Today’s topic is not about television, but, rather, inspired by a news story on television. Our local channel here covered the item, but it’s really a story out of Colorado. You can watch the news broadcast here, but let me tell you the headline: Six Year Old Suspended for Sexual Harassment.
Yeah, you read that right. There’s a school in Colorado that seems to think it’s reasonable to suspend a six year old boy for being some sort of sexual predator, or something. And, I suppose it might be possible that there is a six year old somewhere who might fit the bill, but it seems to me that you probably need to have some sort of understanding of sex before you can commit sexual harassment. And I’m guessing the very large majority of first graders do not have that sort of understanding.
So, what did this deviant little boy do? He kissed a girl’s hand. And not just any girl, but his girlfriend—apparently they are a couple, at least as far as the elementary crowd can actually be a couple. So, he wasn’t just indiscriminately touching someone, nor forcing himself on someone, he was showing affection to someone he cares about, someone who apparently cares about him, too. And a kiss on the hand? How chivalrous. Hell, I wish someone would kiss me on the hand!
You know, there are a lot of crazy things that go on in schools these days, and I’ll even grant you that a lot of it probably starts in the very earliest years of schooling, so I get where educators would feel like they need to get a tight grip on behavior right from the get-go. But in their zeal to maintain control, I think some may have lost touch with their common sense. If you don’t want a little boy to kiss a little girl in class, even on the hand, why not just tell him so? I mean, there are legitimate reasons why in-class PDAs may not be the most appropriate thing, but you can deal with those issues without making the kid sit at home for a day, and certainly without branding a child as some sort of sex fiend.
