Bureaucrats and common sense
There used to be a party game called “Mad Libs,” in which participants were asked to come up with quirky or naughty nouns, verbs and other parts of speech. These were inserted in pre-printed sentences, which were then read back to the players, presumably to some mixture of hilarity and mild embarrassment.
It was a simpler age.
But we thought we’d returned to those days — if not to that French village taken over by lunatics, as depicted in Philippe de Broca’s “King of Hearts” — when The Washington Post published a June 18 story about a seventh-grade youth in suburban Fairfax County, Va., who was disciplined for violating his school’s policy against physical contact between students.
Kilmer Middle School Principal Deborah Hernandez told the newspaper, “Usually an askance look from a teacher or a reminder to move along is enough to stop …” the Post story prompts us.
To stop … oh dear … young couples from necking in the hallways? Overly familiar fondling in chemistry lab? Bullies giving smaller kids a wedgie in gym class?
In fact, the actual story continues “… to stop girls who are holding hands and giggling in a huddle or a boy who pats a buddy on the back.”
That’s right, when Ms. Hernandez says she’s banned all physical contact at her school, she means ALL PHYSICAL CONTACT.
Hal Beaulieu, 14, was disciplined — sent to the office by a cafeteria security guard and told one more offense would lead to his expulsion — for, get this, getting up from his assigned cafeteria seat without permission, crossing to a table where his then-girlfriend was sitting, and putting his arm around her for about 15 seconds — a gesture of affection which all parties agree was not unwelcome by the recipient.
The boy’s parents, Donna and Henri Beaulieu, have filed an official protest, arguing 14-year-olds of normal intelligence are at the point where they can begin to understand and practice the subtleties of appropriate and inappropriate touching — a distinction the considerably older Ms. Hernandez still seems to have trouble grasping.
Hal’s parents say they encourage hugging at home and have taught their children to shake hands when they meet someone. They agree teenagers need clear limits but don’t want to see their son taught that all physical contact is bad.
Meantime, as reported in another June 18 story, fifth-graders in the Cornerstone at Pedregal School of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., observe a unique tradition when they receive their promotions in a ceremony at year’s end. The children decorate their wide graduation caps with little princesses, football goal posts, zebras, guitars and other items to express their personalities and career goals.
This year, 11-year-olds Cole McNamara and Austin Nakata decided to decorate their caps with little plastic American soldiers, to express the boys’ feelings of solidarity with our troops in Iraq.
But Principal Denise Leonard informed the boys — and 10 others — that to do so would violate the school’s zero-tolerance policy for weapons on campus. If they wanted to decorate their caps with the little plastic soldiers, someone would have to take scissors and cut off the little figures’ tiny plastic rifles.
“I was kind of mad because they just went over and clipped them off and didn’t say anything about it,” Austin said.
For the record, this is insane.
No child of normal intelligence, having reached the age of 11 or 14, is going to say, “Because Timmy was allowed to bring his little plastic G.I. Joe to school, I thought it would be OK for me to lug in dad’s loaded Browning Automatic Rifle to show-and-tell,” or, “Gee, because us guys on the team are allowed to slap each other on the back after scoring a goal, I thought it would be OK for me and my girlfriend to go at it on the cafeteria floor.”
In today’s litigious climate, in which judges rarely punish attorneys or plaintiffs for bringing the most frivolous of actions, bureaucrats share an understandable desire to erect a Maginot Line of regulatory edicts. Having a written policy and sticking to it may seem, at first, the only inoculation against the lawsuit lottery.
But we now see the results when control-crazed paper-pushers in top-down bureaucracies attempt to draft “one-size-fits-all” rules to replace the far more sensible instruction that everyone out there should simply “exercise a little common sense.”