Slashdot Mirror
Elementary School Bans Students From Touching Each Other
theshowmecanuck writes "A school in British Columbia (the province that now even California can call flakey) has just banned elementary school students from touching each other during recess. You know, one of those times for play and more importantly learning how to socialize (which itself includes touching). CTV News reports: 'A ban on touching during recess at a B.C. elementary school has shocked parents, who call the new no-touch policy "ridiculous." For most kids, recess is a chance to run around and goof-off with their friends, but a new ban on touching at a school in Aldergrove could put a damper on playtime. School administrators at Coghlan Fundamental Elementary School in B.C. have banned kindergarten students from touching each other during recess.'"
You all the type of people the Administrators are.
They are the ones who were never picked in PE.
They are the ones who never had a date to the dance.
They are the ones who excelled in class and failed in life.
But they found their niche in life where they could be successful...
Fucking up our kids for life.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Now instead of Raffee they'll be listening to jingles and learning how to use the 3 Sea Shells.
Demolition Man's setting was too far south obviously.
Are they trying to create an entire class of socially maladjusted kids? Because that sounds like exactly what they're doing. It's not like you can easily learn the subtleties of touch later on in life. Even a year gap can get you labeled a creep and carry nasty, debilitating consequences for decades.
Finding God in a Dog
Parents are upset about it.
It's an overreactionary policy by the school, nothing more.
If my kid were in that school, I'd tell them to ignore the rule, and tell the teacher or principal that reprimands them that their dad told them to ignore it because they thought it was stupid.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Children could still sneak out of sight and have body contact. They could 'trip' and fall into each other (faking it, the little bastards-my nephew loves faking falls). This is a start, but clearly falls short of its goals.
What's needed here is a way to keep them contained and safe, both for their own good and the good of the other children. Perhaps a start could be a resistance device fitted on the ankles to limit their speed (after all, high speed injuries are more dangerous). Maybe similar ones for the arms to prevent flailing arms injuring other people, or accidentally throwing objects at each other. I was originally going to propose having it by the forearms, but that still leaves elbows as threats - so instead have an entire jacket purposed for this effect. It could double as a uniform for ease of identification of students, maybe in a bright recognisable colour in case they wander off.
Once the children are properly protected, you then need to move onto securing the environment. Additional padding for those inescapable falls, having all objects edges rounded and no sharp objects around, would be a good use of taxpayer money for classroom renovation. Only then can we ensure they are properly cared for and educated, to grow up into strong, well-adjusted, outstanding members of the administration. It's a miracle we every survived this far as a race without these critical safe-guards, but not one we should take for granted.
It's no joke. A 8 year old kid named Jordan Bennett was suspended in a florida school for that.
Because this doesn't seem like tech news
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
It happens all the time. Kids are suspended from school for making a "gun" with their fingers, playing with a plastic see-through water pistol, or having any item that looks like a gun or has picture of a gun on it, even if it's barely bigger than a quarter ( http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/09/29/tiny-toy-gun-key-chain-cause-of-students-suspension-84337 ). Even saying the word gun in the contest of Hello Kitty "bubble gun" gets a 5 year old girl suspended for 10 days ( http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/21/us/pennsylvania-girl-suspended ). Its not about kids safety, it's about stigmatizing guns and gun owners.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
"Feminization" is the wrong word for this. If you take female young children, and don't systematically indoctrinate them into quietly playing "tea" and "shopping" with dolls, a whole lot of them will love to run around and explore and compete, too. True, some of them won't, and will prefer quietly playing make-believe with dolls --- the same of which is true for some young male children, who won't all automatically be little wild roughhousing monsters. Kids of both genders show a variety of individual behaviors, frequently including thriving on unstructured, rambunctious activity.
Blaming poor treatment of children on sexist stereotypes ("feminization") is misplaced. "Femininity" is not to blame for the authoritarian, "sit down shut up and behave to become good obedient workers" schooling approach, which is usually dictated from above by overwhelmingly male upper-level administrators. Teachers interacting with students are primarily female, since societal sexism leaves lower-paying and less desirable jobs to women; however, teachers increasingly have little influence at all over school policy (they are expendable labor, who must submit to management priorities or be fired). When I was in school at the beginning of the transition into the "zero tolerance" era, none of my teachers supported those policies; that crap was being forced down from above, from a wealthy white male administrative class with MBAs (not from "touchy feely female teachers").
They are in kindergarten.... I don't think revolt is an easy concept.
Clearly you've never worked in a daycare facility.....
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I think you're making a mistake by identifying this as a "gendered" problem, that "boys are being treated like girls." From my own observations of kids (and, there is more "formal" research backing these things up in greater generality), both boys and girls naturally exhibit a wide range of individual behaviors, including things that traditionally have been placed in strict gender categories (but, in reality, quite frequently cross gender lines). Some little boys are wild and active and love rough physical play; so are some little girls. Some little girls are quiet and polite and like "domestic" play; so are some little boys.
Setting up a false gender dichotomy between "how boys behave" and "how girls behave" creates the problems you're complaining about: if you throw all little boys together in a rough-and-tumble free-for-all system, some will be happy and some will go home crying to mamma about how horrible the playground is. If you force all little boys to be still and quiet and do genteel arts and crafts, some will be happy and some will go screaming crazy. Good childhood care does not come from locking everyone into their expected gender behavior box ("boys' activities for boys, girly stuff for girls"), but recognizing and working with the fact that each individual child will have their own personality, behavior, learning style, etc., and you need a flexible system with experienced adult supervision on the ground (not distant managers issuing simplistic edicts) to address differing needs in the classroom and playground (e.g. let the rough-and-tumble types play "physically"; step in if they start causing distress to some other kid who doesn't enjoy that type of activity so much).
Such behavior has also been expected, at other times, of well behaved boys; such as the Victorian-era "children are to be seen but not heard" ethos. Hammering away at the "feminization" aspect of the problem is often used to misplace blame --- on some imaginary straw(wo)man liberal feminist conspiracy --- for problems that do not stem from some mythical ascendancy of women in society. There's more than "some" overlap in the "bell curves" between boys and girls; often, there's more overlap than not (and, in a hugely multidimensional space of behaviors and preferences, nearly everyone has at least a few things on the "other side" of crude gender stereotypes), though it depends on how much forced gender socialization has been imposed. The problem is one of not making accommodations for the wide range of childhood behaviors, but enforcing a one-size-fits-all approach that best meets "business style" metrics-driven management idiocy. The approach hurts both boys and girls who fall outside a narrow enforced "normal", of which there are plenty of both. Casting this explicitly as a "boys' problem" is ignorant, and likely to produce unhelpful solutions (that are beneficial to the management metrics goons, but not particularly to kids).