ChristineMM writes about another policy which just leaves me scratching my head in Schools Restrict Freedom - A Lunchroom Example. A local government school has assigned seating for the lunch hour.
ChristineMM, The Thinking Mother, makes some great about how this limits children's freedom and especially limits their socialization. The lunch hour is one time when children get to visit and make friends with new people. It is hard to imagine why anyone would force children to sit with the exact same students day after day. What horriable socialization.
Has anyone heard of other schools with similar policies?
7 comments:
I work at a middle school. The only "assigned" seating we have at lunch is for classes to sit with one another. That way teachers have an easier time to pick up there classes.
In the high school in our district kids can sit where they like. As the responsibility for getting back to class is on them.
Hello. My Elf just started public school in the fifth grade. He was homeschooled before. I asked that he be assigned a corner seat in the lunchroom as he is autistic and too many people touching near him could get him upset. So far as I know aside from the "peanut free" table, there are no assigned seats. Anyway, sometimes it's the parents' idea in the best interests of their children. :)
When I was little, the elementary school made us sit boy-girl-boy-girl at the lunch tables. I don't know why but of course we all hated it. Later, at another school, it was boy on one side of the table and girls on the other. (Of course it goes without saying that each class had its own table.)
At what point do we get to start asking parents of public schooled kids if they are worried about socialization.
Oh yeah. Our school makes us sit with our next class, but no one pays attention to that any more. At least not my grade.
This isn't new: my middle school (10-13 years ago) only let us sit with our homeroom class. I think my 5th grade school was also like that. These are the first two public schools I went to; the third was for my first year of high school, and they didn't care where we sat.
Oh that's nothing, there was an article in our paper quite a while ago about "quiet lunchtime" where the children aren't allowed to talk either. Absolutely floored me!
I agree with Sebastian, when do we ask public schoolers if they're worried about socialization :)
Kathy D.
Post a Comment