Dec 16 2009
Taunton second-grader suspended over drawing of Jesus
A Taunton father is outraged after his 8-year-old son was sent home from school and required to undergo a psychological evaluation after drawing a stick-figure picture of Jesus Christ on the cross.
The father said he got a call earlier this month from Maxham Elementary School informing him that his son, a second-grade student, had created a violent drawing. The image in question depicted a crucified Jesus with Xs covering his eyes to signify that he had died on the cross. The boy wrote his name above the cross.
“As far as I’m concerned, they’re violating his religion,” the incredulous father said.
He requested that his name and his son’s name be withheld from publication to protect the boy.
The student drew the picture shortly after taking a family trip to see the Christmas display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, a Christian retreat site in Attleboro. He made the drawing in class after his teacher asked the children to sketch something that reminded them of Christmas, the father said.
“I think what happened is that because he put Xs in the eyes of Jesus, the teacher was alarmed and they told the parents they thought it was violent,” said Toni Saunders, an educational consultant with the Associated Advocacy Center.
Read more here.
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I think this has more to do with an unbalanced interpretation of “safety policies” than it has as a specific attack on Christianity.
You might notice from the article, that the boy put his own name above the picture, not Jesus’s name, and that an other student had been sent home for a picture depicting a shooting.
As class sizes get bigger and teachers know their students less and less, policies dictate responses more than knowledge does in so many cases.
I loved drawing pictures of monsters eating my classmates in gradeschool, and would have doubtless needed a psych eval in the current post Columbine environment.