The Dumb Things Schools Do In The Name Of Safety
This ban isn’t just enforced in the classroom. Students are forbidden to touch each other while at lunch, in the hallway or at any other time during school hours.
The principal defended the ban, saying she’s seen too many incidents of students playing bloody knuckles — a game that involves two idiots slamming their knuckles together as hard as they can. This seems to imply that all touching is a slippery slope that always ends in slapstick fist-smashing.
The worst part is that FMS isn’t the only school taking such extreme measures; these kinds of over-the-top precautions are showing up more often now that more school administrators have taken a ride on the crazy train (where they were apparently also groped and beaten). East Shore Middle School in Connecticut adopted the same policy in 2009. This one came about after a kick to the groin sent a student to the hospital.
Anyway, the point is that these blanket bans may get rid of the problem (temporarily) for administrators, but it doesn’t actually teach your kid how to behave. If it’s not rubber bands they’re playing with, kids are destined to find something else disruptive. Just wait until my Silly Bandz-deprived nephew discovers paper clip chains and starts zig-zagging across the thin No. 2 pencil line between civilization and chaos.