Posted on 06/18/2007 8:46:38 AM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative
Fairfax County middle school student Hal Beaulieu hopped up from his lunch table one day a few months ago, sat next to his girlfriend and slipped his arm around her shoulder. That landed him a trip to the school office.
Among his crimes: hugging.
All touching -- not only fighting or inappropriate touching -- is against the rules at Kilmer Middle School in Vienna. Hand-holding, handshakes and high-fives? Banned. The rule has been conveyed to students this way: "NO PHYSICAL CONTACT!!!!!"
School officials say the rule helps keep crowded hallways and lunchrooms safe and orderly, and ensures that all students are comfortable. But Hal, 13, and his parents think the school's hands-off approach goes too far, and they are lobbying for a change.
"I think hugging is a good thing," said Hal, a seventh-grader, a few days before the end of the school year. "I put my arm around her. It was like for 15 seconds. I didn't think it would be a big deal."
A Fairfax schools spokesman said there is no countywide ban like the one at Kilmer, but many middle schools and some elementary schools have similar "keep your hands to yourself" rules. Officials in Arlington, Loudoun and Prince George's counties said schools in those systems prohibit inappropriate touching and disruptive behavior but don't forbid all contact.
Deborah Hernandez, Kilmer's principal, said the rule makes sense in a school that was built for 850 students but houses 1,100. She said that students should have their personal space protected and that many lack the maturity to understand what is acceptable or welcome.
"You get into shades of gray," Hernandez said. "The kids say, 'If he can high-five, then I can do this.' "
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Punish the individual kid, don't implement a "no thought required" policy punishing all of the kids.
Of course, doing that takes initiative, good judgment, and dedication, all qualities in short supply among school staffs these days.;)
Chances are this will only exacerbate problems the school already has. Students will go to great lengths to “touch” in private so they will not get caught.
Politicians are IDIOTS and make no mistake our schools are being run by politicians not the elected kind, a kind worse than that the bureaucratic kind. But the IDIOTS in Washington want to solve every problem with another stupid law, policy, or program even though they do not have the WILL, nor the competence to enforce the laws presently on the books.So it is with the locals in charge of the public schools. I was a typical white male student who was fortunate to do very very well in school. I was in athletics and the rules were simple, what the coach said went, and if you pouted about it, you had no chance to play and if you could not submit to authority you just as well quit. I have seen the pages upon pages of policies some schools make their athletes sign off on in order to play sports, that would have killed my will to play as the basis of my participation was simply to have fun. If I am in a stupid public school today, I am dropout material because I hated unnecessary structure, pretense, and hypocrisy at an early age, and I still do.
How on earth is that true?
I’m trying to imagine how this stupid rule could be enforced in any sort of human community. First, the caveat - I’m a teacher at a high school. Yes, there are conservatives who teach.
In fact, every student and teacher communicate through socially acceptable touching - a high-five, a handshake, a tap on the shoulder, that odd little touching knuckles with the fist that has become popular in the past two years around here. Done within the strictures of professional conduct, this kind of body language does a good job of improving relationships between student and teacher.
Among students themselves, there is always a flurry of touching - slapped hands, heads on shoulders, holding hands between girlfriends and boyfriends, purposeful pressing into each other while passing between classes. These actions also improve relationships, since human beings thrive on touching.
Of course we also police against typical teenage horniness, much to the discontent of the students. Tough. It’s not “Brave New World” yet. Most kids are actually good natured about our attempts to make them focus on developing their cerebral cortex instead of the gonads.
How this school can even come close to banning “no touching” is beyond me. When a kid is hurt, they want a hug. When athletes score a point, they naturally come together in a flurry of touching high-fives and slapping.
However, what this does get kids used to is an over-regulated society with rules that are irregularly enforced and unevenly applied by overzealous social engineers. Call that socialism, liberalism, the Democrat party, whatever you want. One kid I had in class called it “fascism lite.”
Just consider that all the time spent searching for kids touching each other is taken away from reading, writing, and math. *sigh*
i teach kdg and i cannot imagine even a day without
any physical contact with the kids. we give high fives
and pats on the back all of the time.
There is a world of difference, but I’m actually going to take the schools side on this.
Kids are abusing their freedoms in schools. My guess is there was too much wrong physical contact in the school, so the school just said no more.
I’d rather a school be strict than the opposite. My daughters were in a school that had no discipline, and it was horrible. (Of course, we switched to private which is full of reasonable people and well-disciplined kid.)
The key was the kissing/tongue thing.
Other kids saw him pin her. There were conflicting reports from the kids about whether he kissed her and how.
It basicly came down to girls VS. boys testimony.
If there had been a “no touch” rule, he would have at least had it gone on his record.
When I saw the topic I wondered the same thing.
3 guesses as to the team mascot.
You can BET they will now have a “Zero Tolerance!” rule on touching.
Two simple rules: 1) No violence 2) No affection
Very good analysis. I was thinking such a rule would surely turn out sociopaths. Touching is as needed in emotional development as food is for the body. This is simply more of the same......zoombie the kids so the teachers don’t have to work so hard. Sure adolescents are a pain, but it’s a time when they need more social contact, not less.
So true. Zero tolerance means, we don't teach the difference between acceptable and unacceptable touching and we treat all drugs alike instead of teaching the difference between legal and illegal drugs.
“Other kids saw him pin her. “
This is illegal in every state AFAIK. Call the cops. Have him charged with battery, which is unwanted physical contact. If other students saw him then it should be easy to prove.
The kissing issue is also part of the battery charge but may not be as easy to prove.
Your idea that this no-touching rule would have solved your daughter’s problem is misguided. There are already plenty of existing laws and rules to deal with his behavior.
That's why God gave girls knees, and boys sensitive groins.
And why God gave boys backsides, and parents willow switches.
Had it been my daughter, that kids parents would have had a personal home visit from me, her Dad...school be damned at that point.
The idiots and fools are winning.
This is the stupidest ruling that I’ve seen since the TSA took away a todler’s sippy cup.
She is an idiot. Middle-schoolers lack the maturity to understand some things, but they certainly should have learned by reaching middle-school what types of physical contact are appropriate and what types are inappropriate. This is just an example of laziness on the part of administrators to implement a nonsensical policy like this.
I agree that a no-touching rule strictly enforced is overkill.
But I fully support the ban on relational contact, especially in middle school. That means hand-holding, arms around, kissing, long hugs. School is for learning, not for dating. If you want to put your arms around a girl, pay for a movie ticket.
When you allow dating-type contact in the schools, it puts a lot of pressure on other children to get “partners” and engage in similar behavior in public so as not to be ostracized.
Also, some parents have rules about dating for their children, but can’t enforce those rules if schools allow dating-type contact when the schools are responsible for the children.
And since dating-type contact has nothing to do with the mission of the schools, there is no reason to allow it in the guise of “diversity” or “tolerance”. I have a right to expect that when I send my child to a public school, they will restrict activities like this.
Meanwhile, my daughter tells me about all sorts of inappropriate sexual activity at her middle school, including kids getting expelled for having sex in the bathrooms.
Any rules the schools can implement to discourage this type of contact is a good thing.
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