Sunday, January 20, 2013

There’s always time for more obedience training

Our school district says that it can’t spare any “instructional minutes” to find five or ten more minutes to add to the measly fifteen-minute lunch period in elementary school. But there is always more time for the infantilizing PBIS behavior-management assemblies. After the holiday break, our elementary school spent the morning walking the kids through the PBIS “Expectation Stations” yet again—the second time this school year. This included the usual bathroom tour, in which the kids are brought in groups into the bathroom and given a demonstration of how they must flush the toilet and told just how many squirts of soap or paper towels they can use. This time the “playground expectations” included a special emphasis on what the kids are allowed to do with snow (answer: not much). For this, my daughter’s class missed all of its daily hour of math class and part of its language arts class. But what could be more important than training the kids, ad nauseum, to obey school rules?
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2 comments:

FedUpMom said...

At my Older Daughter's Quaker school, they're not allowed to have snowball fights because they're "too violent". Instead, they have "snowball exchanges". OD thinks this is hilarious.

Chris said...

FedUpMom -- Lol. I recently overheard a kid at our school complaining about how they're supposed to stay off the ice at recess, but practically the whole playground is covered with ice.