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I
n an article published Jan. 20, the Globe and Mail’s Zosia Bielski considers the problems facing school administrators as they try to curb student misbehaviour. The misbehaviour in question is of a decidedly unexpected sort; not aggression or truancy, but an epidemic of in-school hugging. Certain schools in the US and Britain have taken aggressive steps to curb demonstrations of student affection. Measures include outright bans of physical contact to more permissive approaches that spare handshakes or allow hugging after scoring a point in basketball. School administrators present a variety of justifications for enforcing restrictions on physical contact. Some insist that hugging clogs up hallways between classes. Others see absolute touching bans as an easy way to spare teachers from having to police sexual behaviour, especially with older students. It’s easy to understand why
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011 • Issue 28 • Volume 138
Please address complaints and grievances to the Editors in Chief. Please direct editorial, advertising and circulation enquiries to: 190 University Avenue, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3P4 Telephone : 613-533-2800 (editorial) 613-533-6711 (advertising) Fax: 613-533-6728 Email: journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca The Journal Online: www.queensjournal.ca Circulation 6,000 Issue 29 of Volume 138 will be published on Friday, January 28, 2011.
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Leave space to embrace
Andrew Stokes Catherine Owsik
The Queen’s Journal is an editorially autonomous newspaper published by the Alma Mater Society of Queen’s University, Kingston. Editorial opinions expressed in the Journal are the sole responsibility of the Queen’s Journal Editorial Board, and are not necessarily those of the University, the AMS or their officers. Contents © 2011 by the Queen’s Journal; all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of the Journal. The Queen’s Journal is printed on a Goss Community press by Performance Group of Companies in Smiths Falls, Ontario. Contributions from all members of the Queen’s and Kingston community are welcome. The Journal reserves the right to edit all submissions. Subscriptions are available for $120.00 per year (plus applicable taxes).
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Schools exist not only to teach students skills, but also how to function outside the structure of a classroom.
Lifestyle
Justin Tang
Copy Editors
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Health
this sort of behaviour might especially those they don’t like. make school staff uncomfortable, In 2008, students at an Arizona especially in the case of one school, high school staged an extended ate ascom which had “girls running down “hug-a-thon” as a form of protest hallways to hug, squealing all the against physical contact restrictions. way.” However, the responses One student at a New England high adopted so far don’t seem well school has begun a petition, rightly pointing out that “interpersonal thought out. Trying to restrict physical contact touch is not inherently sexual.” Schools exist not only to teach simply raises other questions: is it appropriate to hug a crying friend? students skills, but also how to Outright bans get rid of these function outside the structure of questions, but present teachers a classroom. One of the realities t hardly surprised me to hear that with an exhausting number of of the public sphere is the ability MTV was criticized for its content potential issues to address on a to recognize what qualifies as this week. daily basis—distracting their time appropriate and inappropriate Any one of the network’s and energy from the business physical contact. many shows could be objected to. Schools need to have absolute A recent episode of Jersey Shore of teaching. Aside from these rules being rules about touching with sexual had Snooki treating a hangover by ineffective, some teachers would connotations, but should probably just remaining drunk, taking shots likely lose interest in constantly make less intimate contact subject with tourists and getting arrested. policing behaviour they could to “soft policies,” which can be Teen Mom 2 featured a teenage simply ignore. This would enforced on a discretionary basis. mother who verbally and physically encourage students to further This would allow instructors to assaulted her own mother after flaunt school policies. correct inappropriate behaviour, being deemed an unfit parent. Children of all ages like to without giving them a second But the criticism levelled at find ways of getting around rules, full-time job. MTV didn’t target any of these so-called ‘reality’ shows. Instead the focus was on a British import called Skins, which has caused a fuss amongst advertisers and the Parents Television Council. Skins is meant to portray a realistic version of being a modern teenager. The show has nothing to do with vampires, the Upper East Side or anonymous bloggers, and more to do with out-of-control parties, sex and drugs. The fuss around the show reminds me of a childhood favourite of my own. I was just a baby when Degrassi premiered on CBC. I caught syndicated episodes when I was in elementary school and, with the exception of the dated clothing and unfamiliar references, that show taught me what to expect in high school. If you smoked a joint, rehab would soon follow. If you had sex, watch out! Becoming a teen mom would be the next logical step. If you drank at a party while your friend’s parents were out of town, the cops would be called, someone would get alcohol poisoning and your boyfriend would cheat on you. Degrassi should and has been applauded for representing realistic situations and has not shied away from difficult issues such as abortion, homosexuality and drug use. What astounds me is that this sponsorship is a good idea, but that they remain a public health censoring photographs of famous risk, and one that was once show premiered in the late ’80s. Recent shows have been unable to almost ubiquitous. figures is a step too far. It’s true that photographs of fill the hole that Degrassi left. Even It’s simply a reality that some of history’s famous figures have famous figures smoking adds The Next Generation plays more been smokers. By creating a “safe” to the glamour of cigarettes like an afterschool special. The refreshing nature of version of a famous photograph, as a product, but these one draws attention to whatever photographs are significantly Skins is partly due to the lack of one is trying to hide—an enterprise less harmful than advertising, immediate consequences and the doomed to failure in the age of which targets individuals with non-judgement of the characters’ the Internet. demographic-relevant material behaviour. Degrassi never steered Instead of trying to hide a and images of smoking that are me the wrong way in high school, dirty secret about a famous figure, deliberately enticing. even with frank discussion on the public should be prepared to Many individuals and businesses teen pregnancies, suicide and acknowledge the truth about how in France have been largely resistant drug use. Degrassi brought he or she lived. to public smoking bans applied to much-needed attention to In the case of something as restaurants and bars. teenage issues, which is common as a cigarette, the Aggressively targeting those what Skins has done in its adage “out of sight, out of mind” businesses caught out of line native England. simply doesn’t hold up. As long would likely be more effective than MTV should examine as cigarettes are still available to worrying about hiding cigarettes in the rest of its content before the public, the most responsible old photos. bowing down to critics of a course of action is to acknowledge fictionalized show.
French smoke and mirrors
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rench lawmakers have taken steps to adjust France’s rigid anti-smoking laws, citing concerns about endangering the country’s “cultural heritage.” The so-called “Evin” law prohibits any “direct or indirect” promotion of tobacco or tobacco products. Fear over falling onto the wrong side of the law meant pictures of iconic French figures like Jean-Paul Sartre were altered to remove cigarettes on posters and book covers. The bill brought before parliament equated this with “the falsification of history, the censorship of works of the mind, [and] the denial of reality,” which it insisted “must remain the heinous marks of totalitarian regimes.” There’s no denying that limiting cigarette advertisement and
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Skins Wins
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