I want a hug


Any takers?

I showered today.

Also since the people who run schools have no clue what career each person may end up they're not in the "preparing you for career X" business. They're in the teaching business, hopefully lots of stuff, some of which won't likely ever help with employment. The point of schools is not to be factories turning out good little worker drones, rather people who know something and can think. Banning hugging helps no cause.

*hugs M0nkeyp0x, gropes him*


like that?

Fark It

However, it does have other rules like you can have items you own searched without a warrant - which would normally require a warrent, no public demonstrations without permit, no placing unauthorized signs in the park, you have to wear appropriate clothing, etc. So, yeah, even with public funding, society limits your interactions as they deem appropriate. Just deal with this as a public display issue and you will understand the problem. Just a hypothetical - if a persons religion (I have no idea which) prohibited this display and the parent found out the kid was doing it, you really don't think there would be hell to pay for the administration allowing it and not following their own policies?

It doesn't appear that this rule is really much of a problem. At least the article doesn't mention that the detention room is routinely packed with rampantly hugging students. What we have here is another parent taking the time to teach their kid at an early age that if you don't like the rules, just complain until someone changes them to suit your own point of view.

did anyone else notice the "hug police" shirt that keeps popping up on the sidebar?

I love irony.

Jeez, I had a pretty conservative high school and it was fine to make out in the hallway. I know I did.

I CAN see restraints put on PDAs but hugging, come on. My science teacher hugged me once, even. Sure, there are rules in life but rules are meant to be challenged at times. If not, well, we just become a communist nation which is more and more the direction America is going towards... but I won't get into that.

/had the hots for above science teacher
//It was a nice huggggggggggg

cargrrl82

You seriously don't think that the education system is fitting people into job roles? College specifically train for jobs, h.s. train for colleges, mid and grade schools train for h.s. You don't think it is linear for a reason?

Alexis
Second, rules like this are just farking stupid, and pointless. I kissed my girlfriend in high school. Harm caused by it? That's right, zero.

Uh-huh. Two words: Violent Erections

In all seriosuness, though...I don't care how you classify a public school, it has the right to enforce rules on the students. And while I believe a non-PDA rule (if reasonable) is necessary in a public school, hugging should be allowed. If we all hugged each other every now and then, the world would be a better place.

/Except for dudes hugging dudes...that's teh ghey.

Article didn't mention they were both NUDE at the time.

Fark It

I hear you, I know that it is even against school rules to defend yourself in a fight! I'm not saying that I agree with the rules!

My point is, if there are male students groping female students, I don't see banning hugs as an appropriate response or solution. The male students need to know that this isn't a "silly rule" like a lot of the others - and they should learn that this is not acceptable behavior in our society.

I have an general problem with giving children rules that do not apply for adults - and vice versa. You can't teach a child to be an adult by giving them different rules to play the game by.

BlindMan

What I mean is that you're likely to realize teenagers are a generally obnoxious bunch of human beings as prone to complaining about people being inconsiderate to them as they are prone to being inconsiderate to others.

What you mean is: when you stop being a teenager you stop caring about how prejudiced the world is against teenagers.

/you teach respect by showing it

tonesskin --

Whoa, it's a farking law? I'd be challenging that shiat in a heartbeat.

The problem is that in many jursidictions the school board officials who set policy are actually elected, but the "electorate" are usually apathetic to these "local" or "county" elections because they just don't think these people have any real power. Hell, those Federal elections are much more important because they get to declare war and stuff on other countries, right??

WRONG!!

These "local yokels" have FAR MORE POWER over your lives that those "bull-goose" pols up in Washington, Ottawa or Whitehall.

Next time November rolls around, take the time to find out the platforms of your local candidates., if you really care about your kid's education.

If they start spouting empty plattitudes like "family values" or "Zeee-row tolerance" then you can be pretty sure they are those that love to impose their narrow-minded ideas on morality to your kids. DO NOT VOTE FOR THESE ASSHATS!! Tell your freinds, too!

One other thing, if you think you shouldn't get involved because you are well off enough to send your kids to provate school, think about the majority who DON'T have the bucks who will suffer because of you.

And it will only come back to bite you in the ass when once of these kids kicked out because of an expulsion due to an ill-concieved "zero tolerance" rule robs your house or jacks your car because he can't get a job.

THINK, people. You have a vote. USE IT!!!

*hugs M0nkeyp0x, gropes him*


like that?



Wonderful, simply wonderful.

You are the best.

if they're heading us into the 50s again, does that mean another summer of love will come round when they solve that AIDS thingie?

