One Ringy-Dingy

ONE RINGY-DINGY
The way my local school system is set up, it is a “lock-down” facility where the students are shuffled into new groupings each year within the grade level team. This is pretty effective in discouraging any “my best friend from Kindergarten” type of long-term relationship. The students not only can’t stay with their buddies, but now they aren’t even allowed to ask a new friend for his/her phone number.
For decades, our family has had “Friday Is Friends Day”, where the student gets permission to ride the bus home with my children, stay for pizza dinner and then, we drive the friend home. I have always phoned to talk to the new friend’s parent(s) so they feel comfortable letting their child come to visit. It’s called the “mother’s Network”. The other day my son was asking several new friends for their phone numbers, in anticipation of Friday Is Friends Day. He was writing the names and numbers in his planner. The planner is one of the many supplies parents are required to purchase before the school year starts. I believe that makes it our son’s personal property, not school property.
The teacher told him he could not do that; it was an issue of student’s safety. She ripped the page out of his planner and Snapped: Use the phone book.
Aside from the fact that there are no phone books in braille; there are no phone books listing cell phone numbers or e-mail addresses.
What new low has our society fallen to when a teacher humiliates a student, demoralizing a child’s attempt to be a good citizen by getting to know his fellow students a little better?