Nanny State Gone Wild—More Stupid Rules to Make School More Unpleasant

Image from Flickr, by KazVorpal

Last week, in her column “The Answer Sheet,” Valerie Straus listed “eight weird things schools banned this year.” Some of the bans were absurd overreactions to freak accidents that were unlikely to ever occur again and that could be averted much more simply through greater caution by students and teachers. For example, frilly socks were banned at Kingshold Primary School in Gloucester, England, after a child tripped over her dangles and fell, according to the Independent. In another bizarre example, Castle View School in Essex, England, prohibited triangular flapjacks (in England, flapjacks are hard cookies, not pancakes) after one was tossed and hit a student in the eye, the independent reported. To “solve” this dangerous problem, school officials are now requiring that flapjacks be square—apparently these officials had cut geometry class the day they talked about how squares have more sharp corners than triangles.

Other bans stemmed from the hysteria over bullying, (here and here), and are equally misguided. The Eagle-Tribune wrote that the Wyndham School District in New Hampshire, for example, has banned dodge ball and other “human target” games as a way to reduce bullying. Yet bullying (as well as run of the mill teasing, harassing and meanness) can occur in virtually any game or sport. A child can choose to slide tackle in soccer out of poor sportsmanship, vindictiveness or outright hatred of the victim. A batter or runner can be hit by the ball in baseball, kickball or softball for similar reasons. A person jumping rope can be deliberately tripped by the rope turners. A person playing hopscotch can be tripped by pebbles or a banana peel tossed onto the playing field. Where does it end?

However, another way of parsing this perplexing ban is that dodge ball does not just provide an opportunity for a few bullies to gang up on one kid. It also provides an opportunity for a kid with any grievance whatsoever, including having been victimized by bullies, to target his tormentor in return. However, it seems like Wyndham School District is assuming that the victims of bullying truly are the feeble weaklings their tormentors say they are and, therefore, lack the capability of fighting back on the playing field (or the common sense to opt out of contact sports in which their tormentors are playing).

The other great hysteria around children—molestation (see here, and here)—has led to the banning of adult hugging in St. Mary’s County Public Schools, in Maryland, according to Southern Maryland News. According to the ban, adults may hug any child they wish, as long as it’s their own, but better keep their slimy, pervy hands off of everyone else’s children. While this might seem a prudent rule for teachers of middle and high school students to avoid any perception of prurient interest in the students, the situation is significantly different for elementary school teachers, whose students have much greater need for regular physical reassurances that they are loved and cared for. Personally, I do not want my son in a kindergarten class with an icy robot teacher who tells him to put on his own bandage, wipe his own tears and just go grab a hug from his friend whenever he’s feeling insecure or sad.

Speaking of prurient interest, thank God Kenilworth Junior High school, in Petaluma, California, has had the hindsight to ban girls’ leggings (stretch pants) which, when they bend over and the fabric stretches, provide more hindsight for their classmates than the fashion police feel is tolerable. ABC News suggested it was causing “distractions” in the classroom (i.e., boys, and no doubt some girls, too, were more interested in their classmates’ butts than their history lessons). This reminds me of my own school days, when only the most popular brands of tight-fitting pants and shorts were banned for similar reasons. Of course this begs the question: if teenagers are more interested in each other’s butts than the curriculum, shouldn’t something be done to make the curriculum more exciting and meaningful to them? It also highlights a fact that most adults and educators are constantly trying to suppress or deny: Teenagers are sexual beings. They have lusts, like adults. Banning one particular style of clothing will not change this. They will still be titillated by their peers’ looks and think about how cute so and so is, even after banning every other provocative and popular article of clothing for our students own protection.

Every generation comes up with its own popular genre of music and older generations routinely poo poo it as trash. . . When I was young. . . that was real music back then! Lawrence Welk and Frank Sinatra kick ass on Elvis and Frankie. But wait, what about the 60s? Music then was revolutionary. It was political. It was part of the anti-war movement, and today’s music is just a bunch of misogynistic, homophobic, violence-glorifying dreck. And why should our schools promote such anti-social messages? Thus, Arcadia High School in Southern California has banned Lady Gaga’s “Starstruck,” as well as 19 other songs at prom, because they are degrading to women.

While there is certainly some logic and perhaps even ethical basis for avoiding overtly misogynistic music, it is, in reality, completely arbitrary and pointless. The overwhelming majority of popular music throughout history has been mindless dreck if you really pay attention to the lyrics, including during the “revolutionary” 60s, when the majority of songs were insipid odes to puppy love and rants about being jilted. And the 60s, as well as the 50s and most other generations have had a subset of music with antisocial, misogynistic, racist, homophobic and otherwise offensive lyrics (though sometimes the offensive lyrics are meant to be satirical). Banning 19 songs leaves the thousands of others that still violate whatever arbitrary moral guidelines the thought police have set.