/wonders if the modesty-enforcers are familiar with the concept of backlash

The USA has the highest incarceration rate of any developed country in the world.

Think about it. School is meant to prepare you for "real life" - in prison.

/would be funnier if I wasn't serious.

Fark It

Have you gone to a stadium recently? Any national park? How about an airport? It is happening everyday. Probable cause comes down to the right event at the right time in many cases. I just went to an airport ecently where they (from what I could tell) were doing random patdowns. Disturbing, yes. And no, the people did not have a vote in the matter.

pkellmey

As for those searches, yes they are without warrants but they are only allowed in cases of probable case. Permits for protests are variable from place to place, and depending on the particular gathering. In some places if you expect only a couple dozen people to show up, you don't need a permit. Also those permits are purely for logistics purposes, unless you are believed to want one to incite violence or unrest you can not be denied one. It's basically just a way to let the city know it may need a couple extra cops in a particular place on a particular day.

As for clothing, that doesn't just go with parks. And some laws on clothing are just retarded. Like those that don't allow women to go topless while men can go topless no problem.

See the difference with laws of the civic variety versus school rules is remedy. With civil law anyone who wants to, you don't even have to be a legal adult, can petitition to have a law changed. This can be done by dealing with the legislature or failing that going through the courts. Anyone can petitition the courts to hear them out and see if judicial review of a law is merited. With schools? Well students are way down low on the totem pole of having say so into the rules, even though they're the ones who deal with them the most.

My high school principal had a nice view on things whenever someone suggested some crazy rule at a PTA meeting "As soon as you are a student, you can have that rule". I fired off an email to him about this hugging thing, can't wait to see how he tears it apart. The principal a man who considers rules in terms of sudents first and foremost and actually only. Wise man, beloved not just by students but by teachers. Because in not throwing junk rules at students you keep teachers from dealing with enforcing them and various consequences.

They were caught by the Army recruiter.

The rules are usually made for a reason. How, when, and if they're enforced--well, that's a different story. After discovering how little common sense 9th graders have with regards to X-Acto knives, I started the first unit with a safety demonstration, including a "what happens when these roll off the table" (you'd be astonished how often they land point down), so I made it perfectly clear: you put a blade guard on the knife before you set it down so I don't have to send kids out to get stitches, resulting in a detention if you don't. Now, if I chose to give out detentions 100% of the time that I saw that, I'd be spending a lot of time babysitting and with many resentful kids. Instead, I chose the battlegrounds carefully in a way that I believed would benefit other kids with a small inconvenience from others. I've had a studen't mom call in and argue at me for a half hour that this was going to be traumatic for her child and that this was a silly rule. I invited her to take it up with my boss, and her child served the detention before that meeting, and as far as I know her daughter hasn't suffered from it, plus she was a very good model for other kids for the rest of the term.
Now, none of us know the exact circumstances of this event, but having been in similar circumstances, I'm betting that the teacher/disciplinarian in question was ticked off by something else that day/week and decided to take it out on a couple kids. Second likely scenario was that there had been several complaints coming in about persistent PDA's and someone got a little overzealous. I'm also willing to bet that the couple in question have been going at it hot and heavy and the disciplinarian had enough but choise the wrong time to level a punishment.
Having been in that exact situation, I find it silly to hand out a detention for PDA's as I think they're mostly just poor manners, so instead I used the power of humor/humiliation, which is astounding effective at managing manners problems in kids.

cargrrl82 --
"As for those searches, yes they are without warrants but they are only allowed in cases of probable case."


That's odd, because probable cause is a prerequisite for a warrant.


[Amendment IV]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Ah, America, Land of The Free. You never cease to amaze me. You farking Talibans.

I served a detention in high school because my GF kissed me on the cheek.

Just a little peck, but I got detention for it.

Damn Lutheran Schools

pkellmey

Schools are not job mills. They are places of learning. That people want them to be nothing but factories for turning out good little worker drones is an issue unto itself. But just consider all the careers there are where stuff that matters in a corporate setting isn't applicable. Also since most people work what is it 40 some years, there's no need to be forcing the corporate rules down the throats of people who may follow other paths. The ability to follow those paths being what schools are in part there for. Not to make you fit for a job, but make you fit to be able to choose from as wide a variety of opportunities as possible.

cargrrl82

So, if the kids want to hug, have them get a permit from their doctor - would that provide the school the probable you are looking for? Students do have the right to petition the school board/administration for change - usually with parents consent because they are not adults. Kids -> adults - do you see the difference yet? Kids grow into adults, so don't screw 'em early by having double standards for public rules and then wonder why they are confused adults that are getting fired for these acts.

