What The World Needs Now…
…is love, sweet love.
It’s coincidental that while I’m listening to one of my favorite. songs. ever. “What The World Needs Now Is Love” by Jackie DeShannon, that I come across an article that seems so insanely insane, it must be true.
Good God.
For those two lazy to click-and-read, here’s the crux of the article right here:
The mother of a student in Autauga County says her daughter was disciplined for simply hugging a friend.
She says the hug wasn’t meant to be sexual. She says her daughter was consoling a male friend who recently lost a parent.
I’ve decided that discipline in public schools has crossed the damn line. Just last year a young girl was suspended from school for having a key-chain that constituted a weapon according to a very conservative reading of a school district’s policy. Kids across America, little kids, are being suspended and disciplined for doing nothing more than doing kid things.
And what is a hug? Let’s be clear, nowhere do the powers-that-be mention that any groping or anything was going on. This young girl was hugging a dude. Perhaps since I don’t work in the public school system (or any school system for that matter), I’m missing the need to punish youngsters for all acts of public affection. I understand the need for disciplining two kids who are tongue-ing eachother down in the hallway or getting head under the lunch room table — which I’ve actually seen happen.
I’ve seen some shit that definitely needs to be nipped in the tuck. However, I think that hugging just might go over the line. Shit, a hug can be one of the most harmless acts ever. Granted, a hug can be sexual…then again, there’s a very clear delineation between the two. You can tell when some kids are hugging in a jolly way. I know. I used to do it. It was fun. I’ve been a witness to and a party to some overly inappropriate behavior in my high school days. Shit, one day one of my exe’s was wearing a skirt to school but she really wanted me to see the new panties she’d bought. So what does a bright, creative, young lady do?
Starts kicking her legs up in the air so I can see her nether-regions and her draws. And I saw a teacher watch it happen and do nothing. I thought we were finna get suspended. Hell, I’d have suspended us. That’s just going too damn far. However, kids hugging just doesn’t seem so bad. If anything it gives me hope that the kids are indeed the future. And that we HAVE taught them well and we can indeed let them lead the way.
Well, not really. But you get my drift.
I think that short of a sexually inappropriate gesture or touching or seeing a young girl or boy dry humping against a locker (once again, which I’ve seen), discipline for public displays of affection really needs some leeway.
But it goes back to the problem with schools nowadays anyway. We’re so afraid of kids shooting up our schools, which is a real fear, that we take every OTHER rule to its extreme, forgetting that for the most part, these kids are just that, kids. And they like one another before we tell them that they shouldn’t. So they play nice at times and hug because they like eachother.
And we make them pay for it.
Basically, some administrator didn’t get any lovin’ that day.
