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Kids at one Utah Elementary must say yes if another kid asks to dance
- Thread starter BringBackSonics
- Start date
Holding someone's feet down to do sit-ups, doing math problems, being required to dance with someone merely because they asked...yeah, it's the same thing!
/s
People in this thread aren't arguing from that position.
Why are people assuming that there are or will be no other school dances where these kids are free to say no to an offer to dance?
not a good idea, kids should experience bullying. having kids raised this way only makes their life harder when they're on their own.
p.s. there are plenty of places for people to experience rejection outside of elementary school activities lol. Is it okay for kids to feel included anywhere in life? Or do we really need to just let them know they're not welcomed as soon as possible?
Kids normally can't get out of participating in any of those class functions. However, they can choose not to go to a dance. People here are being ridiculous.
Why on earth are you making up strawmen that have nothing to do with the point in question rather than arguing honestly? That's extremely weird. No I'm talking about when your forced to group with someone either directly by the teacher or iindirectly by not being allowed to pick someone your friends to complete an activity together which would involve you being in close contact with them as described in this article because that indeed does happen and is a known teaching method.
Don't go to the dance if you don't like the dance structure?
Uh, OT, but I wouldn't call the requirement to ''refrain from immoral gay sex' aka part of your life 'accepting' by any definition of the word.
All things you have to deal with in life. Might as well force kids to experience how awful everything in life is as soon as possible or they'll never make it on their own, right.
And yes, rejection is an element of bullying. Kids experience rejection enough at school as is and I don't think an optional dance is going to change that. So you can still feel all warm inside that children will be prepared for life after elementary school.
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/s means sarcasm
If you read any of my posts, you'd get it.
Edit: Sorry for the tone, missed your edit.
The fallacy you're looking for is reductio ad absurdum, not strawman. Also, you're the one making the equivalencies between those activities; not me, so don't lecture me on being honest.
kids who are raised to have never face rejection, from their parents and from their friends, won't have an easy time getting used to it in their adolescence and further.
and no, rejection isn't an element of bullying. if a kid asks another kid for something and hears no he or she isn't bullied.
You're telling me an optional school dance, in elementary of all places, is the only chance kids have to experience things like rejection? Were you home schooled and not allowed to leave the house or something?
I mean, do kids today still have their own dances? I probably went to more dances for birthday parties between 6-8 grade than all the school dances we had combined. If so, I'm sure there's plenty of opportunity for these middle schoolers to experience the hard sting of rejection outside of school.
wat
Systematic social rejection/exclusion is bullying 101
How do you think bullying works?
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Nah I definitely meant straw man and yes if you have an problem with the comparison argue in good faith about it's issues don't side step it entirely with pointless digs that do nothing to further the conversation.
Is it so difficult to honestly debate the point?
I never heard of kids hosting their own dances but maybe I wasn't cool enough at that age.
Haha true. I'm 30 though so it was a while back. Now the NBA all star game did this but it was in secret.
Ask yourself first and let me know. Are those three activities equivalent to eachother? You're arguing that they are and I'm arguing that they're not. Don't project your cognitive dissonance on me.
We had so many dances it was ridiculous. Kids' parents would rent out a room somewhere like the American Legion or the VFW, hire a dj and let us dance. Obviously there was a lot of awkward standing around in the early going, but eventually you'd work up the courage to ask someone to dance to some slow song, or get asked. I usually got the dance or said yes myself, but I do remember at least one girl saying no.
This was in the late 90's, early 00's, so maybe it was just a fad or something.
Well let's just end this here as an honest arguement seems lost with you on this. Hint for future reference if you have a problem with someones reasoning you should articulatiate it to that person however trite if they are arguing with you in good faith. If your unable to do so then maybe there's a problem with the basis of your reasoning. Not everyone has the same experiences in which is why it's important when discussing to the effort in to explain your point.
Were a lot of kids at your school well off? I've never been to a dance that wasn't hosted by the school, haha. Closest I experienced was getting invited to the skating rink for a party, but we didn't live in a affluent district.
Some definitely were. I mean we had some parties at our local country club. Although interestingly these were pretty open parties. I typically knew everyone, but not all of the hosts were all that close to me. I think the kids hosting would cast their nets pretty wide with invites.
I'm kind of interested in this now. I wonder if having parties like that wasn't as normal as I always assumed it was. Might have been a thing where one kid did it and then it just caught on where I lived. And it's not like we did it because our school didn't have dances either. Dunno.
I don't know either, but that sounds pretty effing rad haha.
So are those three activities equivalent to eachother or not? This is the third time I've mentioned it and you're avoiding the point/question. I've made multiple posts describing the difference between a classroom activity and a social event and you want to lecture me about making good faith arguments?