St. Mary’s County Public schools has also banned birthday invitations so as to not make the uninvited kids feel bad. This reminds me of an administrator who said that kids’ names shouldn’t be written on the board to remind them they have detentions and that you should never tell a student he is failing because such forms of communication could humiliate students. It also reminds me about some anarchists in the 1990s who tried to create an End to Unhappiness Festival and movement.

Sorry folks, but unhappiness, embarrassment, feeling left out, and bad news are all unavoidable conditions of life. People die. Conflicts occur. Relationships end. Reformers make life harder for regular people.  . . “Daddy, where is Mommy?” . . . “Er, well son, she’s certainly not dead. You don’t have to worry about that. Absolutely not dead. Not in the slightest.  . . Hey, let’s make some birthday invitations.”

Obviously, as educators we have a responsibility to address academic and disciplinary matters with tact and appropriateness, including not deliberately humiliating a student. However, getting caught being naughty and earning an F are inherently embarrassing situations and, even if a teacher is tactful and appropriate in her response, a student may still end up feeling embarrassed. Likewise, does the school really believe that the uninvited kids aren’t going to find out about the party anyway and still feel bad?

All of these bans have far more to do with social control, prejudice and paranoia about lawsuits than protecting children. This is perhaps best illustrated by Strauss’ last example, where two students’ pictures were removed from the yearbook at White Cloud High School in Michigan because their “baby bumps” (i.e., pregnant bellies) “sent a bad message to other students. However, according to New York Magazine, Superintendent Barry Seabrook felt that the girls’ photos would be an advertisement that their abstinence-based sex education program was a failure. So much for “evidence-based” education reform.

Jocks Vs Cheerleaders: Who’s Rights are Right?

40 years ago the Supreme Court declared that neither students nor teachers lose their free speech rights on a public school campus, ruling that students could wear armbands in protest of the Viet Nam war. The ruling was in marked contrast to the private sector, where free speech is still severely restricted.

Students’ rights have been steadily eroding since the 1980s, when the courts allowed a principal to prevent a student newspaper from publishing articles on pregnancy and divorce. In 2007, the courts permitted a school to suspend a kid for hanging a banner that said “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” Such court rulings have emboldened schools to further encroach on students’ rights in many ways, including locker searchers, drug testing and even using webcams to spy on children at home. Fortunately, Philadelphia families have won their lawsuit in the webcam spying case.

A Silsbee, Texas, cheerleader was not so lucky. She was raped by a player on her school’s basketball team. Pending trial, he was allowed back to school and permitted to continue playing ball, thus protecting his right to be treated as an innocent man until proven guilty. However, when the victim refused to cheer for him as he shot free throws, she was kicked off the squad on orders of the superintendent, who was angered by her protest. Her rights were apparently less important than the athlete’s. The young man eventually pled guilty to misdemeanor assault and was slapped with a small fine and community service.

When the cheerleader’s parents sued the school district, the local court ruled that her action was not free speech because she conveyed no specific message. Yet her message should have been obvious to everyone at the game. It was public knowledge that she had accused the player of raping her. Fans in the bleachers were taunting her throughout the game.

The appeals court argued that as a cheerleader she served as a mouthpiece for the district and that she was interfering with the business of the school. However, the primary business of a school is to promote the well being, dignity and safety of all students, not just the student athletes.

 As is often the case, the adults at the school were asleep at the wheel and failed to protect the student, not from being raped, which happened off campus, but from the public humiliation that would inevitably arise from her participation in the basketball game. She never should have been put in the position of having to choose between cheering her rapist versus being kicked off the team. Adults at the school were aware of her accusations. They should have assumed they were founded in reality and that she was likely traumatized. A sensible response would have been to excuse her from games in which the accused rapist was playing. Instead, when her parents complained about classmates mocking her and calling her a slut, the school recommended that she stay away from school for a while.

This case highlights the sexist and misogynistic double standards that continue to permeate our society. The rape victim’s accusations were not taken seriously by the school or the local community.  Her rights to learn in a safe environment and to participate in school activities were undermined in favor of her assailant’s, ostensibly because he was not yet convicted, but more likely because of the high value the school and community placed on boys’ athletics. Her sport, cheerleading, which is predominantly female, was treated as subservient to the boy’s basketball team. (The school jumped through hoops to keep an accused rapist eligible to play basketball, but didn’t mind losing one of their cheerleaders).

It also highlights the rigid, punitive and self-serving mentality that governs many of our educational systems. Instead of publicly disciplining the cheerleader at the game, school officials could have ignored her or allowed her to sit out the game and then discussed the matter at a less fraught time. Instead of prioritizing the needs of an anguished student, school officials compounded her disgrace and suffering because it served their interests.