There was a news story going around the internet this week about a 9 year old Texas boy who was suspended from school for threatening to make a fellow student disappear with his magical ring straight out of "The Lord of the Rings." Find one of the articles online and read some of the comments.

Reading about this story is a really good example of using critical thinking skills. Or not using them. If you read the comments (never read the comments, I know, but sometimes resistance is futile) almost everyone seems to accept it all on face value. They are angered at the school. How could they? How stupid! Kids aren't allowed to be kids these days! Damn liberals! (That last one always gets thrown in there somehow.)

A closer look reveals a few things that all these people seem to miss: The details of this story are coming ENTIRELY from the boy's father. The school will not comment because of confidentiality. And how about this? It was the third time the boy was suspended this year and every single time (according to Daddy) it was for equally silly reasons.

Okay, folks. Let's put on our critical thinking caps. If you are only getting one side of the story, it will be distorted to favor the storyteller. We all know parents who have misbehaving children (most kids misbehave at least a little bit, right?) but according to Mom and Dad they are perfect angels all the time. Let's put one and one together here. It's not hard to do.

If this school really is suspending children for such silly reasons as saying "My ring will make you disappear!" then I think every child in that school would be getting suspended every week. Isn't it far, far more likely that this boy did something to really deserve this suspension (and the others before) and now Daddy is crying "Not my boy! He's an angel!"

Think!

Hey, I know it's fun to read an article, get all angry about it and cry "What is this world coming to?" But instead of always doing that, let's try doing a little more of this:

Think!