"you realize, we've all become automotons..."

[acroyear]

Shostokovich said that to the director of his opera, Lady Macbeth, after the scathing review in Pravda (no doubt ordered by that cultural ultra-reactionary, Stalin, who we do know didn't like the performance).

Upon reading things like this article, I understand what he meant...

Punished girls decry ban on hugging - TODAY: People - TODAYshow.com:

On three occasions, 13-year-old Megan Coulter threw her arm around the shoulder of a classmate. Just once, 12-year-old Madison Muir hugged a friend who had recently lost a parent.

For those acts, both girls were given detention by their middle schools for violating bans against public displays of affection.

[...]

For Madison, it seemed like the most natural way to comfort a friend who had returned to school after the loss of a parent.

“We were just talking,” she told Vieira. “I gave him a quick hug because he had to leave, and we went our separate ways. But the vice principal saw us and called us into her office and gave us detention.”

Unable to attend the preschool detention because of transportation issues, Madison, a seventh grader in Prattville, Ala., ended up missing two days of school.

This is what gets me:

Officials at districts that have banned hugging in all forms say they don’t want to have to make judgment calls about what’s a friendly little hug and what’s an inappropriate one. In districts that haven’t banned hugs entirely, administrators often say they want the leeway to treat the actions of students on a case-by-case basis.

You know, the best way anybody learns critical thinking and good judgment skills is by being around people with critical thinking and good judgment skills.  If you treat kids like sheep, where the RULE is absolute, you get nothing but sheep on the other side.  "We don't need no education" indeed.

I wonder if the kids in those districts have started to stage "hug-a-thons", where they gather as large as they can, with as much media as they can, *just* outside of school grounds and then just have at hugging for all they can...

Comments

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is insane!

[capi.livejournal.com]

This is one of my hot button issues......

Kids *need* physical contact. HUMANS need physical contact. Oy.... *tries to tamp down a rant*

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Can't have students hugging. Hugging leads to excessive hugging, and excessive hugging leads to tardiness. We can't punish tardiness, so instead, the obvious soloution is to ban hugging.

And people wonder that we can barely give our students a third world education.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they ban drawing pictures of hugs. Drawing a picture of a gun is forbidden.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

"Why are Calvinists afraid of shagging while standing up? They're afraid it will lead to dancing!" -- Catholic Scottish joke during the 17th and 18th centuries.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

There is nothing more insane and useless than zero-tolerance programs of any kind. They teach nothing, they protect no-one, and I hope the parents whop the school upside the head until it comes back to its senses.

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

Kindergardeners are getting expelled or charged with sexual harassment for hugs. Schools are out of control these days.

[rsteachout.livejournal.com]

One of my comments for anyone -- especially school administrators -- who support zero tolerance policies is that If all we want are non-thinking, zero-tolerance policy enforcers, we can hire people who have the minimum qualifications of a minimum-wage job and pay them on that same level: the school systems would save a fortune.

We hire teachers and administrators with college and advanced degrees in order to have person capable of and responsible for making judgment calls and discerning appropriate guidance and disciplinary actions.