Some very interesting current debates from our last class inspired me to write this particular journal entry. They were focused on; vending machines selling junk food in schools, proper attire while at school, high fives and hugs being banned from schools. All 3 subjects really come down to personal choice for students and the administration of schools and the school hierarchy trying to control what students wear do and consume while at school. The vending machine issue is about personal health. More and more children are becoming overweight and obese at a younger and younger age because they are exercising less and eating more of the wrong things. The decision must be then should we police what they are able to eat or do we educate them on the perils of eating the unhealthy things and hope that they make the right choice. I think its got to be a combination of both of those things. We had good discussion on this subject around the fact that taking the items out of vending machines means that at the high school level students will just have to leave campus to get what they want. In the elementary school this of course would not be an option for students. The issue of school funding was also raised schools stand to gain a large amount of money from vending machines and taking unhealthy products out would cause them to lose money as kids would spend the money off campus to but the same things. I felt like they should change the pricing on the items in the machine so that healthy choices were cheaper than unhealthy items. This way if a kid only had a dollar he would get an orange or apple juice instead of spending 2 dollars on a pop. Either way i think early education and appreciation for healthy foods is important so that students want to eat healthy and avoid the temptation to always choose the unhealthy option. The parents are another person who should take onus for this issue and the next one as well apparel. They must try and influence they're children to eat the healthy and wear appropriate clothing to school. So what is inappropriate clothing? Well i think its anything that is quote "scandalous" aka too short or too low or offensive to others. It is unfortunate that this falls on teachers and school staff to police but who else will do it? The parents may either have no idea their child is leaving the house dressed that way or not care at all. In either case i think a meeting with the parent can be awkward but a necessary step is the clothing continues to be a constant issue with the same student. Also the obvious need for an outside teacher in the case of a female student would make me feel at least slightly uncomfortable but again I know it would be necessary to keep the rest of the class on task for one and not feel uncomfortable themselves. The final issue was that of high fives and hugs. Obviously there are some lines of conduct which should not be crossed in schools. Kissing wasn't allowed in my high school hallways in the sense that if a couple was making out it would be broken up but small pecks or hand holding and hugging were allowed. I think its better for the students to police themselves in this area clearly we want all students to feel safe and comfortable at school but some rules really go to far as to limit all personal conduct. I believe we should be modeling and teaching good behavior so that students know what they shouldn't do instead of forcing them to follow strict guidelines. Inappropriately touching other students clearly crosses a line but it happens so rarely that i think it should be dealt with as a separate incident and not try and cover everything with a brush and say that all contact is bad.
Modeling good behavior good eating habits and teaching them how to make their own smart choices should be the goal not legislating what they can and cannot do all the time.
I enjoyed the discussions that we had in class and I think it brings up a lot of issues that we will be faced with as teachers. The hugs and high five ban was a bit extreme, but when looking at this article this was in a school from the Southern States, which tend to be very conservative states. We tend to be a lot more liberal in Canada and I don't know if extreme measures will go as far as these. I think it is our responsibility as teachers to help guide which forms of PDA are considered socially acceptable, but this does vary from place to place and culture to culture. Also as Lisa mentioned in class this is changing a lot by generation. Public displays of affection have become more socially acceptable in our generation, and we have to be aware of these changes when seeing students embrace when they see each other on a regular basis. At the same time, we do have to draw a line somewhere, so at this point where do we draw the line?
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