excellent story. When's the book coming out?

"Get everybody to be uncomfortable with a worthy debate or discussion and before you know it, no one is talking. Kind of like right now, only worse."

This really hits home with me. I'm beginning to have second thoughts about my gratitude for my public education. I've withheld my judgements and opinions from most people in social settings for so many years now, that it is almost second nature. I may have rationalized it as common courtesy or boredom or disinterest... hmm, time for a bit of soul-searching...

Thank you for being you.

I had to force myself to finish it myself and admittedly I skimmed a lot. Intrusive questioning could lead to all kinds of stuff, along with the complete lack of any expected privacy in life. I agree with you completely.

Good story :) Logic is leaving and feelings rule the schools now. I have been saying lately, "I'm starting to think those nuns knew what they were doing....people turned out so better back then."

The underlying message is again the don't notice, don't judge, ignore it. Get everybody to be uncomfortable with a worthy debate or discussion and before you know it, no one is talking. Kind of like right now, only worse.

..and roshambo should be the final arbiter.

Roshambo "teaching deeper lessons of fairness and problem-solving". In other words: Leave everything to chance, accept random judgements despite what you know, and suppress right and proper anger at injustice. It seems more like an attempt to erase our innate sense of fairness and destroy our problem-solving nature.

It is pretty disgusting. It's like a religion without the presumption that a god is controlling the random hand gestures to enact divine justice. Let go of the wheel and play roshambo with your passenger to see if the car will drive itself.

I'm with you.

I pictured the kid that knew that he tagged someone, fair and square. Now, he has to let a game of chance decide if he really did tag the other kid. How can he not be pissed, if the Roshambo says that he never made the tag.

I don't see any progress in this, and any emotional development for being cheated out of the tag, and then having the 'theft' sanctioned by a random hand game....

Let's ask Mike!

It seems to me that the ideal of Buddhism is self negation. It is presumably attained by meditating away all emotions but compassion.

It also seems to me that Christianity, being founded on the premise that all sins are forgiven, and that we should all forgive each other our trespasses, aims to control emotions.

I've read that righteous anger is very healthy. How can there be any justice in a world full of people seeking to evade and suppress emotions rather than recognizing them as prompts to action?

In case it's not clear, I agree with your assessment. Emotions are not a topic that schools should dabble in.

Playing Roshambo to decide if someone was tagged or not?? How about the teacher reffing the game and saying, "Tough shit slow poke boy, you got tagged. Suck it up!" (Okay, maybe not that exactly, but c'mon! Rock Paper Scissors??!! This is the grand wussification of America.)

Like Wonky, I need more time to get through the entire article.

But, what I skimmed is some sort of group therapy approach. The game examples on the last page were pretty interesting....

Drugs would be cheaper, and quicker! ;-)

I read the first 2 pages. I'll go back and finish it.

Read the article...they're questioning kids about what upsets them at home. Schools are crossing a line... like privacy with intimidation tactics. Small kids don't know to say "It's none of your business." They are easy targets for intrusive questioning. This is SICK! Not to mention a total abuse of power.