So, last year, a five-year-old kid got suspended from Brown Elementary in Channelview, TX, for a day after calling his classmate a "poo-poo head".
That, in itself, sounds overboard enough to be questionable to me -- wouldn't you think there'd have been more to it? But all I have to go on is this article. Who knows, maybe the school has a no-tolerance policy on name calling.
So, anyway. Now, a year later, the student -- now six -- brought home Dav Pilkey's amazingly awesomely hilarious The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby. Still simmering (I'm guessing) about last year's suspension, the mother promptly challenged the book on the basis that if her son got suspended for using language like that, then the library shouldn't offer books that use similar language.
Basically, it's the same argument that gets used against books with profanity in high school libraries. But funnier, because, you know: POOP.
Anyway, the result is in and the challenge committee found in favor of the book.
So Super Diaper Baby will continue to adventure on in Texas, hopefully foiling Deputy Doo-Doo's Dastardly Plots for many more years to come.
Well, I'm glad to see that the book is there, but I'm wondering if the school decided to revisit their name-calling standards as well. If the kid got suspended for teasing or pestering, that's fine; but if they have a policy against using horrible words like poo poo head, then they have a dumb policy.
I'm still wondering which it was that the parents were protesting.
Posted by: Beth | 09 June 2011 at 03:37 PM
This is so fantastic- I understand why the parents are so upset, but seriously, get over it already. Has the thing been "blown up" enough? Absolutely hilarious.
Posted by: LM Long | 09 June 2011 at 09:44 PM
*Hasn't. I was giggling too hard to write properly.
Posted by: LM Long | 09 June 2011 at 09:44 PM
Whaaaa? It can't possibly be that he got suspended for using the term poo-poo-head. I'm thinking he used the stronger term for which poo-poo-head is a euphemism. Or maybe they left out the part where after the insult, he picked up a chair and whacked the head in question. What happened to "Sticks and stones..." and all that blather that people usually try to brainwash kids with? I can't believe the teacher/school skipped over a lecture and went straight to suspension.
Posted by: Lisa | 14 June 2011 at 09:32 AM