Let’s just cut to the chase and stipulate that arming classroom teachers, aides, lunchroom ladies, janitors, etc. is the dumbest idea since the Snuggie.
It seriously makes that blanket with sleeves look like the discovery of penicillin, amiright?
(It should be noted while a lunchroom lady did technically almost kill me with a bad “splat” of sketchy pork in middle school, she had no idea she was inflicting bodily harm.)
President Trump’s push to arm teachers and/or staff is so unrelentingly stupid I have to lay down.
OK, I’m back. And I asked a young friend, a 20-year-old education major who will begin student teaching next semester, if she was eager to sign up for Trump’s proposed army of “weapons-talented” teachers.
“Our job is to educate students, not to get into a gun fight,” she said. “Every ed major I know agrees this is wildly idiotic.”
God, I love young people.
Trump estimates between 10 percent and 40 percent of school employees would be qualified to handle a weapon but he couldn’t say where he got that data. I imagine it was coaxed from his posterior like many of the “answers” he gives to reporters.
At times like this, I look to Ivanka to manage Daddy-O but, sadly, she disappoints once again. Yes, the White House advisor in charge of the Department of Killer Heels and Curiously Blank Expressions, says she thinks arming teachers is “not a bad idea.”
Ummmkay.
I gave Ivanka too much credit. She always seemed like the smart one but now, more than anything, she reminds me of Tyra Banks in “Life Size,” in which she played a pretty but dumb “fashion doll” brought to life after Lindsay Lohan cast a spell on her.
So very Lindsay.
So if Ivanka, a mother of school-age children, refuses to try to talk her daddy out’n the crazy tree, how will we get Trump to drop this dunderheaded notion?
The problem with Donald Trump is he has a habit of doubling down when he is challenged. So maybe if we just don’t mention arming teachers anymore and tiptoe out of the room, he will just forget the whole idea.
In other words, we will treat him like the National Toddler. It’s like how you distract a kid at Toys R Us. If he wants the Paw Patrol Mega Roll Patrol set and throws himself down in the aisle kicking and screaming, you don’t calmly list the very sensible reasons he can’t have it, i.e. “difficulty of concealed carry, mass shooters usually wear bullet resistant clothing and head gear, trained law enforcement officers miss their target up to 80 percent of the time, I minored in Ancient Rome in Popular Culture so why are they giving me a gun…”
No, no. The way to handle this is to distract the kid with something else like, “Hey! If you put that down without a fuss, we’ll get ice cream!”
In the meantime, all we can do is hold our breath and…turn blue.
Celia Rivenbark is a NYT-bestselling author and columnist. Visit www.celiarivenbark.com.