I missed this story, somehow, when it was live. And now there’s no follow-up, so I don’t know how it turned out.
In 2012 and 2013, reaching back into 2010, the hottest thing in British education was a movement to forbid children from having best friends (https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/462185/schools-ban-children-making-best-friends/). This, the educators (ahem!) reasoned, would spare kiddies the pain of breaking up with a best friend later on. Kind of like if you never marry, you’ll never have to go through a divorce. If you never get a job, you’ll never get fired. You have to be a trained education professional to see how brilliant an idea this is.
Well, confound it, I can’t find any recent articles that tell us how this scheme worked out. I mean, just because it totally defies human nature doesn’t mean it’ll fail–right? Why, that might imply that socialism itself could fail!
Five years ago, there were questions being asked about this, even among the educators. A guy from the National Association of Head Teachers said of the policy, “It seems bizarre.” Well, there’s nobody as anti-human as a humanist.
I can’t find anything more recent than that. Did this idea die a natural death, or are they still pumping juice into it, refusing to let it go? I’m very surprised it hasn’t spread across the Atlantic to the United States and Canada: it seems tailor-made for our teachers’ unions. Imagine the rush an educator would get, forcing children to break up with their best friends and forbidding them to have best friends anymore–and laying down the law to the kids’ parents, too. It’d be as big a turn-on as rationing.
Perhaps some reader in the UK can enlighten us, and tell us how it all turned out. If you can, please do!
Update: Thanks to “thewhiterabbit” for this update.
Yes, they’re still doing it: UK schools not allowing kids to have best friends. Little Prince George, four years old, is about to be sentenced to one of these places (http://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a12215360/prince-george-school-policy-not-allowed-best-friend/). The whole is idea is so “no one will feel excluded.”
They’ll be putting the kids in chain gangs next.
These people are truly imposing inhuman conditions. Recently, a relative with exceptional academic skills quit public school and is finishing their education online, because a counselor was hell bent on convincing them they were gay, which is not the case. Friends don’t let friends go to public school.
Ah, the “counselor”! Complete with evil counsel.
Public education no longer has any redeeming social value and should be completely abolished.
I agree completely. End it today.
Not only are the morons in Europe morons within the education system, here’s another area of human nature they wish to invade:
https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2017/09/21/liberalism-is-a-mental-disorder-france-and-other-eu-countries-criminalize-wolf-whistling-asking-women-for-their-phone-number/
If your government has an under-secretary for gender equality, your government has too much money.
To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, being a liberal carries with it the terrible suspicion that someone, somewhere, is having a good time.
And I just recently bought a refurbished wold whistle on E-Bay.
If you plan a trip to Europe, it might be a good idea to leave it home 🙂
In the September 11,2017 edition of Cosmopolitan there is an article about how Prince William’s son will not be allowed to have a best friend because the school he attends has a policy that discourages it.
Oho! So they haven’t given it up. I’ll look into it further, thanks.