I really hate to do this, but some folk who don't know me might read this, so I need to put a preamble on today's STTA. If you do know me, you can skip to the black font if you want.
- This is the fourth in a four-part series. You need to see the other three posts for this one to make sense. (Scroll down to the March 5 post and start there.)
- I'm a long way from being a political activist. In fact I try to keep the church out of anything associated with partisan politics.
- I am a supporter of public education. While I am also a supporter of home, and private education, I realize that without a strong public system many (most) of our youngsters will grow up uneducated.
I want to make a couple of observations and suggestions. I hope that parents will responsibly and creatively put them to use.
Bureaucracy produced, zero-tolerance rules make zero sense. We should quit acting as if they do.
The Prophet Micah gave us one of the great ethical statements of all time:
Do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God.
(Micah 6:8)
Unlike the various zero-tolerance policies there is an inherent tension in Micah's words. Is this a time when my emphasis ought to be justice, or should kindness (mercy) be shown? And wrap all of that in humility--rather than the incredible bureaucratic hubris that says "I've got every possible scenario covered with my one simple rule."
No, you don't!
In Jesus day the Pharisees were the zero-tolerance guys. In Jesus grace and truth are found. Let's not be on the wrong side. (See here for an example of the conflict.)
We create zero-tolerance policies to remove unfairness, and to make an absolute statement against something our system decides is intolerable.
- We correctly identify that drugs are a problem among young people, so we create a zero-tolerance policy that will suspend a seventeen year old, who we trust to operate an automobile and cook our supper at the local burger-joint, for having an aspirin in his backpack.
- We conclude that students in school need to get along, so we write a zero-tolerance rule that causes a young man who saves his classmate's life to be suspended for three days.
- We conclude that guns are bad (a debatable concept, to say the least) and so we throw kids out of class for chewing pop-tarts into the shape of a gun.
As parents we should have zero-tolerance for such idiocy.
More and more school systems act as if children belong to them.
It's not that long ago. My son, a good student, wanted to go deer hunting in the mornings of deer season. To do so he would miss a class at High School. "Son, as long as your grades are ok, I don't care."
Several days later:
"ring-ring"
"This is Mr. Smith, Chad's absolutely essential class teacher. Do you know that Chad hasn't been in class for the past five days?"
"Yes."
(Surprise on the other end.)
"How are his grades?"
"He's doing OK."
"Let me know when he isn't."
That is a truncated version of the conversation, but the gist is there. This is my son, and forgive me Mr. Teacher, butI need to decide how he should best send his November mornings. He has shown himself responsible enough to make this choice. He has earned the right, and besides that I like venison and don't hunt myself.
"But," the educational bureaucracy objects, "If we allow that, some kids just won't come to school at all. Yes, and I'm willing to work with you to address that. What I am not prepared to do is to zero-tolerate responsible students and parents into a corner that makes zero sense.
OK, if this were were a sermon it would be 12:15. I need to quit. A couple of suggestions:
To the parents of Arundel County Maryland. Bake every cookie for every party, back sale, and reception in the shape of a revolver. Use jelly-beans for bullets. Make sure every P,B&J sandwich is in the shape of gun. Force the zero-tolerance enforcers to reduce the head count in every class to zero.
To the parents in Florida: Tell the system that you have zero-tolerance for a system that is so intolerant of good sense that it cannot tell the difference between a kid who is starting a fight and one who is saving a life. In honor of the gun-snatcher's heroism declare a three-day holiday. When the zero-tolerant types say the three days have to be made up, declare another one. Let the bureaucracy know that you have zero-tolerance for a system that punishes good behavior.
To parents everywhere: Stop tolerating a system that lays claim to our children. The schools exist to help us educate our children. Let the system know that we have zero tolerance for a bureaucracy that doesn't understand that.
It's STTA.
We can all take comfort in knowing that our schools are being kept safe from deadly weapons, like the one pictured to the left. I only hope that Al-Qaeda doesn't figure out how to gnaw bread into atomic weapons! I likewise hope that Arundel County, Maryland, officials are conducting sufficient investigation to find out whether this pastry-based killing machine has a high capacity magazine. We have to put a stop to such things.
mean, after all, these things are invisible to metal detectors--we can't leave disarming bad guys to mere mortals. Such work must be left to professionals--people with the keen eye and steely nerves that enable them to tell the difference between breakfast and terrorist threats. In Florida a young man observed a classmate pointing a 22 revolver--non-pastry version--at another student. The report is that rather than threatening to eat the revolver the young man was threatening to shoot his fellow bus-rider. Not realizing that gun-removal, pastry or steel, must be left to professionals, the young man stepped in and wrestled the gun away from the would-be shooter. Fortunately no people were harmed or toaster-pastries chewed. In order to discourage