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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSouth Carolina high school student says he was arrested for killing dinosaur in class assignment
Source: WCSC-TV
A 16-year-old Summerville High School student says he was arrested Tuesday morning and suspended after writing about killing a dinosaur using a gun.
Alex Stone said he and his classmates were told in class to write a few sentences about themselves, and a "status" as if it was a Facebook page. Stone said in his "status" he wrote a fictional story that involved the words "gun" and "take care of business."
"I killed my neighbor's pet dinosaur, and, then, in the next status I said I bought the gun to take care of the business," Stone said.
... Investigators say the teacher contacted school officials after seeing the message containing the words "gun" and "take care of business," and police were then notified on Tuesday.
Read more: http://www.nbc12.com/story/26319685/cops-summerville-high-school-student-arrested-after-writing-threatening-message-on-assignment
Orrex
(63,208 posts)MindPilot
(12,693 posts)a fossil, really.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Iggo
(47,552 posts)Bandit
(21,475 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Codeine
(25,586 posts)0rganism
(23,945 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)we can do is make jokes.
I concur.
The dinosaur had no business in the 21st century and had it coming.
earthside
(6,960 posts)"Summerville police officials say Stone was disruptive and was told that he was being detained for disturbing schools.
Stone was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. District officials say the student has been suspended."
Always the police and authority have a way to put individuals in their place.
Of course, the incident demonstrates also once again the idiocy of 'zero tolerance' policy in the public schools. Fiction is fiction; make-believe is make-believe. Especially a sixteen year old is going to watch television, movies, maybe even be aware of current events -- guns are definitely a part of our culture and a fictional story is likely going to reflect our milieu.
So, what is next? Suspending students who write an essay about the Revolutionary War because the word 'gun' is used in the proper context? Are the police going to be called then?
Still, with what is going on in the country these past few days, I am quite disturbed by this use of police power and governmental authority to tyrannize people who just might happen to practice any kind of individualism.
Orrex
(63,208 posts)Not kidding.
Initech
(100,068 posts)KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)So not arrested for what he wrote but for his real world behavior and actions.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)I prefer to work with adults or in extracurricular programs.
It's not because I don't think minors can be great students or get anything out of the experience1; it's because I don't want to deal with moronic school-district policies and histrionic parents.
One of the first things we teach aspiring writers of any kind--whether playwrights, screenwriters, novelists, poets, journalists or narrative non-fic writers--is "show, don't tell." Don't tell me Luther is a bad man...show me how Luther is a bad man--show us that he volunteers to carry groceries home from the store for old-women, only to pipe-wrench them in the elevator and steal their groceries. We teach them that good writing requires conflict: person v. person, person v. nature, person v. self, person v. society, person v. custom, etc. More so, we teach them that it necessitates real conflict, real consequence of the conflict...there is nothing compelling about Superman v. the harmless pink bunnies. Your parents and the principal might love it because it's unthreatening...but it's about as interesting as wallpaper and it isn't making you a very good writer. Teaching good writing can be anathema to the security-blanket state of education because it teaches students to both express/explore their thoughts including the fucked-up or unpleasant ones at the same time it provides the means and tools to challenge the world around them, society and authority.
I'd rather have students writing about blowing away their peers like D.B.C. Pierre did in Vernon God Little (then subsequently won the Man Booker for) than actually blowing-away their peers. I'd rather have them writing about teenage sex than pretend that teenage sex doesn't occur or that exploring their thoughts on their sexuality is unhealthy. It's anecdotal but it's my experience that the students writing publicly about such things aren't the ones you need to be concerned about.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
1: In fact, I believe the opposite. I believe that all HS students should receive one full year of composition education as part of an English curriculum. I'm frustrated by the number of adults both in college and post-college who cannot write well. I concede, most people don't have it in them to be professional writers...but the basic-level skill to be able to express oneself in writing is not hard to attain. Worse, we now test them on this as part of the SAT, having not provided them any solid education in the area of composition since the 5th grade in most cases. We expect them to be able to write compelling and cohesive argumentation by the time they get to college. We're shocked when they cannot.
FSogol
(45,481 posts)The best verses:
I was knocked outta bed
Late last night
I was woken up by the sound of dynamite
I ran downstairs to find an army man
He said "We gotta blow up those things we don't understand!"
