Talking to another child's mother at his son's bus stop, John Derbyshire learned that the woman's own son was found drawing helicopters on bombing runs. The mother received a punitive call — not because the sketches were done at inappropriate times but because the school refused to accept a child's pencil having depicted two-dimensional, incendiary violence.
I couldn't help but send a note.
How times have changed. Twenty years ago, when I was in second grade, the class' redheaded instigator brought a millimeter-precise toy grenade (with metal pin) in his backpack one morning and, before gym class, set it under his chair where our teacher, Mrs. Jones, would quickly "find" it. How did she respond? The good, old-fashioned way. Upon our return, she gathered us around and told us about her harrowing sprint down the hall carrying a live explosive for the school's janitor to defuse.
And what happened to the grenade? asked the redhead, now aware his little prank had been outsmarted. Safe and sound where it couldn't hurt anyone, said Mrs. Jones. In her desk. Until June.