Yeah, okay, you know what, I have some time today, let's do this yahoo.com/news/students-…
This is so obviously, ludicrously indefensible a policy that according to the original article, it hasn't even been written down by the principal. (The paragraph below it, leading into discussion of bullying, is where this story actually begins.) ldnews.com/story/news/loc… 
Given those data points, this data point is almost inevitable, isn't it? (This is not one school's problem - it's the same thing powering every school dress code policy that punishes girls for "distracting" boys.)
There are many surface problems with asking children to lie about their feelings out of fear of punishment. (And yes, forced confession to an adult picked by this system counts as punishment. We know that; kids know that.) But.
This is blatantly an issue of control, and no one's even pretending otherwise. This is part of a nationwide trend in prioritizing compliance, which on a national scale has happened with so little pushback that this was only a matter of time.
Last October, India Landry was suspended for refusing to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance and told she'd have to stand to be permitted back into school. buzzfeed.com/mikehayes/stud…
School dress codes have now made the idea of a "modesty poncho" something a school can enforce. (It seems absurd - but at first, these things always do.) twitter.com/i/moments/9913…
Making kids smile is absolutely, without any veneer whatsoever, about reminding them you have more power than they do, and can control their futures. And it will disproportionately affect students who are already marginalized (feature, not a bug).
And it is designed to sound benign to parents who like the idea of increased policing of "distracting" behavior in schools. What a goofy rule, right? Hardly any trouble at all. Smile! Have a nice day! Be nice! How nice.
I think often of this 2015 video of a 14-year-old Black boy choked by an officer, which cuts from the cop dragging the child to the ground to this. (Video CW: Violence.) "Non-compliant." "Forced to detain."
Like, we all know it's fascism. We know. Education factors -100% in statutes of compliance.
And these statutes disproportionately affect children who are already targets of authority for whom any objection becomes non-compliance! You get to disrupt everything to embarrass a marginalized kid for not smiling and then write them up for being mad about it? Convenient, that.
And because in 2018 we can just assume the worst-case scenario to the thinnest possible wedge of totalitarianism, I thought about two things while I was reading this piece about a school that knows better than to write down what it wants to be able to force its students to do.
1) The Protect and Serve Act, which just passed. congress.gov/bill/115th-con…
2) The way that official agencies using "social credit" to determine your mobility - social or literal - is being nationalized in China. channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/chin…
2) The way that official agencies using "social credit" to determine your mobility - social or literal - is being nationalized in China. channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/chin…
We are at a crisis point where every instance ups a national ante. After Standing Rock, several states (including North Dakota) introduced bills to protect drivers who run over protestors. cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/… In Charlottsville, Heather Heyer was killed that way.
So, set up rules that you know will be broken by people who are angry with you for perpetuating injustice. Use those rules to punish them. Make those rules the social capital that determines their job prospects, social mobility, and safety. Tell them to smile.
