10-year-old Boy Suspended/Isolated for 24 hours, after bringing Penknife with him on Camping trip

In what seems to be a daily march of idiocy in our public schools today, we have another child who has been turned into an Enemy of the State.

Courtesy of Todd Starnes over at FoxNewsRadio:

Tony Bandermann told Fox News that his son Braden was on a science camping trip with his class at Garden Gate Elementary School in Cupertino, Calif.

braden with knife

Braden “The Blade” Bandermann

Bandermann, who was out-of-town on a business trip, said he received a telephone call from the school’s principal informing him that his son had violated the school’s weapons policy. The punishment, she told him, must be immediate and severe.

“She threatened to expel him,” he said. “She kept telling me, ‘you can’t bring a weapon to school.’ A Swiss Army Knife is a tool, not a weapon.”

Wait a sec: weren’t the kids on a camping trip? What is someone supposed to bring when you go camping: a curling iron?

Beyond that, the knife young Braden Brandermann had is the same kind that my sons owned when they were about 10 (or maybe even younger). It’s the one that you often see on a key chain, and usually has only a single tiny blade, a nail-file and a pair of scissors, plus a toothpick and tweezers.

Swiss Army penknife

Penknife, a.k.a. “Death Saber”

Okay, so the school sees the kid has this pint-sized weapon of war, and they decide to relieve him of it. Fine: I think it’s mind-numbingly stupid in light of the fact that they’re camping, but we can agree to disagree.

Yet it didn’t end there:

Since he was unable to pick up his son, the principal put the boy in 24-hour isolation at the camp – held in a teacher’s lounge where he was forced to eat and sleep in solitude.

“It was horrible in every way,” the father said. “The punishment was ridiculous.”

Neither the school nor the Cupertino Union School District returned telephone calls seeking comment.

Huh? You take away the child’s inch-long pseudo-scimitar, and then drop him into solitary confinement? For an entire day? Does this seem to be just a tad excessive to anyone else but me?

According to Yahoo News, the boy’s father (who was 100 miles away on a business trip, remember) suggested to Hucko, by phone:

“…that perhaps someone could take away the knife and discipline his son once he was returned to the urban comfort of Silicon Valley.

However, Hucko would not negotiate.” 

Was the 10-year-old boy going to exact some sort of revenge on the teachers? With what, his swimming trunks? What was principal Brandi Hucko thinking?

Well, she was thinking exactly what she’d been taught to think, and she’s looking to instill this Leftist, moronic claptrap in our generation’s children. Think about THAT when you bundle up Junior and send him off to school today.

school_bus - 1

These are the same types of public school employees who think that it’s just peachy-keen to make my child stand in front of class, “pretend they’re on a lesbian date,” and ask another girl for a kiss. Or, think that it’s just showing common prudence to arrest and strip search me when my 4-year-old draws a picture of a gun in school. Or even having my seventh-grader arrested, handcuffed, “perp walked” out of the school in front of her classmates, and taken to jail (yes, jail)…all for the high crime of doodling “I love my friends Abby and Faith…” on her desk.

Aren’t these supposed to be educators? What in the name of sweetness and light are they teaching our children?

Easy: they’re teaching them that the full power of the state will come crashing down on them for failure to adhere to every single syllable of whatever whim these teachers have. They’re teaching them that their perverted worldview is good and must be accepted in its entirety, and mine (if it happens to differ from theirs) is unadulterated evil, and will be punished as such.

You used to have to watch The Bridge on the River Kwai to see tactics like this. Not any more.

river kwai 1

After 4 days in the “oven”, Alec Guinness regrets decision to bring his penknife to the POW camp…

As I have said so many times before, our schools aren’t teaching our children: they are inculcating them.

I was briefly heartened by this statement from Tony Bandermann, Braden’s dad:

“I felt as though I want to pull him out of the public education system and home-school him,” he said. “I felt as though the public education system is becoming the bottom of the barrel.

I felt sorry for today’s kids.”

Yep, that sentiment is being shared by more and more parents nowadays, and for darn good reason.

Not every public school teacher is an idiot, obviously: some are wonderful, effective and deserve all the plaudits and praise we can muster. But as we’ve highlighted so many times before, those teachers have become a highly marginalized minority in today’s schools.

—-

Even though we’re not (directly) paying tuition for our public schools, we most certainly are being made to “pay” for that education through our taxes.

But our kids are paying a far, far more severe price.

29 responses to “10-year-old Boy Suspended/Isolated for 24 hours, after bringing Penknife with him on Camping trip

  1. livinrightinpgh

    I’m sure that, in cases like this, waterboarding WOULD be an acceptable tactic! After all, we MUST get to the bottom of this young man’s motivations and see if had other plans to chew pop tarts into some sinister shape.

    The Progressives have your children SQUARELY in their sights.

    BTW: Ms. Hucko’s “Rate My Teacher” page is getting pelted with criticisms of her “handling” of the situation.

    • Deservedly so.

