The Education Wonks
Not one adult thought that this was a poor idea. Not one adult refused to participate?
What a terrible comment on our educatators.
People with poor judgement should not be teachers. Period. Principal Stephens needs to consider that as she prepares next year's contracts.
What about the reaction of the parents? Maybe it was just undereported, but I hear no outrage. Just the opposite -- if the assistant principal loses his job, I will break into tears.
This wasn't just poor judgment or a stunt that went to far. They terrorized these students. Yet, the tone of the principal sets it up so that any parent who doesn't "forgive" will end up being the one who is shamed by the community.
Sadly, not unbelievable.
You ask a great question - what were they thinking? As an interventionist what I know is that people do what they are trained to do. The training we have shapes our belief systems. In most American lives today the most consistent trainer is the Television. The TV trains our minds, our attitudes and even our beliefs on a regular basis.
An event that occurs regularly in all levels of public education before college is something called a "lockdown". Schools who participate in these "training exercises" for federal agents are giving thinly veiled bribes in the form of grants. I don't know the details of this particular school the children and teachers are from but I do know that controlling school-aged children through government sponsored terror is now an "acceptable" process by many school boards.
My point being that in the teachers' minds it's very likely what they did seemed "acceptable" because it is happening in many different forms all over our country in the realm of public education. The sad thing about this event and all the related events that makes this seem acceptable to teachers is that "locksdowns" and control of civilians in their own community by federal law enforcement is ILLEGAL. The Posse Comitatus Act and The Insurrection Act are two sources you can look up for a more specific understanding of how this works.
I don't disagree that these teachers and school administrators should be held responsible for terrorizing children on a field trip AND they are just the symptom. If these parents of these children were smart - they would use this event to strong-arm the school boards in their area to quit taking bribes from the feds to turn our children into federally trained cattle that aren't raised in some semblance of the balance between their inalienable rights as U.S. Citizens and a safe classroom.
Whoa! Reading Mr. Burn's comments, I wonder if he's seeing black helicopters as well. Perhaps I just live in a reality where the sinister federal machinations he is seeing just don't occur.
I'm afraid, also, that he's misrepresenting the Posse Comitatus Act which prohibits the military from engaging in civilian law enforcement duties--a good thing, by the way. Hardly the same thing as local schools engaging in "lockdowns" in reponse to possible armed threats. While such lockdowns may be of limited utility and are far from the most effective means of dealing with armed attacks, they have nothing whatever to do with governmental intrusion on our liberties. If anyone knows of specific federal agencies engaging in nefarious activities in the schools, let's have names, places, dates, etc.
Perhaps those involved in this situation were well-intentioned, but, judging only by the account I've read here, they certainly have no idea of tactical thinking and are obviously incompetent to plan, run or be involved in such exercises. One can only wonder what possible objective they had in mind: To teach children that they could be killed by an armed gunman? To teach them that they are helpless victims whose adult protector's only reponse will be to duck and cover? The mind boggles.
Of course, we don't know all of the facts, but on first reading "don't do that again," seems a bit pale.
Since the teachers were acting as terrorists, any way that they could be treated as such, legally?
Only sounds fair to me.
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