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Don't touch! Will rule make kids feel safer?
Star Tribune ^ | 5/17/08 | TERRY COLLINS

Posted on 05/17/2008 12:27:39 PM PDT by Dawnsblood

No more tag or touch football for the students at Armatage Elementary in south Minneapolis.

The school now has an official "no touch" policy.

Originally the rule, circulated to parents Thursday, banned even casual touching such as hand-holding and hugging.

But Principal Joan Franks has now refined the policy to target aggressive and "unsafe" behavior such as play-fighting, pushing and shoving. And tag.

Some parents are not happy.

Nan Carlson, a mother of two children who attend Armatage Elementary, said it is "ridiculous" -- both overly politically correct and hard to enforce.

"I think [Franks] has the best interests of the children in mind," she said. "But this one came out of the blue, and it's just kind of weird."

(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: children; notouch; school
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1 posted on 05/17/2008 12:27:40 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
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To: Dawnsblood

School Administrators should be more concerned about their teachers ‘touching’ students.


2 posted on 05/17/2008 12:33:01 PM PDT by ConservaTexan (February 6, 1911)
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Comment #3 Removed by Moderator

To: Dawnsblood

Only the teachers are still allowed to touch the kids.


4 posted on 05/17/2008 12:35:00 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Dawnsblood

We can call the next generation: Girly-People


5 posted on 05/17/2008 12:36:41 PM PDT by Glenn (Free Venezuela!)
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To: Dawnsblood
But Principal Joan Franks has now refined the policy to target aggressive and "unsafe" behavior such as play-fighting, pushing and shoving. And tag.

The left continues its quest to feminize the American male.
6 posted on 05/17/2008 12:38:18 PM PDT by Signalman
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To: Dawnsblood

generation girlie man. "eek! i might break a nail."

pc will either create a generation of wimps and crybabies, or a generation that will rebel against it. i think that the jury is still out on this one.

7 posted on 05/17/2008 12:44:33 PM PDT by robomatik ((wine plug: renascentvineyards.com cabernet sauvignon, riesling, and merlot))
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To: Dawnsblood

This guy probably would frown on the bb gun fights I and my friends used to have.


8 posted on 05/17/2008 12:47:05 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Hillary/Obama or John Mccain - -easy choice for me.)
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To: Dawnsblood
"Unfortunately, we live in a time when actions although honorable can be misconstrued and before you know it, the situation gets out of hand. We want our students to learn how to get along with others as well as learn that there are boundaries that if encroached can feel offensive and even scary."

This woman is dangerous and should not be permitted to ever be in charge of seeing to the welfare of children.

All children must learn to accept the touch of there peers with out fear.

This woman seems to want to instill this fear.

All children need to be touched it is a basic need of social animals such as humans.

Children that grow up with out being touched are severely handicapped. They become withdrawn and extremely fearful of strangers.

Granted the children attending this school will have physical interactions at home but they will not become accustom to physical contact with their school peers and may come to have an irrational fear of the casual touch of a stranger.

9 posted on 05/17/2008 12:52:05 PM PDT by Pontiac (Your message here.)
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To: Graybeard58
This guy probably would frown on the bb gun fights I and my friends used to have.

Did you put your eye out?


10 posted on 05/17/2008 12:52:30 PM PDT by Polybius
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To: Dawnsblood

Another public school fiasco? Whodathunkit?

Sigh.

Can we please abolish public schools? Or at the least get a voucher program?

Has anyone other than me noticed how hot these female teachers are who are cruising for our boys?

Yours truly,
The Woim


11 posted on 05/17/2008 12:58:14 PM PDT by The Woim (Public Schooling still exists - THAT'S A PROBLEM!)
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To: Dawnsblood

Rules are absolutely necessary in the operation of any institution. But I fail to see how whatever is going on in the stupid school administered by someone resembling Creon in Greek drama can help any young person grow up and mature into a productive member of society. Bureaucrats who are not armed with moral authority, common sense, and global thinking will resort to anything they are armed with and that is the power to institute stupid rules which cannot be easily and fairly enforced and thereby in the long run only undermines their authority but more importantly which causes kids to look at bureaucratic institutions and the impotent morons who govern them as a joke.


