2nd grader suspended for using the word 'hell'

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/breaking/20040204swearp6.asp

A second-grader at a Pittsburgh school was suspended for one day for telling a classmate he would go to hell for saying “I swear to God” and it’s left her parents wondering just what the heck the school was thinking.

The girl’s father said 7-year-old Brandy McKenith wasn’t telling anyone to go to hell, but instead was describing the biblical place of fire and brimstone.

“She came at it with a religious context because that’s what her mother says to her older sister,” who is a teenager and speaks like one, said Wayne McKenith, a police detective.

While he said the family aren’t “religious fanatics,” they have a healthy respect for the Lord, so he accepts his daughter’s explanation.

“She’s under the assumption that good people go to heaven and bad people go to, bad people go to hell,” he said today.

[CO Liberal]

1. Damn!!!!

That sucks.

:-)

[library_max]

2. Maybe they thought the kid was preaching on school time?

That's kind of a gray area of the school prayer issue - yes, kids can pray and think religious thoughts quietly to themselves, no, kids can't organize and lead other kids in prayer as a school activity, but what about spontaneous preaching?

[DFLer4edu]

14. My school has a bible study group

and it's a public school.

[Blue_Tires]

3. for the record

I also got in big trouble in the 2nd grade for using "hell" I wasn't suspended, but I had to write 200 times "I will not use profanity again," and they called my parents. (fuck that!!)...granted, it was a private school, but in retrospect it seems overboard...

and for those of you who think I'm someone's great-grandfather from the gilded age, the year was 1985 (i remember because we were discussing Super Bowl 19)

[Sequoia]

12. "Sheep go to heaven, goats....go to hell"

ah well (Thank you CAKE). My daughter was 3 when that song came out and she loved it and would sing the verse over and over again. Her pre-school teacher asked me about it and I said it was a song on KROQ and we got the CD. She did not get suspended and we sang the song even more.

[rockymountaindem]

4. Kids like that used to threaten me.

Told me I was in big trouble for saying "oh my God" when I was in first grade. That would have been in 1992, I think... Good old Colorado!

[izzie]

5. Hell we should not put up with that.

Yar!!!!!!

[LibDemAlways]

6. A little off topic but

this reminds me of the time I was on a road trip with my then 5-year-old and I pointed out a "big dam."
Her absolutely innocent response : "A big damn what?"

[MaineDem]

11. That's really funny

Kids can be so entertaining. :)

[reprobate]

7. Brandy was almost right. It's the country that's going to hell.

[OldCurmudgeon]

23. soooo right...

"where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"

[Toots]

8. Fodder for the wing-nuts ~ More PC gone amok ~ damn liberals

:shrug: I'd almost have to agree with them too except I would bet a months pay it was a wing-nut that suspended her.

[JitterbugPerfume]

9. this whole thing is

just hella stupid


(apologies to Cartman)

[Zynx]

10. I said much worse when I was in first grade.

[JohnyCanuck]

13. What happens when the teacher says you're going to hell

When I was about 8 years old attending a private school one Monday morning one of my classmates mentioned out loud that her parents had taken her to see a family type movie at the drive-in cinema the night before (i.e. Sunday night). The middle aged lady teacher overheard and immediately remarked, "Do they want you to go to hell?" And she wasn't joking either.

Nothing more was said but I was really puzzled at why just going to the drive-in would be enough to consign a person to an eternal torment in hell. I asked my mother about it and she just said something to the affect that some people were really religious and considered things like going to movies on Sunday really bad as Sunday should be saved for going to Church.

[mumon]

15. "healthy respect for the Lord..."

Shouldn't "the Lord" be in quotes?

I mean, I don't remember voting anyone in as "Lord."

[antipov1]

16. Wow. All I can say is wow.

OK wow isn't all I can say. I'm sure glad that I didn't to to a ball-buster school like that one, I can't imagine anyone being suspended for saying "hell" at any age. Even money says that whom ever decided to suspend her was in the process of enjoying a major power trip.

[fshrink]

17. Only in America. OK. Maybe in Iran too.

nt

[Voltaire99]

18. What's wrong with going to hell?

As GB Shaw said, all the best conversations are in hell. ;-)

[Dead_Parrot]

24. At least it's warm...

And you'll be among friends. See y'all on the south side of the furnace.

[RUredE4me]

19. re:

how do they know whether or not she wasn't talking about HAIL? lol

[Peregrine]

20. A wiccan in MD got suspended a couple years ago

for putting a hex on another girl. The "hexxed" girl's family was demanding harsher punishment.

Would the "hell" girl's parents support the suspension of a wiccan putting a hex on a classmate? I bet they would.

[pinniped]

21. At least the kid knows where the crooked WH members will end up.

n/t

[shugah]

22. suspension seems a little excessive, true

maybe an explanation that all children do not share the same religious beliefs would have been a more appropriate lesson.

i do have to wonder about a mother that tells her teenage daughter that she is going to hell. that may not be religious fanaticism, but i doubt it does much for that girls self-esteem!

[enki23]

25. i got in big trouble in kindergarten...

for asking another student what 'fuck' meant. actually, i asked what f-u-c-k meant. i'd never heard the word before, and someone had whispered it at me. i was turned in by the informer, and got seriously chewed out. one of those things you're supposed to intuitively understand, i suppose. ignorance is no excuse, and all that.

anyway, hell is pretty fucking weak. are they sure it's because of a single word? maybe she was suspended because she was harassing the other student instead? hell-pushers can be big on harassing you with it, after all. "nya, nya, you're going to hell. *giggle*"

and maybe it wasn't a first offense? maybe there's more to this story than meets the eye. if not, it's pretty damned silly.

[Randomthought]

26. Adults?

The adults have to much time on their hands. Why are they even getting involved in a silly conversation between to 7 year-olds?

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. Not enough information here

to decide if it was right or wrong to suspend the kid. For instance, did she whisper this or yell it out? Was it in the classroom or at recess? If she was yelling out in the classroom, that falls under 'disrupting learning' and is something kids can be suspended for. Also, was this kid ever in trouble before this? If she was a 'problem child' then she and her parents had probably been warned that her behavior needed to improve.

Reminds me of the time a 1st grader went home and told mom I had thrown his new airplane in the trash. Mom was livid, assuming it was an expensive toy he had just received for his birthday. So she came up to school and went crazy, telling me she was going to sue me. When she finally stopped yelling at me, I pulled the airplane out of the trash and wish I had taken a picture of the look on mom's face when she saw a folded paper airplane.

[callous taoboy]

28. A first grader

was working quietly on some math when the teacher heard her mutter to herself, "Oh hell." Teacher said, "We don't say the word 'hell' in school." First grader said, "Even when things are all fucked up?"

[icymist]

29. Hell! Good thing she didn't flash her right boob!

[DevilsAdvocate2]

30. They should both be suspended

For making any reference whatsoever to anything biblical in a public school.