"Don't confuse me with the facts, I'm an Administrator!"

"Principals make hundreds of decisions everyday based on our best judgment. And in that time, smelling that marker, I felt like, 'Wow, that's a very serious marker,'" Benisch said.

i'm feeling like, "wow, that's a very incompetent principal."

not that that separates him from a crowd, or anything. my high school principal was an ex-football coach / guidance counselor. man. what a doorknob.

Thou shalt not smell the roses.

I basically agree with your take on this, but I fondly remember a 13 year old boy I was in charge of at a summer camp for ADHD kids who would start throwing large items of furniture with one whiff of a permanent marker (which he carried in his pocket). I was fielding desks and chairs regularly until we determined what the trigger was.

The basic function of public education is to baby-sit the little darlings for many hours per year. Keeping them safe from all the things little kids can do to themselves is a full time job for teachers and administrators. Teaching them something is further down on the list.

"Adams County School District 50 leaders were unfazed by the poison control center's medical opinion.... Despite the medical evidence, Benisch promised to draw an even clearer line on markers."

Whoa! That almost reads like a textbook case of cognitive dissonance leading to self-justification and intensification of belief (and in this case action too).

Wow, now I finally understand. I can blame any and all problems I've ever had on smelling hot off the press mimeograph paper and eating paste! I've always wondered what was wrong with me :-)

So I was wrong, and sinning willfully, when I inhaled that bracing and "intoxicating" aroma of a fresh mimeographed page? Back in third grade? Inhaling the freshness of new information provided a page per pupil and hot of the presses? Wrong, was I, to feel the excitement of events yet to happen here presaged in these vinegar-smelling sheets of white? I was taking unfair advantage of chemistry? I was failing to fulfill my quota of suffering instead? I was just looking for a cheap high? And a poor one, at that? No. That is wrong. I was right. I huffed it, I liked it, I passed it on. And the world has not ended.

I can see the logical continuation of this. No more rubber cement in photography classes... oh wait, that was banned last year. Okay, dry erase mark- oh. Sorry, those are all kept under teacher-control now. Well fuck, can the kids have Crayola crayons and #2 pencils? Oops... pencils were determined to be potential weapons when sharpened enough, and I guess the integrated SPED-kids were eating the crayons.

High schools have now been restricted to food-coloring markers and non-toxic play-dough. But the question we must ask: "Is our children learning?"

"And in that time, smelling that marker, I felt like, 'Wow, that's a very serious marker,'" Benisch said."

By smelling the marker himself, that's how. My guess is that all the markers purged from the building are in a cabinet in his office. Every once in a while, he takes out three or four of them, pops the caps, puts them in a plastic tube, and breathes deeply just to make sure...

What an idiot.

I think one of my favorite things from early grade school was getting to use Mr. Sketch Scented Markers! Do I need to enter a program now? Blueberry was my favorite to smell.

Mandy U

PASTE abuse...your child could be next!

Gods, I am glad I am not a kid these days.

No kidding, right? I never would have made it through school without ditto paper.