Like I said ignoring what was asked refusing to engage at all with the debate and refusing to answer honestly. You know I said they're equilvalent because that was the basis of the point I made to you something you yourself has said. I asked for why you consider not to be and thus
Silence..... Notice you have made a single point in this discussion one way or the other but alas.
Or, option 2 (and likely the option the school will wisely go with from this point on) change the dance structure which is what many here are arguing for.
Option 3: Don't give in to faux social media outrage of the week.
You're not missing anything — they issued a statement confirming as much and said they'll clear up the instructions. That statement was released before this thread was even made so people don't seem to care about that
That said, while they are only talking about etiquette and politeness you have to put that in context of the type of ball they are emulating where etiquette was everything
So basically you're calling everyone in this thread saying why this is problematic, what, fake? If all the "outrage" over this is "faux" that's basically what you're doing. What about the parent of the child, do you think she just went out of her way to find something to complain about? The child is the one that brought it up to her. Please answer these questions. Your post is practically adjacent to something along the lines of "these damn SJW's and their concerns!".
It's all faux outrage because no one is being forced to dance with anyone.
1. It doesn't work like that with a card system. There's a certain number of partners on each list, that's it. This isn't a gangbang.
2. "lil Jessica" doesn't have to participate if she only wants to dance with other girls. that's not what this event is about. they're informed well before hand.
3. This is a choreographed, regimented activity, not a social or something.
4. You're bringing adult perspectives on dance to a line dance for children.
5. At no point do they say if somebody feels uncomfortable that they're forced to stay there.
6. Why are you saying "Mormon boys" as though pointing out they're Mormon makes them worse kids?
7. Let me put it in ways you'll understand. Imagine a class playing basketball as a class activity:
Say lil Tyler is the worst baller around, by 11 year old standards. Say no little Mormon boy there wants to play with lil Tyler, but say Tyler would love to play with any of them. Maybe the other kids think he's weird. Maybe he's poor, and his clothes are ragged, or he stinks because he doesn't get to bathe every day. Either way, nobody wants to play with him. Come game time, Tyler wants to play, but nope, he's got a bunch of 11 year old kids telling him to get lost, nobody wants to play with him. He can't make them play with him, it's in the rules. Now, Tyler feels uncomfortable. Now, all those Mormon boys get to play ostracize him, even though he feels uncomfortable. Don't you think lil Tyler-poo should be able to participate in the class activity?
If you still don't get it, rinse and repeat for any class activity. They could be playing Telephone for all I care.
I wouldn't say it's fake, but kind of exaggerated... maybe? Like, it's a voluntary dance where you're told to write names of people you want to dance with. You're also taught the dances in PE before the event. The way some people are making this event to be is kind of strange like they're going to become rapists or monsters, that the dance is going to be filled with horrible bullying, or uncomfortable kids forced to dance with others, and what not. Like, it's line dancing and maybe some versions of ball room dancing or even more line dancing. I highly doubt a single, voluntary choreographed dance event is going to shake the foundations of these children.
Like, if a child does say, "I don't want to dance", do you really think a teacher or staff member is going to force them to dance?
Like, sports day exists where you partner up with random kids to do activities with.
"Students are also told by their teacher that if a classmate asks to be on their card, they should be polite and respectful, and agree to dance with that person," the school said. "This applies to all students regardless of gender."
Yeah, I bet they would. Or they would shame them for denying consent which is also not great.
If it's just a dance that's no big deal they should have no problem with changing how they go about this. Nobody is arguing they are going to walk away traumatized from this one event, it's the message it imparts on them. To boys it's saying a girl cannot say no, to a girl it's saying she can't say no. It's these seemingly small things throughout our lives that add up and add up and contribute to the culture we have of sexual assault and impropriety and women being treated as second-class citizens.
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Perhaps they just mean this is an issue for the local school and parents to sort out and doesn't need to be a national story with a bunch of people on a video game forum arguing over it for hours.
Like, the system itself sounds terrible because, well, what if someone's already dancing with another person? Do they drop their current dance partner and dance with the other person? I highly doubt a certain student is going to have a giant line of kids waiting to dance with them. They're most likely going to look at their cards, scan the room, see which person on their card doesn't have a partner, and go and ask them.
Again, they're not being forced since this is a voluntary event. Cards also have a limit so they can say, "Sorry, my card is full".
I don't think you fully understand what "forced" means.
They're in the 6th grade, I'm not sure you know what they're thinking.
It's not just a "dance", it's choreographed dances meaning they're not just all in a giant clump listening to the top 40. They're doing practiced dances that they've already practiced. She can still say no so can the boys. I 100% guarantee you the teachers or staff aren't going to force someone to dance with someone if they don't want to.