      Glad to hear it, too: these “educators” are too protected from the damage they are inflicting upon our kids.
      If parents would start realizing that, maybe they’d start making different decisions as to where/how they school their children.

  2. Ah yes, it makes for the camping trip from hell and memories to last a lifetime. What ridiculo…. never mind. Did the metal detectors fail at the start of the trip?

    I’m guessing woodshop is heretofore been removed as well. Isolation? That’s what some of our teachers need.

    • JTR: well, maybe not all teachers but its a growing number. Just like the Muslim radicals, there are enough to create chaos. It doesn’t take a majority.

      • Very true, BR: it doesn’t. But the sad thing is that it IS a majority right now, in the majority of the school systems. Heck, in this instance, it was the PRINCIPAL, for goodness’ sakes!

        So people who presumably deal with kids every day, professionally, decide that this kid needs a 24-hour detention? For bringing one of the most logical things you could think of on a camping trip?

        Heck, he could smother someone with his sleeping bag: suspend him for THAT, too…

        I just shake my head sometimes…

        • Right, the professionals we are supposed to trust our kids to. I guess this is more of the “takes a village” mentality. Sounds like the Principal was the most dangerous thing there, he “could have put out an eye” for crying out loud.

          • What about those wooden rulers with the metal edge? Sharpen up one of those on a rock, and voilà: instant weapon.

            And don’t even get me going with what a kid can create with a couple of click pens, a pin and a mechanical pencil.
            (Two words: “Spear gun”).

            Just sayin’….

            😉

    • Wonder if he brought his metal math compass with him? That sucker would be a bunch more dangerous than some little penknife…

      Of course, that WOULD make the compass a “Weapon of Math Destruction”, ….

  3. ROFL!!! ‘math destruction’
    Truly a great!
    Just read this morning that elementary teachers’ average SAT score is 960 below the national average of 1000! Well, there we go. The teachers’ unions have done this for us. https://eagnews.org/time-to-make-teaching-a-real-profession/

    • Glad you enjoyed that, tannngl!
      Felt almost guilty with that one…
      😀
      As for the teachers’ SATs…: no surprise.

      The unions/administrators don’t want individuals teaching our children: they want people who’ll do what they say, when they say it, without questions.

      Heck, our military doesn’t insist on that level of conformity of thought.

  4. wow, why not just executed him? Such a hardened criminal — who’d ever expect a boy to bring a penknife camping?

    Liberals and their stupid, PC garbage will destroy this nation long before terrorist.

  5. and yet these same liberal types won’t call a real terrorist a terrorist, much less WATCH the “watch list”. Dozens of Americans have died under BO’s regime and they worry about this child. This isn’t America any longer

  6. There seems to be a sort of intellectual paradox ongoing throughout which many adults think like children used to and children possess a more adult version of their reality.

    I’m surprised he didn’t get sent to solitary and fed bread and water.

    • Agreed, Rick. Although it’s not just adults: it’s PROGRESSIVE adults.

      They have internalized their warped belief system to such a degree that it has contorted their thinking entirely. That’s how you go from “penknife” to “weapon“, or even “if you must, then remove the basically harmless tool and move along” becomes “The punishment, she told him, must be immediate and severe“.

      Common sense? Not too common anymore in this crowd.

      The joke that “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” used to be just that: a dig, certainly, but more of a joke than anything.
      Now it’s a pretty accurate description.

  7. Pingback: The Death of Wisdom; or Zero Tolerance = Zero Common Sense | Two Heads are Better Than One

  8. It’s the wussification of America.

    • And it’s being ruthlessly enacted.

      Well, they’re not getting MY boys.
      And I’m gonna do everything I can to spread the word and deny them a few others, as well.

      ***FYI: my post tomorrow touches on an aspect of this, too: social awareness, manners, etc.,..
      You know: the stuff that your parents taught you as a kid, and how that’s becoming a rarity, instead of the norm.

    • Thanks for stopping by, DD!!
      It’s always great to see you here…

      😀

      • I don’t have easy access to internet so it’s difficult to keep up with everyone. That’s why I’m not around very often. (But I could probably just go and “like” all of your posts 🙂 ). Not having my own internet is just a personal choice I’ve made because I used to spend soooo much time on it. Not having it gives me more time for other things like reading or music or fellowship with others. It’s not permanent and I’ll probably get it again someday but for now I’m enjoyiing not having it, even though it’s difficult to maintain a blog.

        By the way! I noticed you all passed 5,000 followers! Well done. Keep up the good work.

        • Thanks, partner. It’s been a lot of fun…

          Yes, I understand your reasoning for the “no internet” policy.

          For us, it’s a bit different. My sister and I feel compelled to add our voice out there, which is why we do this every day. When we no longer feel called to keep this up, we’ll each go do something else, I suppose.

          Until then, we’ll be here, doing “battle”, and trying to elicit a chuckle or two along the way.

          Thanks again, DD.
          Stop by whenever; we’re always glad to have you…!
          😉

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