No touching

We have a completely furnished and restored one-room school located next to our house.  The school is owned by the Palmerton Area Historical Society, and you can find it on the web at <www.kiblerschool.org>.  I am a volunteer docent at the school, and tonight I played host to a group of Cub Scouts and their parents.  I was telling them how, since we had no playground equipment, kids in one-room schools made up our own games.  

One such game, invented by my friend Smokey, was called “Hungry Deer.”  The Hungry Deer carried a stick to tag kids running around the school.  Any tagged kid had to stand in a marked-off space and try to catch kids as they ran by.  If he or she caught one and held on until the Hungry Deer came by to touch the captured kid with the stick, that kid also helped to catch the runners.  The game combined track and football and was incredibly rough--and fun. 

After my presentation, the Cub Scouts went out and actually tried the game.  I was talking to one of the boys later, and he told me the Palmerton Area School District has a “no touch” policy.  He said that kids can’t even do a “high five.”  They have to do a “virtual” high five with hands not touching.

I asked him what would happen if two first grade girls walked down the hall holding hands.  He said they would get written up.

If this is true, it is absolutely insane.  This is like those school policies that expel an kid for giving a friend an aspirin tablet under a no tolerance drug policy.  Policies like this show a complete abdication of adult responsibility.  Pity the kids.