In the past two days, the debate on the hot search about many colleges and universities not allowing students to hang bed curtains gives people a sense of absurdity that "the world is finally crazy without concealment".
How many friends, like me, have gone through two stages after seeing this topic.
The first stage is not to understand, what is there to care about such a small matter of personal preference as hanging bed curtains?
The second stage was a big shock, and the small bed curtain was described one after another as "affecting the exchange of feelings among classmates", "affecting air quality", and "needing to be criticized by real-name notification".
It seems to be a big crime that will cause a catastrophe and must be governed.
This wave of condemnation of the strict regulations prohibiting bed curtains in colleges and universities has more and more confirmed a trend that has been complained about by college students in recent years-
Some colleges are becoming more and more like high schools.
Even at the management level of some students' freedom, it is stricter than in high school.
01
Strict life control that I have not encountered in junior high and high school
I met at university
The cause of this bed curtain turmoil is that several colleges and universities have recently issued regulations prohibiting students from hanging bed curtains.
That is, it is not allowed to install simple curtains on the bed, which are quite common in college dormitories.
via @的序变成了日记
In universities, there are usually dormitories with multiple people, and the beds are close to each other, so many students choose to install a bed curtain for privacy, so that they don't have to change clothes in front of their roommates, and they can have some private space.
Roommates need to use lights, and when they want to sleep, they can also close the curtains to sleep, which is convenient for everyone.
For some college students who go to school in the south and have rich biodiversity in the school, installing bed curtains can still solve a major pain point-
After the bed is fenced, insects such as spiders that randomly appear on the wall and fall on you will not be able to fall so easily.
But it is such a seemingly innocuous small behavior that has been explicitly controlled or banned by many colleges and universities in recent years.
For example, in January this year, the Northwest University for Nationalities issued a ban on hanging door curtains and bed curtains.
In March, Zhangjiakou University carried out the "special rectification of bed curtains in student dormitories".
The term "special rectification" is usually used in the context of some serious and major rectification issues, such as food safety, production safety, and telecommunications fraud.
I didn't expect that bed curtains also need to be "specially remediated".
Many students in the hot search said that their universities have similar regulations, including but not limited to Jilin Agricultural University, Xinjiang Medical University, China University of Petroleum (East China) and so on.
Some have been banned for several years, while others have only recently begun to have such a rule.
For example, three years ago, Zhumadian Technician College exposed the news that the teacher forcibly removed the bed curtain, pulled the student's bed curtain to the ground and kicked it open.
The rough behavior was condemned by many netizens, and the school later responded that the teacher involved was suspended.
via @大象洛阳
Some colleges and universities will notify students who have hung bed curtains with their real names.
This made many college students miserable and aggrieved, saying that they had been self-conscious since they were children, and they had never been criticized by teachers in junior high and high school.
When I went to college, I was criticized by my real name because of such a trivial matter as installing a bed curtain, I really can't understand it, this matter is really so serious and bad?
The reasons given for banning bed curtains vary from school to school, but I've collected a few common ones.
In a signed article by a counselor published on the website of Nanyang Normal University in Henan Province on March 28, three major dangers of bed curtains were listed:
1. There are potential fire safety hazards, and if the fire is on fire, the fire may spread rapidly along the curtain. 2. The bed curtain will lead to poor air circulation, which is easy to breed bacteria and mites, "if the material and design of the bed circumference do not meet the safety standards, there may be risks such as strangulation and suffocation" 3. For example, there was a college "student who fell ill and died on the bed covered by the bed, and was not discovered by his roommate until two days later"
In an article issued by the College of Water Conservancy and Civil Engineering of Xinjiang Agricultural University, it is believed that hanging bed curtains in the dormitory is not conducive to communication between students, hinders interpersonal communication, and will have a feeling of "rejecting people thousands of miles away" and being unsociable.
In 2019, a university in Nanjing issued a notice banning bed curtains, and the reason given by the dormitory manager in an interview was that it was "not conducive to the management of dormitory inspections".
It is believed that after the student closes the curtain, it is inconvenient to check whether the bed is neat and whether there are any items on the bed that may cause safety hazards.
via @齐鲁晚报
These reasons, while plausible at first glance, do not stand up to scrutiny and are unconvincing.
If the fabric is flammable, then the sheets and bedding are also dangerous goods.
It is also far-fetched to say that the bed curtain obstructs air circulation, the bed curtain is just a fabric, not a sealed window, and the bed curtain will be opened frequently during daily use, so as not to affect the air.
If you are really worried about the breeding of bacteria and mites, instead of removing the curtains of students' beds, it is better to remind everyone to remember to clean and replace the bedding regularly.
The reasons for appearing unsociable and affecting communication are equally untenable.
Again, the bed curtain is just a cloth, not a sealed soundproof material, and roommates can still hear talking in the bed curtain, and 99% of college dormitories must have had the experience of lying in bed and chatting at night after the lights go out.
What's more, what's wrong with being unsociable, college students are already adults and have the right to choose their own way of life and socialization.
You are no longer kindergarten children, and you don't need your parents to remind you to "play with your children", and you don't need teachers to remind you that "you can't wrap the cloth around your neck, you may suffocate".
Some netizens joked that according to this logic, the school should let all teachers and students sleep on the playground, and the first thing they do when they wake up every morning is to say hi to all directions.
This is not easy to catch fire, and it can also force the whole school to be gregarious.
02
School rules that make college students helpless
More than bed curtains
The bed curtain controversy began to ferment yesterday, and today's @CCTV.com's evaluation of "the paternalistic style looks conscientious, but in fact there is a suspicion of lazy government" has once again stimulated netizens' desire to complain.
