There Are Books…In My Microwave

Teen carries textbooks in microwave to protest school’s backpack ban

Two thoughts come to mind as I read this.

1. Good on this kid for standing up for something he feels strongly about and having the courage to question authority. The world needs more like him. He gets extra credit for creativity, too.
2. Who are all of these people getting maimed by backpacks? How is this possible? I spent many of my growing up years attending a school full of blind people, yet can recall not a single book bag related injury. Has there been such a sturdiness revolution in backpack construction since the 80s and 90s that this is a thing now? Is the same true of school supplies? Have people really gotten this careless an inattentive? Ok, so maybe yes to that last one, but seriously, if that’s the case, the problem isn’t the backpacks.

U.K. teenager Jacob Ford thought his school’s new policy banning backpacks in the hallways was “ridiculous.”  So he decided to do something he thought was equally ridiculous.
The 17-year-old went to class with his books in a cooking pot in protest. Then, he carried books in a wicker basket. And finally, he brought them to school in a microwave.
The Spalding Grammar School in Lincolnshire, U.K., 200 km north of London, decided to enforce the bag rule after a staff member and two students were injured by students carrying large backpacks and bookbags slung over their shoulders.

Until this year, students in the U.K.’s equivalent of Grades 11 and 12 had been exempt from a previous backpack ban for students between Grades six to 10. 
Repeated requests for comment from the school, by email and by phone, were not returned. But head teacher Steven Wilkinson told U.K. media outlets there was more to the story.
“We have a student who has behaved in an increasingly inappropriate way, actions the likes of which I have never witnessed, and who has been sanctioned entirely in line with the school’s policies,” he told local newspaper, Spalding Today.

Just spitballing here, but perhaps had the school not forced the removal of a student petition against the ban that had gained hundreds of signatures and scolded them for starting it, ignored a long letter from this student and generally didn’t seem to care a whole lot about the will of the people, behaviour wouldn’t have been an issue. But what do I know? Rules, you see, are rules.