I like that attention whore graphic....

Her buttocks look nice and smooth.

cargrrl82

In order to fit into jobs, you need a little socialization/normalization - that's what the school is doing, so this issue fits right in.

cargrrl82, of course they do, 80% will be sasuages and the rest will be an indoctrinated political class. buy this on dvd :

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104810/

why don't we just cut through the bs and make teenage sexuality illegal already. that's the real point of rules like this. strangely enough only a hundred years ago or so teens were considered adults, getting married, and having kids.

BOO!!!! (proudly puts on his "Free Hugs" T-shirt)

Fark IT -

Um, yes, because they are kids, they do not have the same rights.

/Thank God. I could not handle Barney the Dinosaur for governor.

american education and most systems in general are systems of imposed ignorance.

I have mixed feelings about this article... On the one hand, I think a simple hug can be a harmless greeting or farewell, much like a handshake. I routinely hugged friends in high school and continue to do so at age 30.

On the other hand, when I was a freshman in high school, I had a locker directly below that of a senior girl. She and her boyfriend would routinely engage in full tongue-swallowing makeout and groping sessions while leaning against her locker, thus blocking me from access to mine. In such a state, they would become blisfully unaware of the world around them, and sometimes made me late for class. Now, I'm not saying that the couple in the article are guilty of such behavior, but I can see how the school might feel it's a slippery slope to try and draw a line and say, "this is okay, but that's bad."

Ah, the people of Fark.

Everyone over 25:
"We have rules for the sanity and protection of everyone, follow them you horny little farktoads. Hug when you get out of school."

Everyone under 25:
"OMFG, that school is the sucka! Let the kids hug l0sers! Stupid people trying to control us, we know what we're doing!"

spiral2000:

I was told by my own mother, "Your school is conservative and has stupid rules. But you're outnumbered. Deal with it. Welcome to earth."


Best quote I've seen all day...

/chalk one up for "Mom"

pkellemey

And how is hugging a friend not normal socialization? After all people don't spend all their social time at work. And please explain to me what makes two friends hugging so awful? And why are you such a suck up?

vodka

Actually a lot of the people ripping the school a new one over this hugging thing are over 25. Not me, but among the others are many over 25.

Kissing, hugging, in fact any form of intimate contact at my HS was heavly frowned upon for two reasons. 1) It was all males and 2) very Catholic. I think I've said in earlier threads that coming out of the closet was grounds for "removal" according to the student hand book.

I suppose it depends on levels. there are the levels bob n freely was talking about and I expect the kids were taking it to the extreme. but who the hell cares? their bodies belong to them.

/sucks you were late for class bob.

Fark It

Do you want a bunch of socially engineered, obedient drones in charge of our military and police when you're older? I don't.

ummm.... too late. That's why we have zero tolerance policies and PC thinking outweighing common sense.

What is the school's policy on holding hands?

Bijou

The problem here is the "equality in treatment" demands that schools to which schools are held. For example, if an A-cup girl wears a tank-top, no cleavage and no distraction. If a D-cup girl does the same, that tank-top isn't covering much.

At some valued time in history, teachers had the authority and respect to make these calls case-by-case. However, the mass litigation that now sits upon the doorstep of nearly every school forces them to punish all (with rules/policy) for the abuse of a few.

Another example: Why can't kids wear hats? 98% of them could do so without any negative impact on the learning environment. But 2% will exploit it. Therefore, the modern legal system prevents teachers/admin from dealing with those 2% individually. Hence, a policy that affects all.

I can't tell you how much I wish we could return to times when teachers were respected enough to do their job without every parent/adult informing them on what they must or must not police -- but here we are. So, my argument is: Don't hate the teachers. They are as frustrated by this all-or-nothing attitude as the students. The difference is, if we don't follow it, we potentially get fired. Kids just have to spend an hour after school.

bookgrrl

God I wish everyone was confident enough to know when someone was sexually harassing them -- and then to stand up to them. But you live in a fluffy world if you think the average teen has the self-esteem and confidence to not go along with the perceived crowd. Find me any person who has not looked back on their high school days and thought: I wish I knew then what I know now.

And yes, I've pulled aside many students and discussed inappropriate touching. I usually begin with: I noticed Name was all over you -- does that bother you? And almost always they respond with an affirmative of some degree. They just don't know how to stand up for themselves at that point in their lives.