Taunton second-grader suspended over drawing of Jesus

[Swede]

Where the fuck has common sense gone?



The student drew the picture shortly after taking a family trip to see the Christmas display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, a Christian retreat site in Attleboro. He made the drawing in class after his teacher asked the children to sketch something that reminded them of Christmas, the father said.

http://www.tauntongazette.com/news/x1903566059/Taunton-second-grader-suspended-over-drawing-of-Jesus

[ixion]

1. common sense? Out the window, along with

- civil liberties and personal freedoms

- rational discourse

- free society

- a common language.


Certainly, we are living in "interesting times."

[MineralMan]

2. Well, that was just silly, wasn't it?

Morons abound.

[Brickbat]

3. WTF? This is terrible.

My daughter came home with a VERY gory drawing of bodies going through a big chopper-upper. She's in the first grade. I shudder to think what would happen if a teacher like the one in this article had seen it.

[FSogol]

17. Take that Fargo DVD away from your first grader.

;-)

[Brickbat]

23. Bwaa! Seriously!

I was like, "Um, tell me about this one, honey!"

[FSogol]

32. I used to think I was a good parent and then one day we were having a party with

a lot of adult beverages. I was sure that my son (about 7 at the time) was long in bed, but at 3:00 in the morning he came up from the basement game room and said,

"Hey Dad, there's a great movie on tv."

I looked and he was watching the "Rocky Horror Picture Show." His next question was,
"Why's that guy wearing women's underwear?"

[AspenRose]

42. You crack me up

:rofl: :spray:

[Locrian]

4. more than meets the eye

“I think what happened is that because he put Xs in the eyes of Jesus, the teacher was alarmed and they told the parents they thought it was violent,” said Toni Saunders, an educational consultant with the Associated Advocacy Center.


"This is not the first time in recent years that a Taunton student has been sent home over a drawing. In June 2008, fifth-grade student Cullen Smithson was suspended from Mulcahey Middle School for a day after creating a stick figure drawing that appeared to depict him shooting his teacher and a classmate."






ok - thats a creepy picture to me....

[Brickbat]

7. They just visited a shrine recently.

It was on the kid's mind. Kid probably sees a dead Jesus on the cross every Sunday. Maybe creepy, but not REQUIRING a freaking psychological eval before the kid can come back to class.

[kenny blankenship]

8. I thought the Taunton Jesus looked like this

[Brickbat]

10. This is my body, to be given up for you.

And I thought they smelled bad ... on the outside! Agh!

[snooper2]

35. You are close, really looks like this from historical documents

:rofl:

[piratefish08]

14. The image itself is what's disturbing - not the fact that it was drawn by a 5th grader.

A dead guy bleeding on a cross.

hmmmmm. Must be all those violent video games.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[rd_kent]

19. Really? Name one other scene of a guy bleeding and dying that anyone would think is ok.

No, can't let them draw pictures of cowboys and indians, too violent. Cant let them draw pictures of cops and robbers, too voilent. But its ok to draw a picture of a guy being tortured and killed on a cross, sure thats okay!


WTF man? Where is YOUR common sense?

[vadawg]

20. abraham lincoln??? MLK??? to name just two....

[rd_kent]

43. It would be ok to let kids draw a graphic picture of thier death? Really?

[vadawg]

45. yeah if you asked the kid to draw a significent part of their lives

just as the teacher asked the kid to draw sometihng about christmas, and the kid drew christ in a way that meant something to them.

[rd_kent]

49. Uhm yeah, ok then.

I think you need help.

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. She was just mad that he drew an Easter picture instead of a Christmas one.

Seriously though, suspension was unwarranted.

[jmowreader]

24. The teacher wasn't alarmed because of the Xs for eyes

She was alarmed because the little Christian boy was so ill-taught about his own faith, he drew an Easter picture to symbolize Christmas.

Note to wandering Christian Fundamentalists:

Christmas celebrates Christ's birth.
Easter celebrates Christ's betrayal, execution, damnation and elevation.

There is a difference.

I think if I were the teacher I would have taught the lad how to draw a Nativity.

