Posted on 12/12/2008 1:13:10 PM PST by forkinsocket
A FEW YEARS AGO my daughters and I were searching for sand crabs on a white-sand beach near Monterey. A group of sixth graders descended on us, clad in the blue trousers and pressed white shirts of their parochial school. Once lost in the sounds of the surf, away from their teacher’s gaze, they called one another by nicknames and mocked the way one laughed, another walked. Noogies and rib pokes, headlocks and bear hugs caught the unsuspecting off guard. Two boys dangled a girl over the waves. Three girls tugged a boy’s sagging pants down. Dog piles broke out. In a surprise attack, one girl nearly dropped a dead crab down a boy’s pants.
As they departed in sex-segregated lines, my daughters stood transfixed. Serafina asked me, “Why did that girl try to put the crab in the boy’s pants?” “Because she likes him,” I responded. This was an explanation Serafina and her older sister, Natalie, only partly understood. What I witnessed might be called “the teasing gap.”
Today teasing has been all but banished from the lives of many children. In recent years, high-profile school shootings and teenage suicides have inspired a wave of “zero tolerance” movements in our schools. Accused teasers are now made to utter their teases in front of the class, under the stern eye of teachers. Children are given detention for sarcastic comments on the playground. Schools are decreed “teasing free.”
And we are phasing out teasing in many other corners of social life as well. Sexual-harassment courses advise work colleagues not to tease or joke. Marriage counselors encourage direct criticism over playful provocation. No-taunting rules have even arisen in the N.B.A. and the N.F.L. to discourage “trash talking.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Don’t tease me, bro!
I had heard the theory that for some physically oriented people, teasing and physical contact are a form of communication. Unfortunately for them, our society frowns on this, which isolates them as if they were deaf.
After pondering this theory for a while, a friend confessed that a friend of his was quite the pest. Always punching, tickling, pushing, pulling.
I suggested that he try responding in kind. The results were extraordinary. The physical guy suddenly reacted to my friend as if he was the only other English speaker in a very foreign land. Like he was the first person he had talked to in months, who had understood what he was saying.
There is teasing and then there is TEASING. Unfortunately it’s difficult to write rules that make a distinction because teasing that doesn’t bother one kid will seem like harassment to another.
Teasing is gentle fun. Taunting is over the line.
There’s this kind of teasing, which is mutual and playful. And then there’s the kind that is relentless, endless, vicious abuse of one designated “goat” in a class that can leave a child crippled and struggling for the rest of his life.
School, on the whole, is evil.
Very interesting story; if your friend should write about it I think it would be a good, and insightful read.
>School, on the whole, is evil.
I think I agree, and I’ve only been to college.
Someone once said that school is the prison for those who have committed the crime of being born; Albert Einstein is also purported to have commented on the subject with: “It is a wonder that curiosity survives formal education”
I think often, kids don’t know the difference and it probably depends on what kind of teasing goes on in their homes.
And how many kids would even know what the word "taunt" means let alone that difference. Teasing has gotten a bad rap. It is the educators fault for not defining the difference.
When I was teaching I stopped whatever seemed mean spirited. Unfortunately these days, if you don’t stop something (as a teacher) you may get in trouble with parents. It may seem pretty tame, but without knowing what’s behind what’s being said, it’s difficult to discern if it’s taunting or teasing. And often, I’d find the kids being teased would say it didn’t bother them, even when it clearly did.
As a teacher, darned if you do and darned if you don’t. So I erred on the side of stopping it.
There really wasn't a choice. Parents are over the top now. Some kids are raised to be whiners and their parents whine louder.
My M-i-L was a teacher back in the old days. One day one of the kids was using something to reflect the sun in her eyes. She said "Whoever is doing that, stop". They did it again and she saw who it was. A football player. She called him by name to stop using his suspenders to flash off the sun. He did it again. Now this Lady had polio at the age of 5 and had an atrophied arm and leg. The class watched with interest as she stood up, walked over to him and slugged him, knocking him out of his seat. No one said anything. He sat back down and never gave her trouble again.
Nowadays, the teacher would be in jail for assault.
I’m mean enough I didn’t have much trouble with the boys, even the big ones. Girls were harder to deal with.
Yup. The 50's were different. And she was considered disabled. The kid must have been shocked. lol
Girls are difficult.
It’s really not as bad (at least in many places) as you paint. On the other hand, I don’t believe human children were designed to spend a great deal of time in the company of large groups of same aged kids. I think the one room school house design would be great, however it would be much more expensive than what we have today.
Of course, I never stated or insinuated I have been to every school, so I'm not sure why you even bring that up. BTW I apparently went to many more schools than you did, just for the record. I went to 8 elementary schools, 1 jr. high, 1 freshmen school (those were both in the same town) and 4 high schools. Believe me, I've seen it all.
Oh, I forgot to give state counts—actually I went to school in 2 foreign countries (altho they were base schools, so they were American schools), and in MA, GA, NM (three different places) and TX (two different places).
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