No Touching!

All forms of physical contact have been banned at a Fairfax County, VA middle school. Apparently, because some kids don't know the difference between "good" touching and "bad" touching, they should never have the opportunity to learn the difference. In this school, high fives are as bad as punches. A hand on the shoulder as bad as groping. It's sounds to me like the school is too lazy or too scared to make judgment calls on a fuzzy line and figures it would just be easier to ban all physical contact and call it a day.

The school's principal says that she "has seen a poke escalate into a fight and a handshake that is a gang sign." Trash talking can also lead to fights. Will they ban verbal communication next? I'm pretty sure there are some gang signs that don't require physical contact. Will hand signals be banned, too? Or, better yet, all body language. And eye contact. Eye contact can be very intimidating. You know what? Middle school sucked anyway. Let's just ban middle school. The kids can stay home through the better part of puberty and become socially stunted in the comfort of their own living room instead of trudging to school to get that way. They can do distance learning. They can take classes on their impersonal computer which will become their wire mesh mothers, providing socialization only in the form of text messaging, e-mail, and bulletin boards. That will make everything better.