More to the Story

Last night GR showed me video clips of the 5-year old in Florida who was taken away in handcuffs by police after refusing to do her math in class.

In talking to Daddy on the phone this morning, it seems much of the news media only aired this little snip-it of information - a 5-yr old taken from school in handcuffs, screaming - and nothing more about the circumstances that lead up to it. I told Daddy, I'd post the links to the extended video clips so he could see the full story. They were taken by the school who was video taping the classroom for an upcoming inservice training meeting.

http://www.sptimesphotos.com/video/classroom.html
http://www.sptimesphotos.com/video/office.html

GR and I had an interesting discussion about this after watching both videos. In today's society, neither the school, nor the police have the right to touch a child unless the adult is defending themselves, or preventing the child from causing harm to themselves.

The school was powerless, and this child had total control. They could not place her in time out, they could not make her sit in a chair, they could not redirect her body, because they do not have the right to touch her. I'm not exactly sure why they didn't take her to an empty room, but their may not have had an empty room to put her in.

I couldn't get over the blatant disregard for adult authority. She didn't even register them as being someone she should consider listening too. Children respond to love and respect, that is what compels a child to be obedient. It makes me wonder what home life is like for this child.

As for the police use of handcuffs on a 5 year old... They only thing we concluded (since the police removed the cuffs when they got her in the squad car to wait for her mother to come) is that the police didn't see any other way to get her safely to the squad car and away from the school. They couldn't carry her, they couldn't take her by the hand, they could trust that she wouldn't run away, hurt other children, cause more damage to school property, and hurt herself if she walked on her own.

This will be an interesting case to follow - if it isn't too buried in cyber space by the time it comes to a verdict. It's too bad it has been so twisted by the media. Even though these video clips don't show all 28 minutes of tape they have, it does do a pretty good job of showing what the situation was like. I wonder if the media had played, even just these clips for the general public, if the response would be the same.

I wonder what Jo Frost - from ABCs show "Supernanny" would do in this situation!

Pick your own

Last week my friend Camie, invited us to go to a local farm for "Pick Your Own Asparagus."

Although I'd driven past signs for the farm and market for years, and wanted to visit, I'd never stopped to see what it was all about. They have beautiful flowers, pick your own asparagus and spinach, and later in the year a couple of other pick your own crops. The people running it were wonderful and very accommodating to seven kids and three adults descending on their 6-8 rows of asparagus.

We took a tracker ride out to the asparagus and he gave us a quick lesson in how to pick it. In total we picked 2.9 lbs of asparagus in about 20 minutes. I only picked a couple of spears the rest was done by the kids. Sam really liked snapping the asparagus. If he didn't get the entire plant in one snap (and he never really did) then he'd keep snapping it until he got the stock to the ground (note the partial stock in his hand).

When I emptied our bag of asparagus I found quite a few headless spears. We were able to make four good size bunches to share with family and friends... and us of course.

Camie and I are going to start looking for other places to 'pick your own' produce. In June I'm hoping to get back out to the strawberry patch south of our house and pick strawberries again for Jam. Not that we've finished off the pints I made 2 years ago, but I wouldn't mind a second crack at making it.