Eathan Harris, who’s eight years old, was suspended from his Colorado school for three days for sniffing a Sharpie marker.
Harris used a black Sharpie marker to color a small area on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. A teacher sent him to the principal when she noticed him smelling the marker and his clothing.
“It smelled good,” Harris said. “They told me that’s wrong.”
Principal Chris Benisch reduced the suspension to one day after complaints from Harris’ parents, but said it was justified to send the message that marker fumes are “really, really, seriously dangerous.”
Actually, they’re not.
Benisch believe fumes cause intoxication, but a toxicologist with the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center, Dr. Eric Lavonas, “says non-toxic markers like Sharpies, while pungent-smelling, cannot be used to get high.”
They can be used to mess up a perfectly good sweatshirt, however.
The principal is banning permanent markers, which should save the clothing, if not the children. Best of the Web suggests a ban on pencils to protect kiddies from the dangers of lead.
“Dr. Eric Lavonas, “says non-toxic markers like Sharpies, while pungent-smelling, cannot be used to get high.” ”
Do you think that could be why you call them “non-toxic?”
Here’s a thought for a really simple and effective intervention that might serve to send the message that marking on you sleeve and then sniffing it is a bad thing to do.
1) Teacher approaches child
2) Teacher removes marker from child
3) Teacher says to child, “I know your mother wouldn’t want you ruining your clothing that way!”
4) Teacher adds, “You, know, it’s really not a good idea to smell things that way–some chemicals with strong smells can hurt you.”
But I guess that wouldn’t work.
Pencil “lead” is of course graphite (a carbon crystal), not lead at all, but maybe that was BOTW’s point, that it would be equally silly.
In 1992, when I was teaching a college course, we had to make exam copies on the ol’ ditto machines. I would usually make all the copies right before class and watch with amusement as all these 20-somethings would waste the first three minutes of the exam sniffing the pages up and down. The ink must have been as addictive as the Sharpies!
Well, I think dittos used to use a methanol-containing compound to make the copies…
This is the kind of silliness that we’re seeing today. If it had been my student? I would have done pretty much what Margo/Mom outlined. And maybe seen to it that that particular kid didn’t have access to Sharpies any more.
I don’t know; Sharpie fumes always made me feel slightly ill. And I can’t use a lot of the whiteboard markers as I get migraines from whatever solvent’s in them. Even without “huffing” them.
I teach a natural science class and sometimes we collect insects using ethyl acetate; I often have to get after one or two of the (college aged!) students for trying to breathe the fumes. (I ask them if they value their brain cells. Apparently many college students don’t.)
What if it had been the other way around? What if sniffing Sharpies could do you harm and little Eathan was not stopped from doing it? His parents would be suing the school.
Also, Sharpies are not standard supplies for 8 year olds, or at least not in the schools I’ve taught in, so did he take it from the teacher’s desk without permission?
I suspect there’s more to this story.
Those white-board markers don’t smell too bad either. Not.
What if sniffing Sharpies could do you harm and little Eathan was not stopped from doing it? His parents would be suing the school.
Does stopping kids from doing something dangerous require punishment? Like the initially-proposed 3 day sentence?
It strikes me that if a child does something dangerous, it’s not therefore necessarily essential to punish them. For an 8-year old, telling them that what they are doing is dangerous strikes me as a good start. Only then, if they keep doing it, may punishment be appropriate to get them to stop. How would you like it if you were punished for doing something you weren’t at all aware was wrong?
Tracy,
It’s clear that the school believes the ends justifies the means and that it doesn’t matter if the kid did something wrong (non-toxic marker being treated as toxix) or even knew he did something wrong because they aren’t trying to teach HIM a lesson or address any issue of morality but rather, “…send the message that…” This is about the other kids, not about the child in question. This certainly offends my sense of fairness and justice.
While a 3 day suspension does seem steep don’t forget that I did say I think there’s more to this story. Maybe this kid is a chronic behavior problem.
At the least you can apply what I call the “Rule of 500″, a term I often explain to parents who insist their little darlin really didn’t do anything that bad.
What would that school be like if all 500 kids were grabbing Sharpies from the teachers’ desks, marking up their clothes and then sniffing them? How much learning do you think would be going on?
