Aldergrove school tells kindergarten kids, "keep your hands to yourself!"

[bc-chris]

full story here.... http://www.theprovince.com/news/Aldergrove+school+tells+kindergarten+kids+Hands+ea ch+other/9124456/story.html



You’ve heard the Alice Cooper lyrics “no more pencils, no more books ... .”
For kindergarten kids at Coghlan Fundamental Elementary School, tucked away in a remote rural area of Aldergrove, it’s no more tag, no holding hands, or you’ll get teacher’s dirty looks.

A letter went out to Coghlan kindergarten students’ parents on Friday, one of those types that often sit in backpack over a weekend or are put aside to be read later and somehow never are. Julie Chen found the letter, explaining a new no-touch policy for kindergarten students, on Monday morning as she was packing lunch for her five-year-old daughter.

It reads, in part: “We have unfortunately had to ban all forms of hands-on play for the immediate future ... we will have a zero-tolerance policy.”

“I read the letter, it said there had been quite a few injuries, I said, ‘OK,’ and kept reading,” Chen said. “When I saw no hands-on would be allowed, I just got mad, I got so upset.

“What is happening in our society when our kids aren’t even allowed to be kids any more? “Kids get hurt all the time. What are we going to do next, put them in a bubble to go to school?”

“I’m not going to tell my daughter she can’t push her friends on the swing,” Chen said. “Do we expect our kids to be robots? How can they possibly do this? “They’re five-year-olds — you can’t stop them from running around and having physical contact.”

School employee Arthur Bourke drove up in his van and was happy to defend the policy. “I don’t know how anyone would be against this,” Bourke said. “They’re trying to make it safe for everybody.

Specifically banned are imaginary Star Wars light-sabre duels, tag, holding hands — and simply touching someone. The letter asked parents to tell their children to keep their hands to themselves and to come up with imaginary games that aren’t “fighting” games.

:bag: :bag:


but it reminded me of a great tune....

PdpAop7gp0w

[Fusebox]

no touching

[Dion]

Aldergoves new theme song :whistle:

otCpCn0l4Wo

[DownhillGoat]

but it reminded me of a great tune....
Came because this song was stuck in my head. Leaving satisfied.

[Itse]

I would heavily question the kindergarten teachers ability at what they do. Extreme and very broad measures like this are to me a strong hint of their inability to control the children or teach them anything.

Also, banning normal human contact, especially from kids, is such a sick idea that I have very little desire in understanding the kind of people who would come up with it.

[undercoverbrother]

Sweet Jesus Christ, what the #### is going on here. For Christ's sake, let kids be kids. Let them play tag, wrestle.....#### are you saying kids can no longer play the time honoured game of Sleeping Bag?

[You Need a Thneed]

I hope that they ban talking to each other next, cause you can certainly hurt others that way as well.

[CaptainCrunch]

Next thing you know they're going to make them all wear vader like breath masks, germs and all.

[Regular_John]

So I wonder how long till an out of touch teacher bans all bathroom use at school.

"Effective immediately we have banned all bathroom use during school hours, including lunch & recess breaks. Students may use the washrooms up to 5 minutes before first bell and 10 minutes after last bell. The washrooms will be locked all other times."

[CaptainCrunch]

So I think that all kids should be in uniform, don't want individual clothes that could offend. I think that at recess cause they can't talk, they might as well march up and down the parade square.

Oh and some of these books, to kill a mockingbird, one angry man, of mice and men,moby dick, (its got dick in the name_ and anything by Shakespeare are too full of controversy, sex and violence. We need those out of our school. We need books that our kids can enjoy that aren't controversial and hit the omg factor like Twilight, the whole series.

For lunch, nothing that has sharp edges should be served, like square pizzas. French Fries and red meat. Let design our meals to be safe, I recommend sugar free pudding, oatmeal and a nice mid temperature glass of water with a straw because glass is dangerous.

Oh and no touching anything.

[undercoverbrother]

Oh and some of these books, to kill a mockingbird, one angry man, of mice and men,moby dick, (its got dick in the name_ and anything by Shakespeare are too full of controversy, sex and violence. We need those out of our school. We need books that our kids can enjoy that aren't controversial and hit the omg factor like Twilight, the whole series.

.


Those heavy books can be used in the application of corporal punishment.

