Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/20/school-forbids-clapping-allow.html
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I was prepared to be annoyed with the school but I was one of the kids who would have benefited. I guess I’ll wait to see how it turns out for the school’s kids?
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I’m very sensitive to sound, but I think applause is one if the least offensive sounds people make.
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There are a lot of places I simply cannot go because of my sensitivity to sound (loud bars being the standout example). For incidental noise however (e.g. emergency vehicle sirens) I just cover my ears. I think this adaptation is especially reasonable for incidental noise like applause. I’ve been the one on the field before, and hearing that means something. Let 'em make some noise.
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At first glance I read “face pulling and air punching” as “hair pulling and face punching” and thought it seemed to be a horrible alternative to applause.
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But what about people who are sensitive to other people’s frantic movements?
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I clicked comments to say this EXACT same thing.
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Ironically, noise is the least poisonous thing in Australia.
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I fart so loud that my Wife wears ear plugs, I always tell her to get another pair for her nose. My apologies to the sensitive.
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golf clap…… Oh no… hang on…
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I have a sensitivity to baby screaming but I can’t ban those from public places.
I guess we will all do better when we can have our intelligent ear plugs that can filter out specific sounds and we all can get on with life.
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It’s obviously a terrible idea, but I sort of wish I had gone to that school.
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I tried to find that Star Trek where the crew is on shore leave, and there was a dancer and when she was done you were supposed to click this table lamp and and off, and Scotty starts clapping on the table, and Kirk is like, "Scotty, Scotty. In Argelius they use the lights. "
And Scotty is like, “Now no one has to tell an old Aberdeen pub-crawler how to
applaud, Captain.”
OH wait - I found it:
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Face pulling? But what happens when all their faces. . . freeze like that!?!?
It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen!
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Those sensitive kids will have a harder time in life now that they expect people to change the world to fit their problems.
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Would you really tho? Or would you have missed out on development time for building & reinforcing coping mechanisms (for the real world & rest of life) in a pretty well reasonably safe & structured environment?
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My son has a sensitivity to noise. My wife and I got the all clear from his school for him to wear earmuffs whenever he feels like he needs to. Most of the time he just wears them when he’s riding on the school bus, and other kids think he’s listening to music. Our view is that our son should learn how to comfortably adapt to situations, and how to collaborate with people so both needs are met as best as possible. We believe these will be good skill sets to have when he’s an independent adult.
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I’d go one further and make attendance non-mandatory. Let me watch a video recording that I can fast-forward through. I always hated assemblies. No one told me when I was a kid that I had ADHD but having to sit for any amount of time in a bleacher listening to someone talk on a mic too close or too far from their mouth while the people around me clapped because other people around them were clapping was an often agonizing experience.
You don’t necessarily develop coping mechanisms to deal with those situations. You develop strategies for avoiding them altogether. Sometimes the only way to cope is to avoid. The ability to leave when you get overwhelmed is also great, but I was always told these assemblies were required. And kids aren’t always taught they can stand up to teachers and school administrators to say, “no, really, this isn’t a good situation for me.” They would just think you’re being melodramatic and tell you to cowboy up.
Edit: I also question the whole community-development aspect of things like this. It ultimately just shows an extroverted bias to how the world should work. It’s important for introverted kids to understand what extroverts are like and why they think and act the way they do, but there needs to be a balance of approaches. It can’t always be, “let’s get together in a giant group and act like everyone will or should enjoy it!” I have an extroverted manager who apparently never learned that sometimes having more people involved in an event or gathering can be less productive than having fewer people involved or letting participants go away and strategize on their own and come back with new ideas.
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That’s something for a doctor or therapist to decide to do, and in in controlled situations. It’s not any school teacher’s responsibility.
You should have gone to Trump University 
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