We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not discussing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tacky\u00e2\u20ac\u009d here, just the warm, beneficial, feel-good, even therapeutic effects of what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been doing since the dawn of time: hugging.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I grew into after several decades, but now, as an admittedly and increasingly emotional senior citizen, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve become much more of a hugger. A nasty old man? Never, just a hugger.<\/p>\n
But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back up several decades. I believe that my late mother, Marie Trujillo, began realizing the preciousness of life when her first granddaughter, Stephanie came around. The fact that Stephanie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother, Dorothy, and her family lived in Phoenix made travel and family sightings a bit less frequent.<\/p>\n
So seeing Steph became a joy, each visit ending with everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lament, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I wish you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to leave so soon.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Well, grandparenting tends to do that to families. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite the hugger that I am now until my own grandson and namesake appeared. Then, with the arrival of two more girls and a little Daness (my coinage for a female Dane), I guess I became incurable. I was almost a one-man Huggies commercial.<\/p>\n
During the period called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153passing of the peace\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in my church, it seems every person hugs and\/or shakes hands with every other person. Some simply aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to hugging, and I believe the others respect that.<\/p>\n
A number of years ago, before I retired from teaching, a Highlands official, an expert on hostile-environment, sexual-harassment issues, conducted a daylong workshop in which she spelled out the new rules on physical contact among teachers and students. I found it hard to believe it when she said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Some of our students are almost never touched \u00e2\u20ac\u201d unless it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to be hit or sexually assaulted.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Really? Eddie Ventura, my assistant in our desktop publishing classes, and I used to arrange our students in a circle, facing out, so we could see their computer screens. When he wanted the attention of a particular student (male or female), we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d lightly place our hands on the student\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I suggest you not do that anymore,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the counselor advised. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be facing charges, do you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Facing charges? Eddie and I had taught that course for a dozen years, touched the shoulders of countless students, to get their attention, and now there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something wrong with that? Nobody ever complained, at least not to us.<\/p>\n
The counselor had a point: Some students might have resented the tactile additives, but were too polite or fearful to admit it.<\/p>\n
What a pity that what started as a curative process (described in the first paragraph) has now become a means of degradation and exploitation in schools. But isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that the way most things happen? One person cheats and therefore every student needs to sign an honor pledge; one person writes a bad check and suddenly every restaurant in town accepts only cash or credit card; one person pushes the feel-good parameters of a hug and suddenly we all need to practice \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sideways hugs,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d both participants facing the same direction. And we need to undergo sensitivity training.<\/p>\n
For close to 30 years, when Highlands had what we called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tank\u00e2\u20ac\u009d registration (we all entered a huge tank, Wilson Complex or Stu Clark Gym, and fought over classes), I used to love and welcome the greetings, handshakes and hugs exchanged as students returned for another semester. I was often one of the willing participants.<\/p>\n
From my observations, men are more reluctant to have a same-sex greeting. They do anyway, but the gestures are different: two men start with a handshake or a fist-bump, pull the other toward him and, with the free hand, pat the other on the back.<\/p>\n
On the subject of the huggability quotient being directly proportional to one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s age, let me explain that for a while, after the family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first grandchild, Stephanie, arrived, I often thought mom got carried away. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d leave her house on Railroad and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d want to hug me. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But, Mom, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m simply walking to the Dairy Queen to buy Steph a cone.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No importa.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mom got her hug. To Mom it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter that the DQ, is a short block from my childhood home.<\/p>\n
Monday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal has an article headlined \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Male Teachers Wary Of Hugging Students.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Not surprisingly, it covers many institutional rules proscribing close contact.<\/p>\n
In Sacramento, Calif., for example, a kindergarten teacher, Paul Ferreter, says he knows he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s putting his credentials on the line each time he opens his arms to hug one of his students. Many tykes in his classes come from one-parent homes, almost always headed by a single mother.<\/p>\n
Surely Ferreter also realizes that teachers \u00e2\u20ac\u201d especially males \u00e2\u20ac\u201d can have their careers and reputations ruined by the mere accusation of something like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153improper touching.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d After all, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it easier (not to mention more fun) to believe the worst in someone? Now, teachers in that district respond with a high-five whenever a child appears to want a hug.<\/p>\n
An experience we had in 1989 taught me a lesson and made me a believer in hugs. On our regularly scheduled trip to the Grand Canyon with a group of students, the other teacher and I mixed up our assignments and left a high school girl stranded.<\/p>\n
Everyone in the group of 25 feared we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d lost the student \u00e2\u20ac\u201d literally. Immediately, some of her classmates came up with frightening what-if-ities: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What if she jumped off the canyon walls?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She was acting depressed this morning,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The other day she was talking about ending it all.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
There was no shortage of doomsday scenarios. After seven hours of pacing, waiting, talking to rangers, police and university officials, my boss, Ray Newton, and I were beat. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when another student, Tamika, approached me with, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You look like you need a hug.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Indeed I did!<\/p>\n
Well, we finally located the vanished student and there were hugs, cheers and tears enough to fill the visitors center. Tamika knew the values of a sincere hug, and I appreciate it to this day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not discussing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tacky\u00e2\u20ac\u009d here, just the warm, beneficial, feel-good, even therapeutic effects of what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been doing since the dawn of time: hugging. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I grew into after several decades, but now, as an admittedly and increasingly emotional senior citizen, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve become much more of a hugger. A nasty old man? Never, just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":802,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions\/802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}