Yes. Children need to be taught that every rule, no matter how inane or stupid it might seem, is to be followed. The government knows what's best for you.
Seating restrictions at lunch time is possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard come out of a public school (and that's saying something). Why not simply make two separate lunch periods to split up the number of kids? There are other, better solutions. These are KIDS. They need to socialize.
Ok, so with your logic we should let the kids decide which rules to follow eh? Sounds like a good a method for developing law abiding citizens [sarcasm on].
In addition, parents elect legislators and in most cases school boards. If you don't like the rules, do something about it or move.
In addition there is always private education. If you're not willing to pay for private education then don't bitch about the public school's rules. You get what you pay for my friend.
The charter of education should indeed include socialization, but social skills should take a back seat to children learing the principle of order and law. If a person doesent like the laws of his school, city, county, state or country, that dosent mean he can just ignore them. If you teach these kids that principle, you will see an already screwed up generation of kids become full blown anarchists.
I am a patriot of the nth degree. And there are times when rules must be changed (note the word I use here, "changed" not "ignored"), but there are proper means of doing this. Only in the most extreme infringements on liberty should laws be ignored or challenged through civil disobedience or even violence. The 60s/70s generation thinks that it is a good within itself to balk at laws whenever it doesen't fit there tastes and stage protests and sit-ins. That is exactly why this kind of nonesense is happening.
Trust me, I don't agree with what children are being taught these days;political correctness, revised history, reverse discrimination, liberal utopianistic ideology. But the rule of law is the underpinning of any stable society. You begin to chip away at that and you chip away at the bedrock of civilization. Now you may pose yourself as a liberetarian, but there is an important difference between liberty and anarchy, and that is a distinct and dangerous difference.