Posts Tagged ‘Hugging’

Why Can’t Teachers Touch Kids any More? :O’Brien

June 21, 2012

I couldn’t disagree more with the opinions expressed in Susie O’Brien’s column today. Allowing teachers to touch students, even innocently, is a step backwards. Every day we read news articles of teachers who have misused the privilege of working with kids and have overstepped the boundaries. It’s because of the evil minority that continue to heap shame on our wonderful profession, that these regulations are vital.

The rules that restrict teachers from hugging and touching our students without justifiable cause are not about political correctness, they are about common sense.  They exist to protect students, but in doing so, they also protect teachers from false accusations. I agree that it’s a sad state of affairs that I am obliged to keep my door open when having a private meeting with a student, but isn’t that a small price to pay for transparency?

I find Ms. O’Brien’s intimation that I can’t provide my students with the same standard of care due to the fact that I don’t touch them quite upsetting:

WHY can’t teachers touch kids any more? It used to be that teachers had total control over the children in their care.

They were allowed to hit them, cane them and handle them in pretty much any way they saw fit.

But they could also hug them, comfort them, and even check their hair for nits.

With the advent of political correctness, everything changed.

Teachers should be able to judge for themselves what contact is appropriate in any situation.

If we think any teacher lacks the ability to make such judgments, then they shouldn’t be in front of our classrooms.

For instance, take a look at the rules imposed on teachers in this state by the Victorian Institute of Teaching, which is the professional regulation body.

Their code of conduct says teachers are violating their professional relationships when they touch a student without a valid reason.

It’s a bit depressing that it’s come to this.

The code says teachers can touch students, but goes on to say it is a “difficult issue for teachers in the present climate”.

Apparently, teachers can touch students for comfort, guidance or acknowledgment, but not for any other reason.

And teachers are not meant to have any meeting with a student alone with their door closed.

It seems a pretty sad state of affairs.

As sad as it is that the evil few spoil it for the majority, these rules are vital. They protect teachers and students alike.

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Professional Conduct | 5 Comments »

Primary School Introduces Insane No-Touching Policy

June 15, 2012

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.

What’s next? Soon schools will ban chairs because students sometimes lean back dangerously. Staples and scissors will have to go, as will monkeybars, sharp pencils, bunsen burners, glass bottles, electrical sockets, polls, doors and polished floors. Soon the only activity that students will be allowed to engage in is high fiving each other. No, wait! That’s banned too.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Political Correctness, School Rules | 4 Comments »

Teacher Publicly Humiliates Kissing Teens

March 13, 2012

It’s bad enough this teacher made a shocking spur of the moment decision to break up a school corridor kiss between teen students by dousing them with a bucket of water. To then go on Facebook to justify it and call for the support of others is just horrible. Surely the teacher in question has enough sense to see that the punishment did not in any way match the crime. Public humiliation is a very serious offence.

Suspending this teacher was certainly an appropriate course of action:

A US teacher has been suspended after throwing a bucket of water on two students he thought were kissing and hugging in a school corridor.

The unnamed teacher was unapologetic despite being placed on administrative leave by John Overton High School in Nashville while the incident is being investigated, WKRN-TV reported.

The teacher reportedly posted afterwards on Facebook that his actions “seemed to work”.

“Got in trouble at school today,” he wrote.

“Threw a bucket of water on two kids hooking in the hallway of the high school where I plan to send my oldest daughter next year.

“It seemed to work and they stopped. Keep me in your prayers peeps.”

A mother of one of the students told WKRN-TV that there was no excuse for the teacher’s treatment of her 16-year-old son and his 17-year-old girlfriend.

Maggie Tiefenthal said her teenage son, who she claims was only hugging his girlfriend, was “embarrassed and upset” after the incident.

“They are not dogs. That is what you do to dogs and they are not animals,” she said.

Ms Tiefenthal said the principal had seen CCTV footage of the incident, but she had yet to see it.

“The administrator said based on the video, the kids did nothing inappropriate,” she told WKRN-TV.

Ms Tiefenthal said the girl’s parents were also upset by the incident.

She added that the teacher’s Facebook post had only made it worse.

School spokeswoman Olivia Brown said that the school had never had problems with the teacher before and he had a “good standing”.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Professional Conduct | 6 Comments »