I saw this posted at a local elementary school.

Seems rather all encompassing to me and I think it distorts what violence really is, which may give a kid a false impression of what's really happening to him/her. I think its an instance of trying to make life a little too safe.

Hello,
First Amendment :(

^ good point. So when you fall off your bike and scrape your knee open that's violence? Right. How stupid is that? :P

Pretty stupid stuff.

Schools continue to be one realm affected by well intentioned, by frankly stupid, liberal utopian dreams. Violence is a part of life.

The statement should have been about bullying. Bullying shouldn't be tolerated. But violence comes in too many forms to be contained in a simplistic school policy. Take basketball, football, soccer...all that. That stuff gets violent some times.

There seems to be a certain segment of society populated by these folks who want to legislate equality and justice or their concepts of these things into every aspect they have influence over. To try to sanitize human, or cultural elements that give us some uniqueness...like this ban on x-mass trees in schools and christmas carols. Out of respect for differences they demand we show no personal difference at all. It makes no damn sense.

These jackasses give liberals a bad name, and provide fodder for the o'reilly's of the world.

They think we are childeren...

About time you educate yourself Rabbanna. :P ^{see the sign? No violence! So stop shooting at me in Team Scrum, dude!}

Heck, I don't even have to go that far. Just look for the "sign". _{you know the one.} ;)

Overall, I think the whole thing is rediculous. What makes it even better is this is the school where I take my son to wrestling practice. Sometimes he gets a little angry on the mat, which produces a certain "look" on his face. So in that case, he doen't even have to make a move on his opponent, he's scoring by scowl. XO

_{Hopefully that last emoticon didn't offend anyone.}

Don't you just love some of those overly simplistic posters!

Not to nitpick, but the school policy is likely much more carefully done than the poster was. In my state, we have pretty tough anti-bullying laws. Schools are required to do something about bullying. Since that law passed, there has been much more attention paid to bullying problems.

I appreciate the distinction stink raised between violence and bullying. The poster is stupid, and needs a rewrite.

Hellooooo!
Its an elementary school

Ahem...

I noticed that too. I am an elementary school teacher, and I know that kids can understand these things quite well. The poster wouldn't be too bad if it addressed bullying instead of violence.

Youth and stupid don't necessarily go together, but poor communication is what it is.

Give kids credit. They really do understand these concepts when they are properly brought up. They can be confused by unclear posters, just like anybody else.

I have two boys, age seven and four. I am not sure yet how I feel about the overprotective swing of the societal safety pendulum. It is good to protect our kids from evil, but there is also millions of years of evolution at work. The microcosm of a grade school recess is like looking at human nature under a microscope.

First and second graders are obviously affected by society, but there is still a lot of the natural human experience bubbling to the surface.

In any group of animals, there are hierarchies. There is always an alpha male, there is always a fight for supremacy. There will always be the members of the group who are followers, and who are leaders, and there needs to be a certain amount of freedom for nature to find it's way.

So, I am on the fence about overprotecting our children from their primitive drives and desires. I think (setting aside the dangerous extremes) that we might be clamping down on a part of the normal development of the species by not allowing our children to experience finding their place in the "tribe".

He He, I have a long story for you guys about an elementary school incident now....

When I was in first grade, this girl in our class died in a car accident. Everyone was sad, but over time we (yes us, the little first graders) just accepted that death was a part of life. Until something happened to me. I was the only kid in my school who didn't go to a Christian place of worship (please don't ask me about my religious beliefs), and apparently the school district I was in thought something of this. By something I mean that "the heathens need our help to become educated and accept death and god" and all that jazz. So what did they do? About 2 weeks after the girl died, they came into my class and pulled me out of it. We walked halfway across the school and they sat me down with this "guidance counselor" guy in a tiny room. The first thing they said was "we're going to play a game" and they got a board game down off the shelf (checkers). We started playing, and though I can't remember it perfectly well after this, they started to talk about "the lord". Hmm. Remember, I'm a first grader and I'm playing checkers so I don't really care right now (I don't think anyone in my situation would) so I wasn't really paying attention. What I do remember was that I beat the "guidance counselor" because he let me and he wouldn't let me leave. They didn't let me leave for 3 hours. We sat there and talked about "god" and what "the lord" did for "us" and how this girl was now in "heaven". He divulged into some more christian points, but once again I cannot recall what they were. After this they returned me to my class, but still wouldn't leave me alone. Nope, they had me repeat what I had been told to my class. It wasn't punishment for anything.... They just made me do it.
I didn't really know a lot about government when I was in 1st grade, but this event sticks in my mind now mainly because of "Separation of Church and State". It just makes me mad to realize that I was a part of some sort of religious attempt on a school system. It wasn't like the place was predmoniately Christian, there were at least 2 Jewish kids in my class and 3 Muslim kids (each kid was from a different family, too). This tells me that I wasn't the only kid scratching their head on that day. But it still doesn't make sense to me why this was done, it certainly wasn't because I was sad about the events and they needed to make me happy. On top of it all, this "guidance counselor" was a good friend of the principal, so I assume that what went on was pretty well known to the administration. Luckily, I have since moved away from this school district, and my current one isn't so "pushy". I still have one thing to say to these people about how they are still interfering with today's school system....
.......WTH? XO