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These are schools. Kids learn things, and not just in class; adults model behaviour for kids at every moment kids observe them, and kids are notorious mimics. You can’t teach the scientific method in the morning — or nutrition for that matter — and then take away a kid’s pudding at lunch because you think it’s somehow inappropriate or icky and expect the two not to conflict. Similarly you can’t pretend to teach critical thinking, and then ban apples because Billy can’t eat them, and expect to create a great generation of rational thinkers.

The precautionary principle is indefensible if you’re literally inventing the matter to be treated with caution

If I had kids, I often think while reading these news items, I would be the bane of their school’s existence — sending their lunches in noncompliant containers just to poke the bear; questioning the need for alarming lockdown drills that prepare children for a nearly non-existent threat; demanding evidence to support the no doubt myriad dietary bans; refusing to buy separate “indoor” and “outdoor” running shoes and daring Principal Buttinsky to come after me.

And then I realize, no, I probably wouldn’t. Because if I had kids, I wouldn’t have the time. The children would presumably have a mother, who might see things rather differently, and maybe I would choose not to die on that hill. My children, furthermore, might not appreciate me making a pest of myself with the adults in charge of them at school, and so long as they were willing to have me indoctrinate them at home I might desist for their benefit.

I asked a colleague recently how he and other parents, who know how ridiculous these rules are, put up with them. “They have our kids,” he replied.

That’s an entirely understandable answer. But if any parents out there are brave enough to push back against the officious nonsensical dullardry that governs our public schools, I will do my best to make heroes of them in these pages.

• Email: cselley@nationalpost.com | Twitter: cselley