[Bigtime]

no touching

How am I the first person to thank this?

For shame CP, for shame.

[CaptainCrunch]

Most of my childhood school based injuries were accomplished without the aid of touching by another student.

Showing off for a girl and falling head first off of the jungle gym to the concrete pad below (explains my stupidity at times). Running really fast and hitting a patch of ice of gravel and ripping my leg up. Slamming my head into a locker on a bet.

Lighting a burner on fire and putting my hand into the flame to show how tough I was. Showing off to a girl by ripping the heart out of a dead frog in biology and eating it (sick for two weeks, plus she never talked to me again, what a snob)

We need to ban jungle gyms, gravel, winter, and any chemistry experiments based on heat and biology.

Getting hurt is part of play. That's just the way it is, and a scraped knee, or a busted leg is not the end of the world or an oh my god moment.

[WhiteTiger]

So I think that all kids should be in uniform, don't want individual clothes that could offend. I think that at recess cause they can't talk, they might as well march up and down the parade square.

Oh and some of these books, to kill a mockingbird, one angry man, of mice and men,moby dick, (its got dick in the name_ and anything by Shakespeare are too full of controversy, sex and violence. We need those out of our school. We need books that our kids can enjoy that aren't controversial and hit the omg factor like Twilight, the whole series.

For lunch, nothing that has sharp edges should be served, like square pizzas. French Fries and red meat. Let design our meals to be safe, I recommend sugar free pudding, oatmeal and a nice mid temperature glass of water with a straw because glass is dangerous.

Oh and no touching anything.

Sheesh man, you go to all that trouble to keep them safe, and then you are going to give the little delinquent-to-be's straws to choke on! ;)

[OutOfTheCube]

Specifically banned are imaginary Star Wars light-sabre duels

These people are sick.

[dissentowner]

If my child was attending there I would be yanking him out and enrolling him somewhere else. I want my kid to grow up normal thank you.

[Minnie]

This reminds me of the schools in the States with their weird, OTT rules like this. No thanks. I hope the parents at that school are protesting the hell out of this and demanding change.

[Daradon]

I think this exercise will fail because it can only increase the cases of justified beat downs associated with cases of 'I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!'

[Northendzone]

nien, you may not touch my monkey......

[CaptainCrunch]

I think this exercise will fail because it can only increase the cases of justified beat downs associated with cases of 'I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!'

We all know that kids with the ability to use the force are going to become the dominant bully class in school with screams like "Quit hitting yourself" as they use the force to make kids self pummel themselves.

[Coach]

Man I am so glad I'm not a kid these days. So many mixed messages. "Go outside and get some excersise! But don't touch anyone, talk to anyone, run, jump, or do any sort of activity at all. How can you sit in front of a TV all day, get fat and play video games?"

"Maybe because you have banned all physical activity for fear I might break something, just like every other kid in the history of mankind."

100 or so years ago these kids would be learning how to grow/kill their own food, build their own toys, and pound fence posts to mark their territory.

10-15 years ago, these kids (which would include me) would be left alone to roam around their neighborhoods wth friends playing whatever game they god damn pleased.

The coddling of kids now is just ridiculous. How are any of these people supposed to grow into functioning adults? No games, no grades, participation medals, no failure, no accountability. Just brutal.

[MarchHare]

The coddling of kids now is just ridiculous. How are any of these people supposed to grow into functioning adults? No games, no grades, participation medals, no failure, no accountability. Just brutal.

And the best part is the angry editorials that will be written by older generations about these kids when they start to enter the workforce in 15-20 years, accusing them of being soft, coddled, and lacking in the ability to take criticism and cope with adversity. It will not occur to the authors of these pieces that it was their own over-protecting parenting practices that caused this problem.

[sixpacked]

This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. This is coming from a father of 2 girls.

[CaptainCrunch]

Boy these people would have hated the rock and bb gun war games that us kids played growing up.

[GGG]

I generally hate the attitude that making something better or less harmful is codling. To me generally it is a knee jerk reaction against change. Its part of the I grew up fine so why can't we keep doing it (which fails to recognize that you can only ask the question because you didnt die growing up). We have made many improvements over the 40's, 60, and 80's that get dismissed to often as coddling.

