Another tale of bureaucratic stupidity and the idiotic consequences of small-minded, courage-free, judgement-free “zero tolerance” policies: a 16-year-old high school student has been expelled, arrested, and charged with two felonies for doing the classic dissolving-aluminum hydrogen gas reaction.

Two felony charges. At age sixteen. For being so engaged in chemistry class that she decided to take what she’d learned and see if she could apply it further.

You know what? I did the same damn thing when I was sixteen, and I was a whole lot less responsible about it than Ms Wilmot apparently was. One day in chem class I set up an apparatus under the fume hood in the back of the class room, dissolved a bunch of aluminum into a vessel of hydrochloric acid, captured the resulting hydrogen, then blew the whole thing up.

It made a great big bang, startled my fellow students, and broke some glassware. I got a bunch of head-shaking and “there he goes again” remarks from my fellow students, and proceeded to clean up the mess and replace the broken glassware. I don’t think my teacher even had to tell me not to do it again – that was pretty much obvious. Oops.

Well, here I am, two decades later, and I defy anyone to explain how my life or the lives of anyone around me could have been improved in any way if I’d been dragged off to jail and charged with felonies for that little adventure. It’s easy to see a whole bunch of ways my life could have gone Very Badly Indeed had I been treated as badly as Ms Wilmot’s school has treated her.

It’s infuriating, it’s absurd, it’s utterly wrong, it’s just so goddamn stupid. “There are consequences to their actions”, the administrator says. Well, yes, if you mix chemicals, they react in certain ways! Those are the consequences! She didn’t hurt anyone, she didn’t even risk hurting anyone but herself, she just tried a really basic experiment! It was less danger than setting off a firecracker! Give her extra credit and bump her up to AP classes, send her to community college, something – this is a person who needs support and encouragement and access to resources she can use to continue feeding her curiosity and knowledge!

Such a waste, for her and for all of us.