With two seasoned bloggers weighing in on the issue of zero tolerance in schools, I felt it was time to put in my share.

"Zero Tolerance" is a PC buzzword for big government. It indicates at the core that individuals and local officials are too stupid to make intelligent decisions for themselves and those under their sphere of influence. Whether we are talking about mandatory minimums in which judges' hands are tied when making sentencing or about a teacher dealing with a schoolyard bully, the message of zero tolerance laws and rules sends a clear and cohesive message, one that should offend anyone with a brain.

When a judge faces someone who is charged with a crime, he does so facing a unique number of circumstances in each case in which he officiates. A woman, for instance, that stabs her husband after years of abuse and torture is not acting directly in self defense (which only applies when there is an imminent threat to one's life), and does deserve to spend time behind bars, but not the same amount of time as someone who breaks into a home and murders a person in cold blood. There are mitigating circumstances in the first case that should be a consideration in sentencing.

The same can be said of activity in a schoolyard. "Hazing", while it may appear cruel at times to an outward observer, is basically nature's way of preparing our children for the fact that life itself is often rough and that a person needs to be ready for that. The same behaviour can be observed when closely observing domestic animals; pecking order is established and coping skills are learned through these necessary although painful rites of passage. The worst fight I got in as a child was defending the honor of my then hero Mohammed Ali after his loss to Leon Spinks (which took me awhile to handle). I lost that one but gained a certain degree of respect from my classmates because I was an individual willing to stand up for what I believed in.

There's a great deal of difference between two children "duking it out" in the schoolyard (which should require adult intervention, but not necessarily student suspension/expulsion) and a gang of kids beating the crap out of one, or gang on gang violence, or any violence where weapons are introduced. The two children who went to fisticuffs should certainly be taught good conflict resolution skills, but not dealt with with the heavy hand of the law. When I was a kid, if there was such a conflict, the two kids would likely as not find themselves squaring off in a boxing ring, with gloves (and headgear), the next gym class. And you know what? It worked. The adrenaline of young males was dealt with, the conflict was soon over, and more than a few classroom heroes came out of such impromptu sparring matches.

One thing that the PC crowd needs to deal with, and the sooner the better, is that adolescent males are basically adrenaline and testosterone machines. Giving them constructive outlets to deal with those surges of adrenaline is far better than demanding they suppress those hormones and indirectly causing them to come into play in a potentially more dangerous setting.

We can, and should, apply common sense, not "zero tolerance" to our roles as arbitors between such conflicts as parents and educators. The policies enacted by schools are enacted due to fear of litigation and almost never out of the best interests of the children. And they're applied across the board. It's not just schoolyard bullying, it's not just weapons policies, but students have been suspended for distributing MIDOL in the classroom (if you think teenage boys' adrenaline surges are bad, just deal with a teenage girl on PMS). There are so many cases where zero tolerance has led to an absence of common sense. And it's past time we let common sense, not a universal policy, govern our decisions.