I’m not a supporter of children stabbing each other

But I had to laugh when the BBC showed the clear instructions that a Nottinghamshire head teacher had sent to the homes of his pupils on how to make the very implement he didn’t want the kids to make.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7672735.stm
It is not surprising that an inquisitive eight year old decided to try and make one too. He has been excluded, how great it would be if his parents could discover home education. Then his impulse to learn and experiment would not need to be demonised and punished in this way.
Inspired by this news item this is how Beth very happily spent her morning.

I trust her implicitly not to want to use this to hurt anyone; if she cuts herself we will deal with it, this sort of minor damage is an inevitable part of life. If I didn’t want to get burnt I would have to give up cooking!

She has done this to:
see if it works
see if she can do it

She will use it to:
cut up cardboard
cut up plastic
sharpen her pencils

And who knows what else. But I know she will not use it to inflict damage. Why? Because I know her and believe me she is not an easy kid, not a well behaved kid by average standards, but she is beginning to feel understood, she is beginning to uncover her competencies from the mountain of failure heaped on her by the school system. She is beginning to have happy as her normal state of being, she has no reason to hurt herself or anyone else. And I know that and do not need to punish her, scare her or try and suppress her normal curiosity just in case.
And of course she had to add her own touch in the pencil on the other end and a rubber in the end of the cap.

Now to solve the problem of how to sharpen the pencil on one end with the knife on the other!