[hughee99]

28. Amen, it's unbelievable to me

that an 8 year old special needs boy doesn't fully understand the stories behind the different holidays of his faith. Perhaps his family are pedestrians who only go to church around christmas, and the only reason the kid associates this with christmas is because this is the only time he sees the crucifix all year.

[jmowreader]

30. The Christmas story's easier to understand than the Easter one

Most little kids can understand babies. Tell em Christmas is when Jesus was born. The manger was his crib. The three wise men were sent to visit the new baby Jesus. At this time of the year every Christian church has a nativity in front of it.

The Easter story, by comparison, is much more complex--and far more violent.

[FSogol]

33. The Easter story also doesn't make sense.

Christ killed on Friday night and THREE DAYS later on Sunday Morning he comes back?

Let's see, Friday to Saturday = 1
Saturday to Sunday = 2

Hey wait a minute.....

[hughee99]

34. If he was crucified on Friday, and crucifixion is supposed to be a slow, painful death...

how do we even know he didn't survive until Saturday or Sunday? And good question, where the hell did the "leap day" come in?

[jmowreader]

44. You never heard of Easter Monday?

In quite a few places (most not in the US), Easter is a two-day celebration. They do all their churchin' activities on Easter Sunday, and take Easter Monday off for solemn reflection. I would assume they do SOMETHING on Saturday too...Catholics will pray the rosary* but what do Protestants do?

Now...according to tradition Jesus rose on a Sunday. If you work back three days, that would make the day of his crucifixion Thursday, right? Thursday is kind of a bad day to have such a thing, so they always hold it on Friday...which means in order to keep Jesus in hell for 72 hours he has to rise on Monday. Basically, the Easter celebration is just as fucked as the Christmas one is. No one in his right mind would think God would want his only son born in a stable in December, because while the Magi are exalting Him, Mary is being the proud mother and Joseph's outside looking up going "he better be the Son of God...and he better be the ONLY Son of God!" Jesus is lying in a manger freezing to death. No, Jesus was born during the spring but everyone celebrates his birth in December to try to forget the fact there's a foot of snow on the ground and the gas bill's going to be five hundred bucks this month.

* The rosary is the reason my mom left the Catholic Church. My mom grew up in the Church, and she prayed the Rosary every day until she was 42. I mean, she was GOOD at praying the Rosary. For non-Catholics: A Rosary is a prayer mnemonic device. It looks like a beaded necklace with a cross on it, and until I was eight that's what I thought it was. You pray the Rosary by holding the device in your hand and moving it around. The beads are different sizes, and as you go from bead to bead you say either an Our Father (Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name...), a Hail Mary (Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee...) or a Glory Be To The Father (Glory be to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit...) You go around the Rosary praying all these prayers, and you get credit for Rosaries prayed. Well...Mom can pray the Rosary while working on her grocery list. She finally realized if she could do that, all she was doing was going through the motions and it's supposed to be more than that. But you know what? When her mom died, my mom did all the Catholic funeral things, one of which is praying a rosary. Whipped it right out 32 years after saying her last one. Some things you never forget.

[anigbrowl]

47. It's not 3 days later, it's the 3rd day

The idea is that good Friday, easter Saturday and Easter Sunday are all part of the same event. Jesus Christ gets crucified on the first day, supposedly descends to hell on Saturday (hard to explain, has to do with Jewish theology) and returns on Sunday, the third day. Not that that makes so much more sense, but it's a mythology, what d'you expect.

[DefenseLawyer]

40. Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox

When you get right down to it both holidays relate to the length of the day.

[Rebubula]

26. Have you...

...ever been to a Catholic Church?

The icons of Jesus on the cross are everywhere and more graphic than this one.

[proteus_lives]

36. That's a kid's drawing.

What's creepy about it?

[maryinthemorn]

5. The article implies the child was a special needs child.......

“I think what happened is that because he put Xs in the eyes of Jesus, the teacher was alarmed and they told the parents they thought it was violent,” said Toni Saunders, an educational consultant with the Associated Advocacy Center.



