Posted on 11/06/2007 5:04:37 PM PST by Coleus
I suspect if she claimed to be a lesbian the school would be singing an altogether different tune. ...and there’d be no detention/suspension.
Come to think of it, maybe I won't.
The rule was surely created to prevent amorous couples from rounding the bases on school property, but the brain-dead zero-tolerance crowd has to interpret it in ways that were never intended so they can have equal outcomes.
You will hope in vain, kid.
Well, at least this is getting some embarassing publicity for your lame-brain school district and its even lamer administrators.
On the bright side, a whole generation of kids who have grown up in an unfair, zero tolerant environment know it for the fascist system that it is and are by no means liberal but even more free-thinking than we were at that age. I've had more than one young adult tell me they planned to homeschool when they had families.
Yep, this is the real fruit of "tune in, turn off and drop out!"
“When I was h.s. the girls and guys hugged and it was no big deal. Their pep rallies must be a blast. Do they still have pep rallies in school now?”
Guys and girls still hug and yes they have pep rallies, at least around here. And they’re able to make the distinction between PDA and a hug.
Amen!
This morning the CC Times featured a photo of the cover of "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, accompanied by an article about two parents protesting the Mount Diablo School District allowing the book in a sixth grade classroom. This is beyond outrage, and why a single student was allowed to go to school today is beyond me.
One of the best sub rosa arguments against socialism that I have ever read.
Probably not appropriate for elementary (mostly because of a fairly graphic depiction of infanticide), but I could see 6th graders reading it. I think that's about the time my oldest read it.
Why were the parents complaining? I don't see that one as "beyond outrage". Now, if they were complaining about "Heather Has Two Mommies" or "King and King" . . .
It would be great for HS seniors, but not for 11-12 year old kids.
I’ve heard of teachers going on strike. Why not parents and students getting with the teachers and also strike? One would be in protest over wages; the other to get rid of incompetent administrators and their lame-brain decisions. Get rid of a few of those at the top and the District will be able to afford to pay the teachers more.
Remember if you need a hug, find a tree.
What happened to all those aging old hippies on their way to the retirement the communes?
Some of you have good points, but let me bring up a few more. Hugging is usually banned because of the way it happens. The hugging happens in the halls, causing groups of people to block the passage of others; it happens when they see each other before class, after class, as they leave, as they arrive. In fact, it can sometimes become an excuse for being late to class because of the socialization going on in the protracted hugging.
This girl might just have been hugging goodbye. The point is that she knew there was a rule. She hugged anyway. She had been warned. She hugged anyway. At that point it became more than just hugging; it was defiance of authority.
I struggle with our rule of no hugging. We don’t usually give detentions, but we try to give friendly reminders that they’re welcome to do it out of school, but to keep their minds on the job of being educated while in school.
I’ve broken the rule too. When a student has a big emotional problem, like the time I had to tell a whole group of girls that one of their best friends had been killed before school one morning, I hugged a lot that day. No one got a detention.
I think we all need to use common sense.
Oh yes. Hoods, sunglasses, etc., can all be gang messages, and lots else too. Let’s just concentrate on education, and leave the other things for out of school time.
Yes, I am a teacher. I’m proud of it. Is it hard? Everyday. Do I earn my money? Every penny.
The dorks who ran around in the sixties saying “don’t think, feel” are now the teachers and administrators, and they can’t stand to have the young ‘uns showing any emotions or anything. By the standards they are now setting, they would all have been in jail during their hippie heyday. Bunch of dorkheads IMHO.
Unless they're in remedial reading.
High school seniors should be reading Milton and the Shakespeare tragedies and Twain and Melville. By that time they should have developed a discerning literary judgment and be able to handle adult themes far beyond what Lowry touches on.
The Giver is written on what used to be considered a junior high level. Even the infanticide scene is handled without a great deal of emotion, and from the protagonist's reaction it is obvious that the writer disapproves. In fact, it's the pivot point of the book, in which the protagonist finally discerns that his society's way of life is irredeemably evil. I don't have a problem with evil being portrayed, so long as it is demonstrated as such and consequences ensue.
I considered the book appropriate for my daughter at around age 12 -- but she was always a scholarly and serious kid.
Each parent should make an informed judgment, of course, but this is just not a particularly outrageous example. It's well written, it has a moral, evil is punished and good rewarded.
There are far, far worse books being read in the public schools. There was one that a friend of mine (a substitute teacher in a public school) had a cow over, can't remember the title, but it was about two students who murder their principal and are never punished for it. Nothing like that was ever offered in my daughter's private Christian school, and I kept tabs on everything she read, most of course I had run across before but if I hadn't I read them myself. Surprisingly enough, many of the same books that were assigned when I was a student at the same school are still being taught - classics and all that.
Disagree. You can't expect kids to flip a switch and change their behavior when they walk through the door. If they come from a family that hugs hello and goodbye, they're not going to even be thinking about what they're doing. It's not defiance - it's forgetting to change their normal behavior.
Also disagree re blocking the halls and being late to class -- that's justifying by indirect punishment and is almost always ineffective. Punish the kids for doing what is objectively wrong -- for blocking the halls, or for being late to class, or if the hugging gets to the point of PDA in the traditional sense. NOT for a natural human expression of friendship which is innocent in and of itself. That's arbitrary and unjust.
... we'll take that as read.
It’s all because of homosexual PC, IMHO. People don’t want to see homosexual displays of affection, but they can’t admit it even to themselves, let alone declare it. Hence the declaration against ALL displays of affection, even the most innocuous.
I think you could track the history of this development if you tried.
I’ll watch to see if you make it back from work!!!!
The public schools are just nutty in favor of homosexual orientation AND conduct. Why would they discourage PDAs because they are homosexual? That doesn't make sense.
I think it's just that these humorless uptight libs don't want to see anybody having any happiness . . . .
He'll get over it.
Here in Maryland, in the 2006-07 school year, 25 KINDERGARTENERS were suspended in one form or another for showing some sort of ‘display of affection’. Granted, a few of these cases, from what I heard, were kids showing the teachers sexual innuendo (for which they should be discisplined for, of course), but others were simply just hugging teachers too tight, where one of the teachers’ breasts was touched, or something like that. I believe that this happened in Baltimore City.
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