In fact, the problems such as the inconvenience of bed curtains in this turmoil can be solved by asking everyone to open the curtains during the security check, and at other times they can decide for themselves.
Hidden dangers such as flammability when the fabric catches fire, and students hiding illegal electrical appliances will still exist without bed curtains, and bed curtains are not the source of the problem.
As for the occasional accident of a student falling ill in the bed curtain and being difficult to detect, you can also deal with it by reminding students to pay attention to each other and pay more attention to the unusual behavior of their roommates who do not open the bed curtain during the day.
Under the relevant video, the strict regulations complained by college students are not limited to bed curtains, but also more paternalistic management systems that have been made "no different from college and senior high school".
These problems are not just temporary complaints from college students, but real difficulties supported by news examples in recent years.
In a word, the problem of concentrated complaints is actually the overly detailed supervision and management of study and life.
Some colleges and universities implement a strict dormitory inspection system, and even require that there are no people on the bed, no things on the tables and chairs, and toothbrushes to one side.
via @嫩刘五方（屁王版
These provisions can easily degenerate into formalism in the process of implementation.
For example, in a college in Guangzhou, the dormitory management department checked for bed at 10 o'clock at night, but asked the girls who had already laid down to rest to get up and fold the quilt.
The girl asked "Do I have to fold the quilt too", and the answer was "If I don't fold it, I will deduct points".
In the end, the girl chose not to obey this meaningless formalism, telling the other party "Then you can deduct it".
Corresponding to the strict requirements of life, a small number of colleges and universities also have a relatively strict classroom learning system.
For example, in 2019, the "mobile phone before class" system piloted by Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine has caused widespread controversy.
Before class, students need to put their mobile phones in the storage bag corresponding to the student number and retrieve them after class.
In this way, it is mandatory for students to not be able to play with their mobile phones in class, and they can also see at a glance who did not come to class today and the mobile phone bag is empty.
A similar measure is the hot search today, "University classrooms require students to sit according to the seating chart".
The purpose is also to have good discipline in the classroom and to see at a glance who is absent from class.
Some colleges or majors even stipulate that students need to study on their own in the morning and evening, and some will let students be responsible for self-study checks.
On March 25, there was a video of students protesting against the strict management of self-study in a college in Changchun, in which students complained that "they can't put books on the desktop", "they can't let go", and "they can't lie on their stomachs when they're uncomfortable".
via @网易新闻
The dual supervision of students' study and life in some colleges and universities has also been further derived from the strict management of leave in and out of school.
Some require that students must report to the counselor or class teacher when entering and leaving the campus, and some require that parents must come forward when students ask for leave.
Yes, you read that right, parents are also required to take leave from college.
Some colleges or classes even asked to establish a parent group, which was ridiculed by netizens as "Zihan Literature" to enter the university: "Teacher, how can my Zihan not pass the fourth level." ”
According to @新京报, a student at a university in Beijing saw such information in the parent group through his father:
"Dear parents, the results of the CET-6 test have been released, and the results of my class rank first from the bottom of the school. English is related to the future entrance examination and employment, please be sure to remind students to strengthen their English learning!"
This made the junior feel angry and funny: "It's all college, why do you still use your grades to sue your parents?"
03
Turn college into high school
It's counterproductive
There are also many netizens who defended that the starting point of the school's regulations, including the ban on bed curtains, that college students complained about is good.
For example, for the sake of fire safety, the collection of mobile phones is to improve the learning concentration in the classroom, and the strict management of entering and leaving the school is for the personal safety of students.
From the perspective of some school administrators, these measures are less likely to go wrong and easier to "give an explanation to the parents of students".
However, the biggest problem with these measures is that they are too one-size-fits-all, the scope of control has lost a sense of boundaries, and a small number of regulations have even gone to the extreme of choking on food.
Instead of being an initiative to help students, it has given rise to a petty power environment that is prone to formalism.
Netizens made up many jokes about college formalism, such as the school calling parents in their 70s and asking if they knew that their 40-year-old Ph.D. son was living off-campus
Universities seem to have become nurseries rather than transitions for students from ivory towers to society.
Many of the initiatives exemplified above are usually implemented by university student counsellors.
In the early years, college counselors were mostly class mascots, delivering notifications to students, and sometimes answering questions and providing necessary help.
But now many college counselors are taking on the task of supervising studies, conducting admissions, and reviewing leave of absence.
This has led to a phenomenon in many colleges and universities that was not common in the past, where the relationship between some counselors and students is gradually becoming strained.
College students often complain that they are hindered and embarrassed by their counselors when they take time off.
Counselors are bitter about not strictly following school rules, fearing that they are to blame for what happens.
In the one-size-fits-all and rigid management model, responsibilities are stacked and transferred, and it is easy for the executor and the managed to fall into such an unsolvable and empty dilemma.
Man is no longer responsible for specific people, but only for empty regulations.
It is also easier to give rise to the so-called "within the scope of one's own minimum power, to make it difficult for others to the greatest extent".
The move to ban bed curtains actually acquiesces to a premise -
Students' privacy needs can be sacrificed to meet care management needs.
This premise does not regard college students as real adults, but as beings who lack self-awareness and cannot take responsibility for themselves, and as children who need to be managed by adults and can be manipulated at will.
Paradoxically, today's high-speed modern cities increasingly don't need 20-year-old giant babies.
For university students, perhaps learning to respect each other, manage their own lives, and have a sense of self-choice in the final collective life of their lives is a more important basic issue.