Posted by
Michael on Friday, November 09, 2007 1:44:43 AM
Several months ago, there was a controversy when two Portland area preteen boys were
arrested and tried as sex offenders for allegedly slapping the rear ends of several girls (who
were allegedly doing the same thing towards the boys, but were not
punished for it). When I talked about this with friends, I often was
told that it was a freak event and that I should stop harping on the
public schools so much. I'm afraid I don't buy that, and the mix of
political correctness and a psychological desire for school officials
to feel powerful over children has lead to a scenario where kids are at
constant risk of any of their behavior potentially leading to
disciplinary action.
The next case in point is a 13 year old girl, Megan Coulter, in Illinois who was
slapped with two days of detention for hugging. While this is not as traumatic as the child abuse the boys in Oregon received, it is a result of the same mean-spirited mindset.
The superintendent of the district Coulter attends, Sam McGowen,
told CNN that "Hugs lead to other things." We can only assume that McGowen is a man who has not experienced much love in his life.
Coulter
was interviewed by CNN as well, and cited that in sixth grade she had
attended a D.A.R.E. program at the same school that had a motto of
"hugs, not drugs." Has that program been removed from the curriculum?
One
of the biggest factors in my adopting a libertarian ideology was going
through a public school system that was hard to take seriously. I was
disciplined by staff that had obviously higher standards for children
than they did for themselves, and these mixed messages made their
authority hard to take seriously. If public schools continue to send
mixed messages, and punishing kids for policies that don't make any
sense, children will grow up with cloudy and muddy notion of right and
wrong and the credibility of the public schools will continue to
deteriorate to levels even lower than they have now.