9-year-old boy ‘terrorist’ suspended for calling a classmate ‘black’, showing a pregnancy book and brandishing a ‘magic’ ring
To Kermit, Texas, where 9-year-old Aiden Stewart has been suspended from school for “making a terroristic threat”. Aiden told a classmate he could make him disappear with a magic ring, just like the magic rings in The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, a movie he had seen a few days earlier.
“It sounded unbelievable,” the boy’s father, Jason Steward, says. He insists his son “didn’t mean anything by it. Kids act out movies that they see. When I watched Superman as a kid, I went outside and tried to fly. I assure you my son lacks the magical powers necessary to threaten his friend’s existence. If he did, I’m sure he’d bring him right back.”
Really? You’re that sure. Children can be pretty definite. And, in any case, it wasn’t the other kid who vanished; it was Aiden who was was told by the school principal that threats to another child’s safety would not be tolerated – whether magical or not.
Aiden has previous. He’s been suspended three times this school year. He was busted for referring to a classmate as black (we’re not told if the classmate is) and for taking his favourite book to school: The Big Book of Knowledge.
Says Jason:
“He loves that book. They were studying the solar system and he took it to school. He thought his teacher would be impressed. But the teacher learned the popular children’s encyclopedia had a section on pregnancy, depicting a pregnant woman in an illustration.”
Aiden is running foul of a whole range of intolerance. What’s he going to next? We’d suggest he should just be a boy in class. In most primary schools, that’s crime enough…
Posted: 2nd, February 2015 | In: Strange But True Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