There's no more big lizard in my backyard
I won't have to feed him anymore
No more lizard in my backyard
They shipped his ass to El Salvador!
frazzled
(18,402 posts)Personally, I believe the school was correct to notify school officials, which led to police searching his locker: that is pretty standard procedure (only police can search a lockerthey had a full-time onsite cop at my son's junior high, who was a pretty nice guy). Better safe than sorry.
Kids who are playing out fantasies about gun violence in their writing, even if they are only mentioning a fictional pet dinosaur as the victim, should be taken notice of. If I were his mom, I would seek to know more, rather than just dismissing it as a "joke." Maybe it was; or maybe he's kind of obsessed with the idea of guns and shooting somebody or something.
This is a situation that calls for a bit of counseling, not arrests or even expulsion, perhaps. But I would not ignore it or laugh at it if I had been his mother or teacher.
Kids write weird things. When my son was in 5th and 6th grade he had to turn in sentences each week using each of the words on his spelling list. It was so boring to him after a while, he started to write it as an ongoing story about a character named Cadwalader, who went to Djibouti. It went on for two years. It amused him (though probably didn't amuse the teacher). But if Cadwalader had ever picked up a gun and killed a fictional Djiboutian, or even a rhinoceros, I'd have been kind of alarmed about his mental state.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)Kudos to him
frazzled
(18,402 posts)Even though he's grown up now, and newly a father. (We warned him not to name their baby Cadwalader or we would disown it; fortunately, it was a girl.)
It was a rare burst of (public) creativity for him: he was a math guy, and hated creative writing assignments. Those spelling sentences were the only successful examples of creative writing he ever did in school!
CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)when he wrote a Sound of Thunder about hunting dinosaurs.
We are stomping all the imagination out of our children with this hysteria.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)And it's a complex story about the environment, the consequences of violence and of disturbing nature, etc.
It also plays out in a social realm. It was not a (poorly written) statement about an unmotivated, individual act that is then posted onto Facebook as a status update. Sorry, but you've failed to convince me with your literary example.
This has nothing to do with dinosaurs.
BeeBee
(1,074 posts)They were two different statuses, not the same one.
"I killed my neighbor's pet dinosaur, and, then, in the next status I said I bought the gun to take care of the business," Stone said.
The teacher alerted the authorities because of the "I bought the gun to take care of the business" part. If this kid would have shot up the school, everyone would have been screaming that the teacher didn't do anything.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)would have gotten me a life sentence in this day and age. I'm lucky inasmuch as my teachers were able to distinguish reality from storytelling.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)In middle school, I had written a fictitious account of an armed takeover of the school. My English teacher, in the 1970's, found it humorous, and was disappointed that the National Guard came in before the guerillas finished off the administration.
I can't even imagine what would happen to me now.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)JESUS IS RIDING A DINOSAUR http://cheezburger.com/4361630720
Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)A Fantasaurus Rex?
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)well sure...
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)the ice bucket thing and he would have been okay.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)the dinosaur probably didn't care too much, seeing as how he was friendless anyway
?1334696298
get the red out
(13,462 posts)Don't seem to go together in this country.
Go write fiction kiddies. OMG, call the police, this kid wrote fiction about a creature that no longer exists that I don't like.
Generic Other
(28,979 posts)See if you laugh next week when he plans to slay the Jabberwocky and the Loch Ness Monster with a sharpened pencil!
ohnoyoudidnt
(1,858 posts)cloudbase
(5,513 posts)No wonder they arrested his ass.
Throd
(7,208 posts)sarisataka
(18,633 posts)Why wasn't she contacted?
After searching the locker (an overreaction imo but within the school's authority) and determining there was no immediate threat I would think a talk with the parents is more appropriate than bringing in the police.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)based on horror fiction. You know what my teacher did? She set time aside for me to cast my plays and perform them with my fellow students.
We certainly live in a different world where instead of arresting this kid, the teacher could have encouraged his writing and maybe he'd be the next Stephen King.
ohnoyoudidnt
(1,858 posts)The dinosaur had to be destroyed before the creationists found their proof of dinosaurs living with humans.