No Dice! Schools are Gambling Free Zones

Have you visited a middle school math class recently? No? Well I don't blame you. It's not my favorite subject either. However, I have noticed a recent trend in math classes. In story problems or other math examples, they use the term "numbered cubes" rather than, "pair of dice". When I was a kid, we rolled the dice. We rolled them in math class, we rolled them playing Yahtzee, which helped me with my math skills by the way, and we rolled them when we played board games. Dice.

However, if you go in today's math classes, you wont hear the teacher say "okay we are going to work on probability. Take out your dice." Instead he or she will say, "We are going to work on probability, take out your numbered cubes." Even math books refer to them as numbered cubes.Some people call them "random number generators." WHAT'S WRONG WITH SAYING DICE?

Is it because schools are Gambling Free Zones and dice are associated with gambling? Under the NRA's theory on gun violence and schools, we should put bookies in every school to protect the children from gambling. Which is kind of ironic since in the state of North Carolina, money from the Lottery goes to the schools.

But seriously, what wrong with saying dice? If you are learning about the planets in science class you can say Uranus but you can't say dice in math class? Saying Uranus is going to get snickers and laughs and be more disruptive than saying dice. Is this how politically correct we have become? Instead of Christmas we have to say Holiday.Instead of dice we have to say numbered cubes?

I recently read where a five year old girl was suspended for ten days for telling one of her friends she was going to shoot her with an Hello Kitty Bubble Gun. The bubble gun apparently shoots bubbles. She didn't bring the bubble gun to school, she just talked about it. Another child was suspended for bringing a plastic knife to school in his lunch. Kids can be suspended for talking about bubble guns and bringing plastic knives to school but there are some in this country who want men and women to bring real guns into schools. What is wrong with our society these days?

Real guns OK but talking about Bubble guns not okay. Armed security okay but plastic knife to cut up you lunch not okay. Numbered cube okay but dice not okay.

A 13 year old boy was arrested last year, yes, arrested, for burping in his physical education class. A 13 year old boy in Oklahoma was arrested for using a permanent marker on his paper. The marker bled through the paper and caused marker to be on the desk. A six year old was suspended for crying in class and it caused a class disruption.A fourth grade student was suspended for gargling with mouthwash after lunch because it violated the schools Alcohol and Drug policy. A high school student was suspended for having nail clippers which were considered a weapon. An elementary student was suspended from school for drawing a picture of his uncle carrying his gun. The uncle was serving in the Iraq war.

Maybe its just me. Maybe no one else sees the insanity in all of this. When I was in elementary school we use to play Cowboys and Indians on the playground at recess. If the rules of today existed then, I would have been thrown in prison for twenty years. Not only were we using our thumb and fingers as a pretend gun, we were shooting people with them by saying "bang, bang" and the worst offense of all, we called them Indians instead of Native Americans.

Maybe earth is becoming to politically correct. Perhaps I will roll the dice and move to Uranus.