit still and learn.
We teach them that if someone is threatening you, that you put your safety in the hands of others--when the problem could be solved easily by protecting yourself and not letting you become the victim of people who want to take things.
With each passing day, I am less and less proud to be an American. No longer does this country stand for what it once did. Now we are the bully forcing kids to play by our rules--but we are 3rd graders taking on 12th graders. The world has been around for a lot longer than America has. And they don't like a new kid coming in and telling them what to do.
We need to just stop, come back home, and secure the home first. Stop sending jobs overseas, stop giving cuts to the rich, and stop coddling the weak and stupid.
Just. Stop. The. Stupid.
Why in the world does everything have to be solved with the nuclear option?
:::sniff:::
SUSPENDED!
(Okay, maybe the nuclear option would have been expulsion, so this is maybe just the WMD option.)
I thought part of school was that you're supposed to teach. This could have become a learning experience to all (and in a way it has). Instead it just generates a lot of resentment.
When I was a kid, they made markers that you were supposed to smell. Red smelled like strawberry, yellow like banana, orange like orange, etc.
I think they were called "Magic Marker Liquid Banana."
Sweet, I knew I was a wino, but am I also a huffer for enjoying the nose of a tasty wine?
I am *so* glad I grew up in the era when it was still legal to enjoy something.
I'm totally Cheesing right now...
Zero tolerance policies in schools are great mechanisms for generating nonsense. They're CYA. They aren't intended to be logical or sensible. All they do is establish that if anything happened involving a weapon, or drugs, or affectionate behavior, all the fault must fall on the student, parents, etc., and none of the fault can attach to the school, because The School Has A Zero Tolerance Policy. The only catch is that students doing perfectly innocuous things that happen to fall within the terms of the ZTP will be punished as though it were a serious infraction
Perhaps the attention should be shifted to the folks at Sharpie for enabling this type of behavior - either prosecute them or require that their present gateway markers be pulled and replaced with new aromatic options like "Lachrymator", "Warm vomit", and "Gangrene"
For children who like to actually put the colors on their skin, an increase in the amount of caustic in the formula could reduce repeated offenses.
In *my* day we sniffed Mr. Sketch.
Blue and green were awful and yellow, orange and brown were great.
The only catch is that students doing perfectly innocuous things that happen to fall within the terms of the ZTP will be punished as though it were a serious infraction
Not the only catch, although equally insipid. Forcing people to conform to ridiculous policy instead of sensible decision making reduces efficiency and responsibility. If no one's responsible, no one has to fix the problem, nothing gets solved.
An entire world ordered so that the buck never stops.
Ridiculous indeed.
While reading the post and the comments, I reached to my pencil cup, pulled out the two sharpies I have in there and gave them a good long sniff. The green was not as strong as the blue, FYI.
My favorite school room smell was the smell of brand new textbooks (in the 70s.) I can't find that smell in books anymore...
Poor kid.
Now he has had a taste of "authority" fail I hope he doesn't get addicted.
All the situation needed was for the teacher to say that sniffing pens (Snopake, etc) isn't a good idea, and to explain why, and the class would have had some useful education, and everyone would've gained something.
As it is, the idiot teacher and principle have, by the looks of it, humiliated a child, and made the entire class *really* interested in the idea of solvent abuse.
Stupid stupid stupid. A failure to educate responsibly.
Despite the medical evidence, Benisch promised to draw an even clearer line on markers.
"We've purged every permanent marker there is in this building," he said.
Sooo... free unmarked dodge-balls for everyone?
ZTP: Zero Thinking Policy, We as school administrators, have adopted a new policy of Zero Thinking. This policy will relieve us of the tiresome burdens of collecting facts, giving due consideration and issuing decisions could be held responsible for. Eventually of course, this policy will also relieve us of students and finally jobs when all parents turn to home schooling - but we'll not think about that until the time comes to ignore it. ZTP! No problem too big or too complex to be ignored! Now.if you'll excuse me, the school is on fire and I'll have to face the other way now.
Gods. Is there no one left with a head that isn't bone all the way through? Well, of course they are, but we're not letting them teach our children.
(Actually I know this isn't true either, but I don't want to cite examples, because any teacher with a brain will probably be fired in this social environment! I'll keep their secret.)
unlucky enough to attend a school run by morons
Like there are schools that aren't?
I think it was George Carlin who said you could take away every single drug or intoxicant on the planet, and people would STILL run spin around in a circle for the headrush.
the rest of the class are now wondering what all the fuss is about and will be sniffing marker pens they find at home... nice one school... you've just clued an entire class or more into something they may not heve even known was possible...
A creamy huff:
Go to the supermarket late when it's almost empty. Load all the ReddiWip into your cart and find a spot where the CCTV cameras can't see you. Place your mouth over the nozzle, but keep the can upright. As you bend the nozzle, the nitrous will enter your mouth but the whipped cream doesn't, except maybe a tiny bit of creamarrhea. Repeat until your giggles start to attract attention. Abandon cart.
I thought the ReddiWip company was required by the DEA to change the propellant to nerve gas?
That would explain the hallucinations.
Someone should tell the teacher "you can get high from farts!"-- next time somebody lets one rip he'll clear the room (which might be the safest thing anyway).
Oh no, markers are classed as an "intoxicating substance"! I wonder where this principle gets his facts from, if what he claims were true, they wouldn't be on shelves in shops everywhere.
Donopolis: You make an excellent point regarding the refusal to amend their position. Not grown-up behavior in my book.
#39: "[Zero tolerance policies make sure that] all the fault must fall on the student, parents, etc., and none of the fault can attach to the school."
Right. Again, not grown up behavior, but that's where unscrupulous insurance companies and lawyers have got us, abetted by judges willing to hear frivolous lawsuits.
Public schools are constantly under fire by taxpayers who don't want to pay any taxes and by armchair critics like Gort (sorry Gort, by I get sick of meaningless blanket statements like "Government workers are incompetent" or "All schools are run by morons," or "Politicians are all corrupt").
Per ReddiWhip: doesn't the research show that it's a gateway drug that leads to vanilla extract addiction?
I liked cow gum - the smell, the texture, the ruined blazer. I also liked it when T. Shrimpton was put in the fume cupboard and it was turned on to "Full Extract" - he didn't seem to mind either.
he was doing drugs and they caught him red nostriled.
This is along the same lines as expelling a student for taking a plastic knife to school to spread peanut butter on his crackers.
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Lawyers, giving so much to society everyday......
Back when I was at the Royal College of Art in the early 80's, we used magic markers for renderings (no, Buffy, not that sort of rendering; pretty drawings) and in particular the automotive design guys used the solvent by the literal bucket-load. It is my contention that this explains late 80''s / early 90's car design, given that many of those guys were by then very senior designers. So perhaps this principal is just trying to save the poor kids from a lifetime of shame from being auto design serfs.
Just imagine what would have happened if he was scratching his butt and...oh nevermind.
Oh and btw my fellow boingboingers, just in case you are wondering, it is possible to locate the actual email addy's of people involved in stories like these....just use the google!!
Sshhhhhhhhh....don't tell anyone!!
Yeesh and to think my school gave us scented markers it's all becoming clearer or fuzzier now.
We used scented markers in school, I think the teacher sniffed them too.
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