This one is unbelievable. Fifth-grader Jordan Hood was asked to draw a Halloween mask last week at the Pooler Elementary School in Georgia. He did a classic vampire-dripping-blood-with-sharp-teeth picture (see on left). He even wrote “I Kill for Blood,” which is a nice touch. His art teacher thought it was fine and even helped him complete it. However, the picture pushed his homeroom teacher Melissa Pevey off the deep-end of Pooler. She pulled him from class and sent him for psychiatric evaluation. The school even suggested that he might be a member of the Bloods street gang.
What is astonishing is that his Art teacher Lloyd Harold, who appears the only sane person at Pooler, helped the boy shade the sketched eyes to make the image look creepier.
Pevey, however, immediately contacted assistant principal Valerie Johnson and Campus Police. I kid you not. Now, that this point one would expect Valeria Johnson to send Pevey out for psychiatric evaluation. Instead, Johnson and Pevey grabbed the kid with the Halloween mask picture. They said that he might not only be a Bloods gang member but each drop of blood may represent a person that he had killed.
The kid was told that unless he passed the test to show that he was not homicidal — he could not come back to school. That would be eight people before he finished the fifth grade. That rate of carnage would put Jeffrey Dahmer to shame.
Bucky Burnsed, Savannah-Chatham school system spokesman explained: “We live in an age where there is some hypersensitivity. But the child is back in school where he belongs.” Really? Are teachers and assistant principals now allowed to engage in hysteria without penalty or termination?
The school district has two teachers who clearly lack a modicum of judgment or training or, it seems, intellect. Before they are allowed to resume watching over children, isn’t some additional testing and training warranted?
The motto of the school is Super Citizens with Brains in Motion are a Perfect Fit — a curious claim when some members of the teaching staff show little evidence if any cognitive ability at all.
For the full story, click here.
I’m from Georgia and I instantly knew that the little kid was black (male) and the hysterics were from a white (female) teacher. When do we change in Georgia? And the sad part about it is, the school will continue thinking they did nothing wrong. the teacher probably got a pat on the back too.
JC,
Thank you for establishing as true my first though on reading this.
The “Bloods” thing was a giveaway. The first operative problem here is racism. Secondarily, the proliferation of children being diagnosed with pathologies like ADHD and dosed with medication reflects more on the incompetence of educators, than problems with children. Unfortunately, education like many other fields goes through periods categorized by current popular wisdom, rather than evidenced based approaches. As a retired psychiatric professional, my own field had been wrong so many times it’s both pitiful and disheartening.
Staninga,
I think you need to repeat fifth grade.
For the record, Jordan Hood is African American. If he had been white, I am positively sure this wouldn´t have reached this ridiculously out of control reaction. And notice how quickly they escalated the panic to imply the kid was a gang member. Would Ms. Pevey had panicked and accused the kids of being a “gang member” if Jordan was Caucasian? Somehow, I doubt it.
This was an innocent drawing by a kid, as part of a school assignment for Halloween. The rest is hysterics.
God save us from these Government Schools(indoctrination camps)
God save us from these Government Schools(indoctrination camps)
We lost our American culture to the ILLEGAL MEXICANS and thier ilk!!!
barrow is a sanctuary county..they will arrest a us citizen befor they will arrest a ILLEGAL MEXICAN…th county is chock full of them!!!
No way. I don’t believe this happened in Georgia.
I am glad I went to grade school in the 1950s.
This forum documents many instances of the school systems’ disallowing current-day children the opportunity to act their age with innocence and wonderment while exploring age-appropriate life experiences that are important to mental growth and social development.
I wonder what phobias their generation will exhibit when they reach adulthood because of their early encounters with such “adult mentors.” Now that thought is far “scarier” that the Dracula drawing.
That is a genuinely scary story. It really does remind me of things that were said during witch trials in Europe and the US. It’s a very cruel way to treat a child. I think training and an apology are the minimum requried in this case.
Wow! I guess that I am lucky that I didn’t have these teachers and administrators when I was in 5th grade. Where have these two been hiding? It is not unusual for children to draw extreme pictures. Especially when they are asked to in the assignment. Someone in that school district needs to stop forward and ask about these two hypersensitive individuals and whether they should be in their respective positions.