A new meaning to "seen but not heard"
Opinion Journal thinks the decision of Portland teacher Mary Bond to forbid her sixth-grade boys and girls from talking to one another is ridiculous, and they're right. However, I have to wonder if there's more to this than meets the eye:
The hanky panky on the playground at Peterson Elementary School in Klamath Falls may have been as innocent as hand-holding or as stolen as a kiss.
Whatever happened, it was enough for sixth grade teacher Mary Bond to lay down the law to her students last week: there would be no talking between boys and girls.
The students protested, and the prinicipal rescinded the rule. Good. However, this sounds like a teacher more desperate than crazy. Even the most hardline zero-tolerance types aren't going to forbid boy-girl interaction following something as innocuous as hand-holding. Given the increasing incidence of sexual behavior in schools (sometimes by very young children), I'm wondering if Ms. Bond didn't spot something outrageous happening, or if she felt she was unable to discipline students into keeping their hands off one another.
Of course, she might just be crazy - but I'm wondering why journalist Julia Silverman was so quick to assume that the hanky-panky preceding this decision couldn't have been more problematic than a "stolen kiss".