HOWEVER, no touching goes way to far. It doesn't make sense. I would demand documentation of all of the injuries that have occured through touching because there likely are none. All of those tag injuries are just as likely to occur running around the field. And they also are banning pretend star ward light saber fights whcih as far as I can tell involve no touching so should be encouraged under the new policy.

I wish we would quit thinking about the children. They do just fine without us.

[sixpacked]

Boy these people would have hated the rock and bb gun war games that us kids played growing up.

No doubt. Remember the king of the mountain game played every recess on the huge pile of snow they would clear off from the teachers parking lot. Holy crap some winters that thing was over 10 feet high.

[undercoverbrother]

No doubt. Remember the king of the mountain game played every recess on the huge pile of snow they would clear off from the teachers parking lot. Holy crap some winters that thing was over 10 feet high.

Growing up in Moncton we played that french v english. The snow pile at times was huge, 20 + feet. So much fun.

[Joborule]

Why even have boys and girls in the same schools? They should be separate from each other. Wouldn't want anyone to get cootie germs or anything.

[CaptainCrunch]

Why even have boys and girls in the same schools? They should be separate from each other. Wouldn't want anyone to get cootie germs or anything.

Well that would solve the touching problem. But nobody would want to grow up to be a doctor either.

[Coach]

No doubt. Remember the king of the mountain game played every recess on the huge pile of snow they would clear off from the teachers parking lot. Holy crap some winters that thing was over 10 feet high.

See this is why I think people that use the "well it's just things changing" argument are a little out to lunch. I know someone like CC is waaaay older than me. Yet we have both played King of the Hill, Kig of the Mountain, etc.. and now all of a sudden it's too dangerous to even touch another child? Wtf? What is it that changed like 5-10 years ago that has brought this on? Because as someone who is really not that far removed from childhood I can tell you that my parents would have rolled their eyes at something like this.

My guess is just the rapid globalization due to the internet that spreads stories of kidnappings, molestation, serious but rarely occuring injuries, or even just standard injuries, are all reported on with regularity and now parents think that they are happening more often now than they ever have. It's a false correlation.

[Wormius]

I think this exercise will fail because it can only increase the cases of justified beat downs associated with cases of 'I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!'

Parents will receive an updated notice enacting the Avery Rule, and declaring any such action a 2 minute minor for unsportsmanlike conduct.

[Galakanokis]

My kid would be suspend in the first five minutes of class. He high fives or hugs damn near everyone he meets. He's also really badass at tag.

[undercoverbrother]

My kid would be suspend in the first five minutes of class. He high fives or hugs damn near everyone he meets. He's also really badass at tag.

Reminds me of a kid on my son's hockey team last year. You would be explaining or watching a drill and he would skate over and hand out a hug. During games on the bench, hugs. On the school ground hugs.

He is a great kid.

[Galakanokis]

Reminds me of a kid on my son's hockey team last year. You would be explaining or watching a drill and he would skate over and hand out a hug. During games on the bench, hugs. On the school ground hugs.

He is a great kid.

That's my guy. Coach was handing out medals at the end of ball season and Spencer said thanks and hugged him. He'll chat up complete strangers and then hug them when he says good bye. Dad, dad did you meet my new friend? We are trying to teach boundaries but you don't want to kill the spirit.

I should add the looks on some peoples faces when he goes in for the hug. Shock, terror, joy, embarrassment, the WTF am I suppose to do now look....

[GirlySports]

I high-fived a toddler on the C-Train today, was I wrong?

[GGG]

I high-fived a toddler on the C-Train today, was I wrong?

No, We need to get over the kids should never talk to strangers thing. In terms of statistics its almost fair to say that no one gets kidnapped by strangers. People are generally abused by people they know, and kidnapped by spouses or other relatives.

A random stranger is probably safer to talk to then a familiy member. Also I think that the village mentality of all people looking our for all children is a far safer model then each parent looking out after their own children.

[Wormius]

No, We need to get over the kids should never talk to strangers thing. In terms of statistics its almost fair to say that no one gets kidnapped by strangers. People are generally abused by people they know, and kidnapped by spouses or other relatives.

A random stranger is probably safer to talk to then a familiy member. Also I think that the village mentality of all people looking our for all children is a far safer model then each parent looking out after their own children.

Does that even stop kids? Kids are incredibly chatty...

Always the same thing too.. "I want my mommy", "let me out of the trunk", blah blah blah..