How many days did they suspend the principal for this screwup?
What would that school be like if all 500 kids were grabbing Sharpies from the teachers’ desks, marking up their clothes and then sniffing them? How much learning do you think would be going on?
Does that require 3-day suspensions?
There are two aspects to this scenario:
1. The disruption caused by 500 kids continually grabbing Sharpies from the teachers’ desks, marking up their clothes and then sniffing them.
2. Any physical harm caused by the sniffing of Sharpies, or fear of physical harm caused by children’s ignorance about how some fumes are dangerous even if Sharpies aren’t.
In the case of 1., a scenario of the whole school doing it is a very different case from one child doing it. If 500 kids do the same thing, it takes a lot longer and is a lot more disruptive than one kid doing it, as each of those 500 kids can and often does get in the way of the other 499 kids. This is independent of what the thing is. I well remember it taking far longer to get out of the school hall after assembly when everyone else was also leaving than if I was for some reason leaving by myself. And the same thing still happens at theatres full of adults. So I would say that a good school would give a firmer result if some mad craze broke out amongst every student as that craze would disrupt learning far more than any one individual student could. On the other hand, would a good school respond to all 500 kids getting some craze by giving all 500 kids a three-day suspension?
2. Hold an assembly and explain the dangers of sniffing permanent markers instead of having individual conversations.
Medicine makes a distinction between an isolated outbreak, an epidemic and pandemic. An isolated incident does not warrant the same public health response as an epidemic. So the rule of 500 appears to be a bit confusing in this case. So is the “rest of the story” “chronic behavior problem” suggestion. In my experience “chronic behavior problems,” (whatever is meant by that) are no more cured by 3 day suspensions than is suspected drug abuse (which is what the school seems to be responding to).
What I suspect in the “rest of the story,” when I look at this headline along with the 8 year old murder club and the elementary sex harasser (and a slew of others I am sure I could come up with in a quick google), is something along the lines of “crisis addiction,” on the part of the adults, or some other need to blow simple events out of proportion to mask other problems within the school. I see this in the deeply held belief of some educators that “you just don’t understand what we have to deal with.” Responding in as large and outrageous a way as possible communicates to parents and everyone else around that the school is really dealing with big, complicated problems all the time (as if education itself was not sufficiently big and complicated).
Adherence to some bizarre interpretation of “the letter of the law,” is also a good (albeit unconscious) strategy to show up the perceived stupidity of people who make rules, or enforce them. As in labelling a smack on the behind on the elementary playground sexual harassment (we have to report it–we could get sued if we don’t).
But what all of these over-reactions seem to have in common is that they pass the buck on to someone else. A three day suspension means that parents are supposed to do something. Calling the police means that they are supposed to handle it. Is it any wonder that we are concerned about the lack of discipline “in” our schools when we are continually outsourcing the responsibility for it?
a scenario of the whole school doing it is a very different case from one child doing it.
You must not be a teacher. The problem with one child doing it is this; if you let ONE kid do it you have to let ALL 500 do it.
So if you don’t bring down the fury of the Gods on the one kid, you have to let the other 500 do it? Reasonable punishment sends the signal that it’s ok to do? So do they hand out suspensions left and right at your school? If every punishment has to be a major production to “send a signal” to other kids that it’s bad, I think there are bigger problems at play.
The “rule of 500″ assumes that the correct response is, “sure go ahead and draw on your clothes and sniff markers!” How about something more rational, like “Eathan, put the marker away. We don’t draw on our clothes.”? Or, “Eathan, put the marker away, they are for drawing not for smelling.”
If Eathan doesn’t comply, the punishment is for disobeying the teacher, not sniffing a harmless marker.
In fact, you would have to let all five hundred kids to it.
The first five letters of discretion are the same as the first five letters of discrimination and don’t think self-absorbed parents know the difference, or that there aren’t bleeping attorneys ready to help them solve the discrimination problem.
Having said that, how much would it cost to ban stupid principals?
I’m good for a hundred.
Jen and EvilHR Lady,
As I said before, I suspect there is more to the story. Also, the principal, who obviously overreacted, corrected his mistake by changing the punishment.
