As a teacher it distresses me greatly that schools are becoming less progressive, less inviting and less humane. Problems are dealt with in nonsensical extreme measures. The political correct police have all but taken over and the fear of lawsuits prevails in place of a desire to accommodate the true needs of its student population.
Introducing a no-contact rule as a means to prevent schoolyard injuries isn’t just reactionary, it’s insane!
Guess what? Children hurt themselves. It’s a fact of life! To ban contact sports, hugging and high fives as a result of incidental knocks and bruises reduces the playground atmosphere to that of a doctor’s waiting room. Is that what we want for our children?
Parents claim they were not told directly of the new rule, which extended a ban on contact sports to a ban on any physical contact at all, such as playing “tiggy”, hugging or giving each other high-fives.
They claim the new rule was explained to pupils over the public address system, and students were left to tell their parents.
One parent, Tracey, said her son was winded on the playground yesterday and, when his friend tried to console him by putting his arm around his shoulder, the friend was told his actions were against the rules.
The friend then had to walk around with the teacher on playground duty for the rest of lunch as punishment, Tracey told radio 3AW.
“I’m just a bit outraged that it has come to this. There must be other ways,” Tracey said.
Another parent, John, said his children were told they could not high-five each other.
“I have a couple of children, and they have been told that if they high-five one another that’s instant detention, and if they do it three times they will be expelled,” John said.
“I mean, what are they actually trying to teach?”
One child was reportedly told that if students wanted to high-five, it would have to be an “air high-five”.
Principal Judy Beckworth said it was “not actually a policy, it’s a practice that we’ve adopted in the short-term as a no-contact games week”.
She said the new practice was introduced yesterday after students suffered a number of injuries on the playground in recent weeks, and the new no-touching rule was only due to last for one week.
However one parent, Nicole, claimed that the school was backpedalling because some parents were told by the school that the new rule would be in place for a minimum of three weeks, which would be extended if the children did not behave themselves.
Tags: Education, high-fives, Hugging, Judy Beckworth, life, Mornington Peninsula primary school, Mount Martha Primary School, News, No-contact rule, No-touching rule, Parenting, Parents, physical contact, Political Correctness, principal, Protest, School Rules, tiggy
Topical Teaching 
June 15, 2012 at 5:33 am |
This is madness. At the end of a fun, busy and fulfilling school day yesterday, where I was a relief teacher, several of the grade 3 and 4 students gave me a spontaneous hug before they left the room. Should I have pushed them away and told them off? Who said, “Let the little children come to me, and don’t prevent them.” and sat them on His knee. No, I guess even Jesus would not be welcome in many modern classrooms today. Now what did He say about anyone causing offence to little children? Something about their might as well having a millstone tied around their neck and being cast in the sea.
It’s just occurred to me “spontaneous” doesn’t appear to be part of the educational jargon these days. We hear instead words like “mandatory” (my pet abomination), “planning”, “pedagogy”(whatever that means), “diagnosis” (as if schools were places for treating illness.), “testing, testing , testing, 1,2,3…”, “accountability” (in spades), “medication”, but, please, don’t let anything happen spontaneously, without listing the outcomes and careful planning.
The best and most memorable learning in my career has been that which has occurred spontaneously. Sometimes I wonder about long term planning of outcomes, that it doesn’t result in short term educational anaesthesia and long term educational morbidity. Why do I say that? These days I have the opportunity to, one day be teaching Prep, the next day be teaching grade 12, and on any other day anything in between. It’s a great vantage position from which to observe the long term effects of modern educational policy and practice, in terms of student involvement and engagement. But the view from that position is not a pretty one. From Prep to grade 12 I can see a gradual disengagement of students. That has to say something.
After grade 10, when many students leave, there is a brief improvement because many of the ones who don’t want to be there have the opportunity to leave. By the end of grade 12 they are all breaking their necks to get out. Do we know how many students who begin high school go on to University afterwards? Do we know how many who begin high school go on to become university professors? Sometimes I think that education is merely a filtering process geared towards educating university professors. It works very well for university professors. And guess who has a stranglehold on curriculum in the education system? University professors.
Now let’s start asking why TAFE colleges are chronically under resourced.
June 15, 2012 at 11:10 am |
I awarded you The Inspiring Blogger Award. Thanks for sharing such great information.
June 17, 2012 at 11:23 pm |
Thank you so much Kristi! I really appreciate it.
June 18, 2012 at 6:04 am
Thank you!