For starters, this is not the teacher’s fault. But once again, I’m furious about zero tolerance.
Kiddo#2 has begun learning to knit. She’s excited about it and wants to make knitted bookmarks for everyone in her class. She’s got a pair of knitting needles and a skein of pink yarn, and the world is her oyster.
On Friday, she told me, “Mrs. {Teacher} says I might be able to knit during class.” Oh, really? I had no idea Kiddo#2 was even going to ask that.
She clarified: she’d asked if she could knit during recess, and the teacher said yes, and maybe she could even knit during class. But…
…you knew there was a but, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing a weblog entry about it…
…the teacher needed to make sure the needles weren’t too pointy.
Part of zero tolerance, again. My daughter is going to have an arrest record for knitting in public. Can you imagine, ten years from now, she gets rejected from Harvard because she got suspended for three days for bringing a weapon to school (you remember when Kiddo#3 did that, right?) and the weapon was a half-knit garter-stitch bookmark?
I’m not having that. I brought her to school myself and stood beside her as she showed her knitting to the teacher. Who decided the needles were too pointy and someone might get hurt. So the needles have to go home, and she can’t knit at school even though in the third grade (one year up) there’s a knitting club.
She did say that if I can find blunter needles, we can try again. But this is what I find hysterical:
Sharpened pencils are just fine to bring to school. So are pens. In a year, she’ll be allowed to bring a metal compass for math class. Those things are not only allowed but considered good and necessary.
But knitting? That’s daaaaaaaangerous. Better protect the young’uns.
At least you’re not getting her the blunt, bendy plastic needles with the flashing still on that my non-knitting grandma (she sewed instead) got me as my first pair. Mom took pitty on me and gave me a real pair, that I recently gave my daughter.
Someone on Twitter suggested I teach her to crochet, and we did try that last year but she couldn’t keep good enough control of the yarn. I’ll try again, though.
You know, maybe I should just bite the bullet and teach her to knit on pencils. Che stupido…
Oh darling you missed the Great Air War—Knitters VS The TSA. It grew particularly ugly when the TSA was afraid that six inch long size 0 bamboos (ie, long toothpicks) were terrorist weapons (pencils, pens, and–my favorite–cigar cutters were fine) and banned them, with the knitters retaliating by using rubber bands and pencils to knit scarves mid-air. If you want to try that, wrap a few rubber bands on the eraser side to act as a stop and voila–knitting pencils.
Recently the travails of a travel journalist who spent an entire flight in mind-numbing dread of the sock knitter beside her made the rounds on Ravelry.
Get her some wooden needles and a bit of sand paper and just sand it to a nice nub. As long as it’s pointy enough to go into the stitch, she’ll be able to knit just fine. By the time she’s ready for the fine lace that demands extremely sharp needles, she’ll be in a higher grade and should be fine.
Arghhh…. hate the zero tolerance thing. Can people BE more silly and narrow minded?!
Tell her the judge lets me knit (with pretty darn sharp bamboo dpns – prefers I not use metal) in court. I think if a ‘weapon’ can be carried into a courtroom, it should be okay in school!
I’ve knitt on pencils before. I was leading at winter camp, and desperate for something mind-numbing. The other leaders were also knitters, but the kids thought I was nuts.
or you could paint them to look like pencils…. and send some of those chubbier pencils for little kids for her to sit around and use once in a while so they would blend in better…
Michty me! Or as Ma Broon would say, “Help ma boab”, Still and all, the kids I teach might very well injure someone with a needle – we had a drawing pin incident today. However, when on 8 year old spray painted graffitti round the school, we were pleasantly encouraged that he could spell “Warriors, ya bass” correctly.