12 posted on 05/17/2008 1:00:35 PM PDT by Biblebelter (If the big blue states got to choose the Republican nominee, I say let them elect him in the fall)
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To: Polybius

My uncle, who was only a couple years older than me, dared me to shoot my sister, which I promptly did. Thus ended my bb gun days.

This story gets complicated, keep up:

My mom promptly took away my bb gun as well as my uncle’s (Her brother) she got the argument from him, “you’re not my mom, you can’t keep my gun”. When dad and grampa got home, we both got our butts wore out and indeed my mom did not keep my uncle’s gun but grampa did and neither one of us ever got them back.

This happened more than 50 years ago and my sister, uncle and I still remember it well.

End of long winded story.


13 posted on 05/17/2008 1:04:07 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Hillary/Obama or John Mccain - -easy choice for me.)
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To: Dawnsblood
Originally the rule, circulated to parents Thursday, banned even casual touching such as hand-holding and hugging.

But Principal Joan Franks has now refined the policy to target aggressive and "unsafe" behavior such as play-fighting, pushing and shoving. And tag.


I can just imagine the kind of child this kind of environment produces - neurotic, incapable of self-defense, unable to hug, kiss, shake hands, or pat someone on the back without stress. I guess this is one way to make sure the psychoanalysts of the future have business.
14 posted on 05/17/2008 1:14:27 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: Graybeard58
.. bottle rocket battles were quite popular too    
15 posted on 05/17/2008 1:19:11 PM PDT by tomkat (helping keep American craftsmanship alive)
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To: Graybeard58
This guy probably would frown on the bb gun fights I and my friends used to have.

Or "Smear the queer". Remember that one? :)

16 posted on 05/17/2008 1:21:28 PM PDT by LiberConservative ("Typical" White Guy)
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To: Dawnsblood

Welcome to Minneapolis. Anybody want to by a house?


17 posted on 05/17/2008 1:24:31 PM PDT by MSRiverdog (The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist!)
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To: Dawnsblood

In Sweden students in 1st. grade are taught how to massage each other’s backs to reduce stress.


18 posted on 05/17/2008 1:43:58 PM PDT by Bushwacker777
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To: Dawnsblood

School recess (that twice per day 15 minute break for teachers, plus the 30 minute break after lunch) involved almost entirely contact games for the bigger kids, like free-for-all “football”. This consisted of fluidly-defined “teams” trying to get the ball (sometimes more than one ball) across the field and into the goalie net (it didn’t matter how this was accomplished). The rules were: no biting, no pulling hair, no spitting, no hits to the face. It was a game where you could be tackled, drop kicked, get hit by a shoe, have someone wrap a coat around your legs as you are running...every day there was an innovation in pain. The tradition was sadly extinguished a decade after I had left.

For after school, a large group would often go to the woods and play “thief”. Sometimes a soccer ball, sometimes a football, sometimes a tennis ball. The idea was, one person takes the ball and has 30 seconds to run like hell. After 30 seconds, the rest of us (sometimes five, sometimes ten, sometimes more) would rush to find him and pummel him mercilessly until the ball could be extricated from his grasp. The person capturing the ball must be the “thief” next round. Rules: no weapons, no trespassing on private property, no dropping the ball while you remain standing. None of us were psycho, so things like strangulation, kicking people in the face, etc were not an issue.

Regardless, we would have been charged with assault today. Rough play is a critical part of growing up, and kids missing out are not going to be well adjusted, and they are going to be wimps. Getting hurt is part of life...parents and other authority figures who coddle are doing immeasurable harm, despite their best intentions.


19 posted on 05/17/2008 1:47:17 PM PDT by M203M4 (True Universal Suffrage: Pets of dead illegal-immigrant felons voting Democrat (twice))
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To: M203M4
For after school, a large group would often go to the woods and play “thief”.

We weren't as clever with the naming where I grew up. We played the same game but gave it the simple but effective name "Kill the man with the ball". I suppose that would be frowned upon at the school in the article, though...

20 posted on 05/17/2008 1:53:29 PM PDT by pepsi_junkie (Often wrong, but never in doubt!)
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