How about the fact the child probably stole the Sharpie from his teacher’s desk? Does that not merit a day’s suspension?
Mike:
Re stealing the sharpie. You are assuming facts not in evidence.
Margo,
I’ve never taught at an elementary school where Sharpies were on the 3rd grade supply list, but you are correct in that I’m assuming it was stealing.
As for the other stuff, would you rather have a principal who erred on the side of safety or one who didn’t? I couldn’t have told you before this story if Sharpie fumes were toxic or not.
Mike–what you are missing is that no one who thinks that suspension is unreasonable in this case is advocating that third graders, seventh graders, teachers or one or five hundred students sniff markers–toxic or not (although when it says “non-toxic” on the side, I would consider that to be a big clue). But neither do they believe that it takes a suspension (1 day, 3 days or til the end of the school year) to accomplish that.
If you caught your 8 year old kid (not your student, mind you, but your kid) drawing on his sleeve and sniffing it because it smelled good, would you move him out of your house for a day–so that he would learn how dangerous it was? Even if he had to trespass into some non-child-proofed area in the house to get the marker? I hope not. What you would likely do (assuming that you don’t buy into the corporal stuff) would be to take the thing away, maybe sit him in the time-out chair or his room to think, have some serious conversation about what he did wrong, and maybe structure some consequence around fixing the damages.
I’ll grant you, this would not be appropriate if the kid was fifteen–in that case moving him out into some drug rehab might be called for. But it’s pretty hard to put together a scenario–even assuming facts not in evidence–that makes suspension a good response for an 8 year old.
“What would that school be like if all 500 kids were grabbing Sharpies from the teachers’ desks, marking up their clothes and then sniffing them? How much learning do you think would be going on?”
Here in criminal court, we call 500 people doing the same antisocial thing at once “rioting.” The number of people involved fundamentally changes the character and consequences of the activity, which is why, no offense, your Rule of 500 serves no useful purpose in analyzing how to respond to one person’s isolated act.
> What if it had been the other way around? What if sniffing Sharpies could do you harm and little Eathan was not stopped from doing it? His parents would be suing the school.
Hmm. What if it wasn’t a sharpie but a daisy? Then smelling would be completely reasonable.
It’s absurd to justify the response on the basis of things that weren’t true. These sharpies were marked non-toxic. Unless the principal actually knows differently, it’s absurd to react as if they’re toxic.
The lesson actually taught is that public schools are often run by the clueless. The other lesson is that MiT will defend almost any action by public school employee. (He still hasn’t decided whether a school that kills kids and serves their bodies in the cafeteria should be shut down.)
<(He still hasn’t decided whether a school that kills kids and serves their bodies in the cafeteria should be shut down.)
Are you STILL trying to float that lame ass bullshit? Do you have proof of a school actually doing that? Of course not, but since you can’t back up what you say with facts you have to resort to appealing to emotion and hurling insults. Good luck with that weak ass crap.
DaveJ, you’ve obviously never worked as a teacher or around much children, so I’ll explain it again. If you let one child get away with a certain behavior then you have to let them ALL do it. Otherwise you will be bombareded with “He’s doing it” and don’t think for a minute kids’ parents won’t point that out too.
Did the principal overreact? Probably. Is there more to this story than what’s being told in the media? Probably.
BTW, I checked my Sharpies, both at home and at school, not one of them says “non-toxic”. Also, nowhere in the story that Joanne cited does it say the Sharpies were marked “non-toxic” so Andy Freeman is doubly full of crap.
//If you let one child get away with a certain behavior then you have to let them ALL do it.//
Who was advocating this? All I’ve read is that the punishment wasn’t appropriate. How is simply taking the marker and telling the child what they did isn’t appropriate letting the child, “get away with it”?
//BTW, I checked my Sharpies, both at home and at school, not one of them says “non-toxic”. Also, nowhere in the story that Joanne cited does it say the Sharpies were marked “non-toxic” so Andy Freeman is doubly full of crap.//
They’re not toxic and it’s not a secret. Frankly, shouldn’t a principal be up on that kind of information? Since he wasn’t and he thought Sharpies were, “really, really, seriously dangerous,” shouldn’t he have had the teachers put them in secure places when not in use (locked drawers perhaps), taught the kids about the supposed danger before something like this happened or simply had the teachers buy non-toxic markers?
