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Humorless in Higher Ed

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Clarissa

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People in higher ed have gotten so humorless and stupid, it’s driving me nuts. A couple of students tried to play a prank. It’s completely innocent teenager stuff, not a tinge of anything remotely political. Fart cushion-type thing.

But God forbid anybody have a sense of humor about anything any longer. The campus threat team arrived, the students are being investigated, and professors are bleating on every corner about how threatened and unsafe they feel.

“What if these students end up shooting a classroom?” they inquire in tragic whispers. “These things tend to escalate!”

Buddy, if you are such a nervous wreck you freak out over a kid prank, I’m thinking you are the one likely to blow a gasket and shoot up our campus. Maybe you need to have a convo with the campus threat team.

7 responses to “Humorless in Higher Ed”

  1. Margaret W. Avatar
    Margaret W.

    It’s not just higher ed. My son brought in a lego invention he made to school (7th grade). He is in a “special ed” class for specific diagnoses. This lego contraption resembles a knife. It is plastic. It was confiscated and we got a call from the principal that he may get 10 days of suspension as there is a “no tolerance policy for weapons at school.” And– his teacher is in trouble for not reporting it the first time he brought it to school. She warned him to take it home and not bring it back. Yes, he screwed up. He’s 12. But now, the completely harmless lego “knife” is a cause of consternation for everyone involved.

    I’m going to take a que from the left and say the higher ed academics should be held down and tickled until they learn how to laugh. They have obviously forgotten how.

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    1. Pen Avatar
      Pen

      And really, the legos are far more harmful unassembled.

      May all the people pushing for suspension get legos stuck in their shoes.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. Margaret W. Avatar
        Margaret W.

        I know, right? I can’t believe the conversation I just had with the principal in order to get the Lego’s returned to us. They aren’t cheap, you know? But this is the kind of situation that burns trust between children and adults. He knows its a toy. He knows THEY know its a toy. But he’s in trouble for having it in possession at school and showing it to other children. Under different circumstances, the other children might be inspired to put down their devices and go build a Lego contraption like the things my son creates (which are quite intricate and amazing!). But in the new world, creativity and independent thinking are squashed by our dictatorial overlords.

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    2. methylethyl Avatar
      methylethyl

      My brother once had to do “teen court” and got suspended for bringing a pocketknife to school. We grew up in an area where absolutely everyone carries a pocketknife: my mom has one in her purse. I have one on my keychain, nobody things about it. He forgot it in his backpack, and did not get it out at school. But it was the unlucky day when the drug-sniffer dog was there, and everybody had to line up their backpacks in the hall and have them sniffed. They searched his backpack, and found no illicit substances… but hey, there’s a pocketknife! Out you go!

      The whole teen court experience (with mandatory community service) was such a pain in the arse that he simply quit high school and never went back. Got a GED some years later.

      Meanwhile, when I was in middle school (private church school), I dropped my pocketknife while rummaging in my bag and did not notice it was gone. My fifth-grade teacher later returned it to me: “I found this on the stairs– is it yours?” Didn’t even tell me not to bring it to school. Just said “be more careful, if the little kids found it, they might get hurt.” (it was a k-8 school).

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      1. Margaret W. Avatar
        Margaret W.

        Sanity at the Christian school. Insanity in public school. Thankfully, we don’t have to do court. (we did that last year for another stupid situation) I never used to be afraid of the authorities, but now the government is run by lunatics and enforced by scoundrels.

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        1. methylethyl Avatar
          methylethyl

          Yeah, I didn’t even get to my husband’s encounter with that idiocy. When he was a teen, the kids at his school were discussing the latest school shooting in typically morbid fashion, working out where they would hide, how they would escape, etc. My husband, in tone-deaf aspie fashion, blurted out “It’s a good thing school shooters are so dumb… if I were gonna shoot up the school, I’d just go up the bell tower…”

          …and that was how he ended up getting diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and put on Prozac for the rest of his school career. It was pretty much the only way he was permitted to still attend school. For the record, my husband has never in his life hurt man, woman, child, or animal, and was never remotely a danger to his classmates or school staff. He just took a long time to develop a sense of what was and was not appropriate to say in public.

          These are the things that flash through our minds, when people ask “Methyl, what made you decide to homeschool your kids?”

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  2. Just George Avatar
    Just George

    Many years ago, I was to fly on an airplane using a ticket that had been upgraded from economy to business class.

    At the airport, the woman at the counter asked if I had any weapons or explosives on me or in my luggage.

    I replied something like “Only these guns right here” looked at my arms, and gave the lady a smug look.

    The lady didn’t laugh and instead changed my ticket back to economy class.

    Maybe the person at your university is the same lady.

    Liked by 2 people

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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