Shanghai middle schoolers turning us into "knife fight city"

I've taken a knife off a teenage student here. He wasn't angry at the time. It was a short, wide combat blade with rings in the handle so you could punch people with it.

He took it out in class and was showing off, other students were scared.

He's not a bad lad so I asked him if it was normal to bring a knife to class in his day school, he said no. Then I instructed him to place it on his chair, get up and walk away. Then I just confiscated it and called his mom after class to let her know what happened.

Much further back though, when I worked for Shane in 2002, a student at a prestigious local elementary school program pulled a knife on one of our teaching assistants. I wasn't in that class. The lad was grade 5 and nearly as tall as the poor TA.

Finally the school did nothing and said they didn't want to upset the parents. They claimed the lad didn't know what he was doing and it was just a craft knife. I talked to the TA and she said that the boy said, "you can't make me put this away, my parents are lawyers, try it and i'll stab you."

Just some stories, it's important to remember that this is not specific to China.