So was he ignorant or negligent?
Dawn,
The problem is, the story leaves many more questions than it answers.
Was there a large number of cases of kids taking sharpies, coloring their clothes, and sniffing them, perhaps in the belief they would get you high? Did the child steal the Sharpie from the teacher? Was he coloring his clothes and sniffing the ink instead of paying attention and learning?
I’d never thought about whether they were toxic or not but if such an incident occurred at my school I would be sure to find out quickly. I’d also find out some things real fast about that kids home life to make sure he wasn’t imitating things he’d seen at home.
BTW, no one is advocating the behavior, but by allowing it to continue you might as well condone it.
Two things -
On one hand, suspending the boy for “huffing” a marker is ridiculous, right up there with the scare over hand sanitizers. If this was the main reason for the suspension, the principal is an idiot.
On the other, when this was first reported, I remember one story stating that the teacher did in fact tell the student to stop huffing (unfortunately can’t find the link). The failure to comply with a teacher’s instruction could merit a suspension, especially if this student is a repeat offender.
Whenever I write up a student I’m supposed to give a full description of every detail I remember. My question is: Did the teacher refer the student to the principal on the grounds of noncompliance, but as they described the situation mention the Sharpie issue? And then, did the parents and press run with the Sharpie issue, cherrypicking quotes to make the principal and school look foolish?
I had parents this year complaining about me for causing a student’s suspension over chewing gum…
but the issue was not the gum, but the student’s refusal (by his actions, not verbal) to remove the gum from his mouth when I told him to.
On the 500-rule issue, I had a math teacher in high school who kicked a kid out on the first day of class for whispering to someone behind them to borrow a pencil. That teacher never had to deal with disruptions for the rest of the year.
Let me correct a mistake I made earlier, it turns out Sharpies DO say non-toxic on one side in very small lettering that a 45 year old might have trouble reading.
I withdraw my statement saying Andy is double full of crap. I will now consider him to be singly full of crap until such time he can produce evidence of a school, besides a Simpsons Halloween Special, that actually killed children and served them in the cafeteria.
He still hasn’t decided whether a school that kills kids and serves their bodies in the cafeteria should be shut down.
Are you STILL trying to float that lame ass bullshit? Do you have proof of a school actually doing that?
It tastes just like chicken.
MiT is lying again.
I didn’t say that there was a US public school that was killing kids and serving their bodies in the cafeteria. I asked him if there was any circumstance in which he’d support closing down a US public school.
Knowing that we might well disagree on some circumstances, I tried to come up with an example where we’d agree. In short, a hypothetical.
I honestly thought that he’d agree that killing kids and serving them was beyond the pale, but I was wrong. MiT has yet to say that he’d support closing down a public school that did that. Instead, he goes with insults.
I’ve also asked him what it would take for him to support closing down a public school. Again, insults.
You offer a completely ridiculous example, based on a Simpsons Halloween Special. As for insults, you were the first to hurl them with your clueless comment. I at least attacked only your ideas.
First off, if Sharpies were toxic, they’d have huge warning labels on them. Otherwise, they’d be making huge settlements on lawsuits for “failure to warn”. I’m just surprised not to see big red warnings about sticking markers, pens, and pencils in your eye…
And yes, the markings are small, but if the principal can’t read them, he can’t read the paperwork required to keep the school running, either.
As for the rule of 500, it’s useful for deciding what behavior has to be banned, but not for deciding what to do about 1 kid - or 500 kids - who are doing it. MiT is theorizing about the kid refusing to stop when told to, previous behavior problems, etc., but has presented no evidence whatsoever about that. So all the available evidence points to just one thing - an idiotic administrator (but that’s becoming redundant nowadays) who didn’t even bother to read the fine print on the marker before imposing a knee-jerk anti-”drug” penalty, and has too inflated of an ego to remove the suspension entirely.
And MiT - now you’ve got me wondering whether there are any circumstances under which you would support shutting down a school, other than the roof falling in. (And you’d support that mainly because it would make things hard on the teachers.)