Like, you don't really get a choice in group projects, at work, airlines, public transportation, etc. or plenty of things in our lives. Like, you could be playing freeze tag, line tag, capture the flag, etc where you come into physical contact with another human being but it's still optional. Optional just like this dance. At the end of the day, if a student doesn't feel comfortable participating then they can not go. It's not mandatory. I suspect the grand majority of students attending won't have any problems with the event, and if they do it's probably cause it's going to be a boring ass event rather than they have to dance with Charlie who may or may not watch too much anime.
I highly doubt this dance is going to reinforce the idea that girls can't say no to a large degree that it will shape their futures. That falls more on sex ed, media depictions of relationships, and how they were raised by the family.
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That's just a long winded way to thread shit. Don't like the conversation or various viewpoints then leave the thread, right? Or express your opinion and engage. Or don't.
I will say the thread title seems to be saying one thing while the article leaves it open to interpretation and some claiming yet a third position. Some confusion.
Encouraging students to participate is one thing. Having a policy that students must dance when asked regardless of their personal preference to do so in order to avoid hurt feelings is another.
Should means they would like them to, not that they're going to force them to.
There's actually nothing in the article saying students will be forced to dance with anyone they don't want to dance with.
So if I accurately described your stance, then how is my sarcastically toned post a strawman?
Teaching kids to work in groups in a school/classroom environment is not the same thing as requiring a child to dance with another child asks them at a social event. The former is in a controlled educational setting and the latter is a social event. No child's agency should be up for debate in this situation. I've said this maybe 3 different ways? Maybe it seems like silence to you because you're ignoring what I'm saying.
Students are also told by their teacher that if a classmate asks to be on their card, they should be polite and respectful, and agree to dance with that person. This applies to all students regardless of gender. The purpose behind this is to encourage more interaction between students and to promote an atmosphere of inclusion. Recently, a parent contacted one of our schools with a concern about her student being told they should say yes if asked to dance. Although these dances have been taking place for many years, it does raise some questions about the rule and the instructions that are given. We certainly understand the concern and would never want to promote a mindset where students don't feel like they have the option to say no. In the best interest of our students, we are re-examining the procedures surrounding these dances and will make any necessary changes to promote a positive environment where all students feel included and empowered in their choices. We have advised our schools to eliminate any sort of language in the instructions surrounding these dances that would suggest a student must dance with another student.
Okay, sure, I don't understand what an incredibly simple word means, that *has* to be my hangup.
If they go to the dance they are forced to do it. "Don't go to the dance" is the laziest "solution" imaginable and doesn't solve anything, but if you believe there isn't a problem I can see why it would be the one you'd go with as it makes the most sense. Myself and many others in this thread disagree. We'll see what the school does, I'd bet they change it.
Yes, it is fake outrage. The article doesn't even suggest the kids are forced to dance. Just that they should if there isn't a problem otherwise. If the child doesn't like it then they shouldn't go to the dance. If the parents don't like it they shouldn't allow their kid to go to the dance. I don't like hiking so I won't be going hiking this afternoon. There is nothing wrong here if you read beyond the misleading thread title.
God dam people are acting like there being forced togeter for life its a dance and everyone knows how it goes and there allowed to not come so if they go they consent to it. Its just a rule to make sure no one is left out just as like in pe they will pair you up with somebody . In mine opion they should have just said everyone should dance once with every person i bet that wouldnt have triggered people. I actually think its a good idea it will make kids interact with other kids that they avoided for one dumb reason or another.
You're extrapolating to something it does not say at all.
"Natalie Richard thought her daughter was mistaken when the sixth-grader said she couldn't say no if a boy asked her to dance at the Kanesville Elementary dance in West Haven, Utah (about 38 miles northwest of Salt Lake City), FOX 13 first reported."
The kid thought otherwise. The parent thought otherwise, When the school was asked to clarify they didn't say "we would never force anyone to do that", they gave a defense and rationalization of their policy and are re-examining it, why would they do that if there was no problem?
These kids are probably encouraged not to say no because the whole point of this dance is clearly to encourage these kids to interact with one another and not just stay with a date or with their group of friends the entire time. I mean, they literally spend time in school teaching them to dance. Unlike a lot of school dances, the point of this one seems to be for the kids to actually dance, not just socialize at their own pace.
And I'm sure that there is no punishment looming for someone who chooses not to dance. But my guess is this isn't a problem that comes up much because the kids who go to this dance know what the expectations are, and accept them.
And I'm sure that there is no punishment looming for someone who chooses not to dance. But my guess is this isn't a problem that comes up much because the kids who go to this dance know what the expectations are, and accept them.
My point is that perhaps people want to make a mountain out of a molehill because they enjoy being angry about things.
If the title was click bait then we should try not to fall for it. But instead take a wait and see approach, which is no fun.