Lothruin

Once again, read the whole post. The job of the SCHOOL (administrators, building designers, etc) is to keep the kids safe. The end of my original post is "We'll keep them safe and educate them". The primary job of a TEACHER is to educate. The support staff is there to take measures to make sure that the environment is safe for learning.

As for the rest--I agree with you 100%. If every teacher were a really good, experienced, alert teacher, the school wouldn't need to make rules at all. Unfortunately, there are people in every profession who don't do their jobs well and/or aren't suited to them. At our school, you can't hug between any sexes--the rule doesn't have a heterosexual bias.

I graduated from a school with almost 10,000 students. With those large class sizes, it's impossible to see what everyone's at all times. So I agree with you there, too.

However, my original statement stands. We don't know whether the originally mentioned hugs were all that innocent. We weren't there. We didn't see them.

Yeah, I wrote my post before I saw several of your responses, and I understand where you differentiate. Although, at least in my school district, administrators are educators, they just don't typically deal directly with the kids in the same way the teachers do, so it's a fine line. Admin's responsibility, I think, is to make sure that neither safety nor education loses place to the other. Their job is to keep balance. But that's a different argument, slightly.

And yes, I know, it's an ideal I was talking about. If all teachers were good ones, and if all schools had the right amount of staff, etc. And there is no ideal. So I can understand why a rule like that would be written and enforced. But just because I understand doesn't mean I agree with the philosophy. The problem is not that we've removed God from our schools, as has been suggested above. The problem is that we've removed reason from our schools. It is unreasonable to attempt to protect every child from every possibility.

And even if you CAN write a rule that will, for the most part, protect every child from a certain possibility, that doesn't mean it's a good rule. You have to look at what you give up. For me, as a parent, I would 100% of the time prefer that my daughter be able to hug a friend even if it means she might risk an "unwanted hug". (Unwanted hugs aren't rape. Would I want my daughter to be able to hug her friends if she stood the risk of being raped? No. It's all about degrees.) I consider her humanity, her compassion and her ability to express herself to be essential elements of her education, and therefore every bit as much the school's responsibility as my own, since she will be in school half her waking hours.

For me as a teacher, I would oppose such a rule because it may aid in education to some extent, but it surely detracts from education in, to my mind, a greater degree. And as a student, I think I would have deeply resented such a rule, not because I wanted to grab my boyfriends butt when I was in school, but because it is my RIGHT as a person (regardless of my age) to care for those around me.

In all fairness, it's all about the easiest road... The assumption is not automatically that any contact is sexual. The assumption is automatically that any contact COULD be sexual and there is no really good way to tell, so the only way to make sure there is NO sexual contact going on is to make sure there is no contact going on. It is a perfectly logical response, but I still don't think it's a perfectly reasonable one.

I agree Lothriun, it's just a sad indictment on society that we even have to CONSIDER the fact, that contact between our children is in any way inappropriate.

Thank you Lothruin! You are a gentleman and a scholar! I appreciate the intelligent and reasoned debate that I have had with you.

This is just so upsetting. Can we not send our children to school not only worried that they may be hurt, but hugged as well? The very idea that we should fear sexual contact occuring between 8 year old children is bone chilling. How do we teach children not to be violent when we cannot, seemingly, allow them to show love, kindness and understanding? I realize that it is possible to express love and caring without touching, but you tell me you wouldn't want to hug your child if they were in pain, or for that matter feeling great joy! Why should they not be allowed to share this emotion with each other? It is just so heart breaking to think that the world, and school, is so dangerous a place that young children should not be allowed, or indeed encouraged to share a hug, or a dance!

Roflmao - love the juvenile backhanded sarcasm ferfer.

btw - Lothriun is a WOMAN :P

To quote Elwood P. Dowd: An element of conflict in any discussion's a very good thing. It means everybody is taking part and nobody is left out.

There are certainly very different sides of opinions here...but here's something I ponder...we tell kids you can't be friends in school, you can't act like friends, you can't come close to anybody there, don't touch anybody, don't let anybody touch you...and with some people in some instances it can become a domino effect and go from not touching, to not feeling, not feeling like friends, not feeling anything, or not feeling anything good and only anger. We take away kids' rights to be human beings and decent members of society in the school, and we wonder why so many angry kids are going to schools killing people?

lol I think ferfer's sarcasm was directed mainly at ME Lothriun.

This whole thread only goes to show though that when it comes to the welfare of our kids, it's a very emotive issue.

In all fairness to ferfer, whilst I disagree on some of her opinions, I don't envy her job! I know police officers who have an easier job than some school teachers!

Like many other contributors, I think that the more is left to the discretion of individual teachers and the fewer rules there are, the better.

A very long time ago I had a temporary job at a school for boys aged about 8-13. I noticed that two eight-year-old friends tended to be very tactile with one another in class; and I also noticed that their cuddling was of no interest at all to the others. (It was all above the waist and perfectly decent).

However, even in those days their cuddles were mildly inapproriate for boys of their age. I concluded that they hadn't yet reached the point where they realized this. I did nothing beyond asking a colleague for comments. I said nothing to the boys - and within a few months the cuddling stopped.

So what you're saying is while some people could deem as innapropriate, within time the boys quit of their own accord and no harm was done. That's the point, everybody needs to stop being so lawsuit crazy and just LAY off and let the kids do what they do. IF a kid says something happened, THEN do something about it.

ferfer, I've left you a PM (private message).

Lothruin--very sorry. It was wrong to assume you were a man (especially since I'm a woman!), and I was (and am) being sincere.

Delboy--That's quite an ego you have there. The comment was for Lothruin and no one else.

Back to the topic:

I wish what Bloomsby wants! Because I am a competent teacher, the rules in my classroom are sufficient to keep most conflict away.

