Via ifeminists comes this great post on students protesting school policy stupidity.
According to the local chain paper, the school started out by banning all school bags. This decision, they said, was supposedly partly to protect students from the burden of carrying heavy bags (because, I guess, carrying stacks of books bound with twine is ergonomically better for them). And it was to prevent the possibility of students carrying concealed weapons. The paper doesn't mention what seem to be the obvious additional reasons for this decision: the school administrators aren't too bright, they can't be trusted with authority and they don't like students.
The principal's name, by the way, is "Worden." He seems to be mistaking this for his job description.
School officials quickly realized that banning backpacks and purses left female students with no way to carry pads or tampons, so Worden and his clown show amended the policy (or at least that's the rumor -- these folks aren't very good at communicating clearly). Female students would be allowed to carry bags, but only during their periods -- meaning that every female student carrying a bag would be subject to questioning about whether or not that was the case. And, of course, school officials would need to keep track of who was carrying a purse and when, just to make sure that no one was trying to exploit this "privilege."
Students protested by wearing feminine hygiene products on their clothes, a novel idea if ever I heard one. But the whole thing reminds me of another stupid school board policy I witnessed firsthand about four years ago.
I was having lunch at my oldest daughter's middle school when I noticed students picking up chicken fried steak patties with forks then gnawing around the edges like so many rodents.
"Why aren't they using knives to cut the steaks?" I asked my daughter.
"We aren't allowed to have knives," she replied. "The school thinks they're weapons."
I looked at the plastiware we were using for our lunches. "A plastic knife is a weapon?" I asked incredulously. "But a plastic fork could do more damage, it seems to me."
My daughter shrugged and continued gnawing around the edges of her lunch.
Later, I found out that seventh and eighth graders were trusted with plastic knives; I guess sixth graders weren't mature enough to be trusted with the plastiware.
Such overreaching school policies baffle me. When I was in school back in the Dark Ages, we had metal utensils and girls (all girls) carried purses from the time they were in about fourth grade. It wasn't that we needed them. It was that having a purse was a sign of our femaleness (Amanda would gag at that statement). We also used satchels or bookbags in elementary school, but by middle school we carried our books in our hands. No backpacks. No bags. And, amazingly, we managed not to strain our backs.
My guess is that these overprotective rules are made to stave off any possible litigation involved in plastiware knife fights or tampon stabbings, but it seems to me that, as we try to protect children more, we throw common sense out the window.
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