Hi Readers — Thought you might enjoy this peek at the lunchtime shenanigans at one American school. (Well, perhaps “enjoy” is not quite the right word, but anyway.) A reader writes: At the beginning of the school year we got a list that forbade nuts and nut products, which is pretty standard these days. My daughter started coming home from school complaining that she was told her apples should have been “without the skin” and that oranges were “dangerous,” because there is a kid in the school who is allergic. I contacted the school and asked them to explain…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers! Sometimes I think our society has come so far from darkness to enlightenment (no more Inquisition, for instance; no more Scarlet A’s) that we have come full circle and are now back to being idiots. A case in point? This principal’s letter to parents about why she doesn’t want kids to consider recess “free time.” “[Our school is working to] change the perception of recess from free time away from learning to a valuable learning experience that will teach them and will help them cope in all social settings and environments. When children view recess as “free time”…
Hi Readers — Here’s a great comment that came in response to the blog post, Driven Crazy by Pregnancy Perfectionists. It reminds us of a truth we’ve been encouraged to forget in our “blame the parents” society: We are not in total control, ever. Not of what happens to us, and certainly not of what happens to our children. A reader writes: Sorry, there are no guarantees in life. I followed the rules for the most part, though not to any extreme — probably didn’t eat enough vegetables or get enough exercise (still don’t). But I did have every prenatal…
Hi Readers — As many of you have pointed out today, a grammar school in California has banned the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary because it contains a definition of “oral sex.” I guess the parents who complained would much rather their kid get his sex information from the geniuses on the monkey bars. Here’s the local story. And here’s the one in the Guardian, which points out: The Merriam Webster dictionary joins an illustrious set of books that have been banned or challenged in the US, including Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, which last year was suspended…
Hi Readers! Many of you are already familiar with Gever Tulley, the guy who runs the Tinkering School and did the famous TED speech on the “5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do.” (Recently expanded into a book, “Fifty Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do.”) Now he’s come up with a very cool new term, “Dangerism,” which is the idea of looking at the things a particular society at a particular time considers dangerous. He gives some great examples of, for instance, a mom who lets her kids spend the day roaming the countryside behind her…
Oh, Readers: Here’s one from Glasgow, Scotland: By law, any time anyone under the age of 16 is in a “licensed premise” — i.e., a pub, or a restaurant that serves liquor, it seems — he cannot be out of his parents’ sight. Even in the loo. Even if it’s a young man with his “mum,” or a lass with her dad. As nutters as that sounds — don’t the Scots deal with enough under-the-kilt jokes already? — the bathroom angle isn’t even the most disturbing part of this story. No, I’m appalled by the way this local law treats…
Or at least they want them: Two Ottawa fifth graders have started a petition to be allowed to PLAY WITH BALLS ON THE PLAYGROUND. The principal banned balls during the winter, because, she told the CBC , “They’ve got snow stuck to them, they’re frozen, often there’s pebbles on them and they’re flying through the air.” Balls flying through the air? My, my. Maybe the principal likes balls, but only when they’re sitting quietly in the corner, or rolling to the library to bounce ever so gently near the books. The kids, meanwhile, have collected more than 250 signatures begging…
Hey Readers: Here’s a nice story from our friends up north! No — not another igloo. A Canadian school that really wants kids to get there on their own. Listen to this: … P.L. Robertson elementary in Milton, which opened this week, has been designated a “walking-only school,” where students will be strongly encouraged to use their feet — or bikes or any other active way — to get there. It is part of a broader initiative at the Halton District School Board to stop traffic jams around schools and get students moving. Gridlock in the parking lot and surrounding…
Hey Readers ! Let’s have a little fun. (Or a lot — up to you.) After reading the post below this one, regarding the kids left home alone in “The Cat In The Hat,” a grad student named Aaron Mulvaney wrote: Don’t aaatayerza forget, “And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street!” The poor kid has to walk home by himself on, like, the sidewalk. Of course, “And To Think I Saw It Out of the Backseat Window of My Mom’s Minivan on The Way to Soccer Practice!” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. Which got…
Hey — quick, cool point, brought up by reader Rich Wilson: In The Cat in The Hat, which is hardly what you’d call subversive literature (oh, I’m sure some of you will, but let’s continue this point), the two tots are HOME ALONE! Mom has clearly gone out to shop, solo. And yet the book does not start with a disclaimer: “The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play/But never leave kids by themselves for the day!” In the 2003 movie version, meanwhile, the kids were home with a (sleeping) babysitter. And the movie bombed. That’s what…