Saunders is working with the boy’s parents after a mutual acquaintance referred them to her.



“When I got that call, I was so appalled that I had to do something,” Saunders said.

“They weren’t looking at the fact that this is an 8-year-old child with special needs,” she added. “They made him leave school, and they recommended that a psychiatrist do an evaluation.”



The school, in fact, required the evaluation before the boy could return, the father said.

Maxham School principal Rebecca Couet referred all questions on the matter to the superintendent’s office.

[WeDidIt]

6. Teh Stoopid

it burns strong with those who suspended this kid.

[rucky]

9. Bill O'Reilly will have a field day with this one. n/t

[melm00se]

11. school suspensions

are the easy way out for teachers and administrators especially when they are linked with "zero tolerance" policies.

Much easier to kick the kid out of school rather than address the underlying issue/problem.

[Silent3]

12. At least he didn't try to draw Mohammad

That would have been trouble! :eyes:

I guess this isn't so much stupidity over the subject of religion, as I thought when I saw the title of the OP, but zero-tolerance against the slightest imagined hint of future violence stupidity.

Meanwhile real bullies and awful taunting and teasing, the kinds of things that do lead to real and serious problems, will likely be completely overlooked by teachers who would rather fret about the way a child draws eyes.

[snagglepuss]

13. I hope the name of the idiot teacher is made public. nt

[proteus_lives]

37. +1

[dysfunctional press]

16. it's the TEACHER that should be required to have a psych eval before returning to class.

what a fucking moran she is.

[vadawg]

21. teacher needs to be fired never mind evaluated......

[no_hypocrisy]

18. What was she expecting?

Toys?
Presents?
Elves?
Santa?
Snow?

C'mon! As the saying goes, "You asked for it!"

[aikoaiko]

25. As reported the school adminstrators are freakin idiots.

[jmowreader]

27. This makes me worry about the child's religious teachings

Eight years old isn't really mature enough for lessons on the Sermon On The Mount or the Wedding Feast at Cana, but you can teach kids that Jesus was all about love. And a loving Jesus is really easy to draw--He's all triangles and a circle. But to me it looks like the child's religious education began and ended with the Passion. Sad.

[anigbrowl]

48. Not me

Growing up Catholic (although I'm an atheist now) crucifixes were just part of the social scenery rather than anything especially horrific. There's always a big one at the centerpiece of any church so if you associate Xmas with going to church it's something a kid might remember. I wouldn't read too much into it, I remember playing with a crucifix as a small kid with the idea that Jesus was like Superman only he was permanently attached to the cross as his super restriction.

[hughee99]

29. How did we get so far into this thread without the phrase "church and state" coming up?

Why is the teacher asking the students to sketch something that reminds them of a christian holiday? What about all the muslim, hebrew, wiccan, and atheists in the classroom?

[Witchy_Dem]

52. Here I sit. This is my thought as well.

[MilesColtrane]

31. Was it Baby Jesus or was it Mel Gibson, gore-porn Jesus?

[Stevenmarc]

38. Thankfully he set the bar low and didn't attempt The Last Supper

I would be relived to have that confiscated and to not have to endure putting that on the fridge

[proteus_lives]

39. They should sue the shit out of that school district.

And the teacher should be fired.

[DefenseLawyer]

41. I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-Shirt

because it says I want to be formal, but I'm here to party.

[Odin2005]

46. Holy overreaction batman!

:banghead:

[hayu_lol]

50. This was very poorly handled...

both by the teacher and the administrative staff. We are not talking teen level thinking here...we are considering a 7 year old 2nd grader.

Many comic books and cartoons show dead or injured people with Xs for eyes so that wouldn't apply.

Should have just let it go and watch future work closely but not obviously.

[wovenpaint]

51. I've been to LaSalette to see their Xmas lights

They have a huge display every year that is, of course, religion based-rather than Santa and snowmen. I recall that along one side, they have a path with the stations of the cross (it's a retreat center)-that I had explained to me at the time.
So, I'm not surprised that this image made an impression on him.

Geesh, common sense, indeed.