However, the guy that teaches next door to me has a daily free-for-all in his classrooms. They break out into fights. They bang on the walls. They do NOTHING he says. It's ridiculous!

One woman down the hall from me stands at her door as kids come in to her computer lab, makes sure everyone gets on a computer, and leaves her classroom unsupervised for the rest of the hour (these are middle school children).

They're the only "bad" two I know of in my school, but they're the reason the school has to make rules like this. You can't even trust them to supervise, let alone decide the nature of a hug.

With that said, I don't see how banning hugs at school deprives children of emotion. Do their parents not let them hug at home either? Can they not hug at church? They're only in school 40 hours a week! We teachers aren't the only ones raising them!

Here's the problem in almost all schools in the United States: Parents and other community members don't get involved. They complain went something doesn't go their way, but they don't chaperone. They don't check to make sure their kids do all their work. They don't stop by the school on parent night to meet the teachers. They don't ask teachers to send home make-up work when they're sick for longer than a day. They don't volunteer at the library to read to children. They don't donate their old computers.

This list could go on for a while, but I think you get the meaning. And of course, there are PLENTY of parents and community members who DO get involved. Universally, it's not enough. Where I live, concerned parents are the minority. Of course, this is probably related to the 37% high school graduation rate...

I've just been told off by the schoolma'am!

*Stands in the corner wearing the dunce hat*

Lot of anger and frustration in your posts ferfer - I hope you don't allow it to rub off on your students.

Concerned parents being scarce is, I think, the main problem. If the parent was aware of everything (well, most everything!) going on in their kid's school, and classroom, there wouldn't be a need for such odd rulings.

I am afraid that FEAR is another big problem. The teachers are always out numbered, and usually not any more aware than the parents. Understand, I'm not talking about the "good" teachers and parents. There is a difference.

It seems to me that this 'hands off' attitude in the schools will bring about results that totally defeat the original intentions.

We're social beings, we must touch a lot for our emotional wellbeing. Look at primates in the wild, touching and grooming each other all the time, 99% non sexual. If we repress this it WILL come out in furtive sexuality, and excessively so, and we're already seeing this now.

We will become totally out of balance and out of touch with what we are as social beings. In trying to protect kids from any touch we (society as a whole will ) unbalance them. Disastrous! Touching then becomes associated ONLY with sexuality. In the not too distant future when you want a hug you will have to... Sad.

I grew up in a street (north U.K.) 40 years ago when it would have been perfectly ok for a neighbour to give the occasional affectionate pat on the head to the kids next door and noone would blink. Now that's becoming illegal in the west, and people get increasingly depressed and lonely on a planet of 7 billion, how sad is that?

You're totally right, veronikka. The other one is that teachers (like police officers and firemen/women) are held to a *much* higher standard. If a teacher gets hit by a student, there has to be a month-long process to investigate the event before the kid can be charged. If a kid accuses a teacher of anything (under any circumstances), that teacher is immediately taken off of the payroll until the teacher, after considerable expense, can clear him or herself. And in my area, the press immediately assumes the teacher is at fault and crucifies him or her.

Lay the cards on the table here ferfer - has what you describe happened to YOU or a close colleague?

If it HAS - then I can only say that you will be well supported by the members of this site - myself included!

No, dellboy. It happened to a teacher at my school 2 years ago. He did clear himself, but by then the public damage had been done. He had to move.

Recently, the news has blasted several teachers from neighboring counties. They seem to find a way around using the word "allegedly" or "accused".

For the record, I hug kids if I think they need it and say they want it. A kid told me a couple of days ago that his parents were going through an ugly and violent breakup. He said he was really down and needed a shoulder to cry on. I gave him my shoulder and would anytime he asks. The rule at my school is that students can't show public displays of affection--not that teachers can't console a crying student who asks for compassion.

A very good friend of mine lost her job, her pension, and was run out of town by a mob threatening to kill her - all because a kid with a police record as long as your arm, accused her of "hitting" him - what she was actually doing was trying to defend herself from an onslaught of extreme violence from this darling little 14 year old ........

So, as I said in a previous post - I do not envy your job!

I have to say, with young children and hugging, children of a young age generally don't intend anything sexual by hugging each other, or even kisses on the cheek. It is generally only once they get to year 6+ that they start to recognise possible sexuality in hugging.

If a young child has it instilled that it’s wrong to show hugs and affection , except at home, he or she is going to grow up curbing natural instincts and have a somewhat repressed personality. Obviously school is for learning but it takes up all our informative years and social skills are part of development too. The school, in my opinion, has a duty in character-building, particularly as so many hours are spent there from such a young age and what is needed is just plain common sense.

It should be obvious from a teacher’s perspective what is appropriate - what is just a friendly hug , hand-holding and what is over the top. Different outlooks according to age groups would be sensible. Young children are very touchy-feely and need the freedom to develop. On the other hand, teenagers should be accepting of standards within the school and certain rules banning overt shows of affection wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

How on earth do you explain to a five year old that they shouldn’t hug or hold hands. How do you tell them it’s wrong? I can imagine a scenario where a child starts to think that you can only have any physical contact at home, with relatives. Even just hand-holding or a hug. So what happens when that nice ‘Uncle’ comes along and suggests you sit on his lap for a cuddle. Well, that’s ok, isn’t it because he’s family and home is the only safe place in the whole wide world, so ……..

No, in my mind, just a common-sense approach is all that’s needed.

Here is an instance of physical contact at school in the extreme. Not child to child, but still a situation where neither the parent, the teacher, nor the participant used any judgement whatsoever. It’s quite a farcical scenario so lucky it occurred in Drama class.

The teacher should have said ‘no’ instantly so it didn’t even take place , the participant should have realised it was an inappropriate venue and the parent should have known better. Common sense!