“How safe is your high schooler?” demanded the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle on yesterday’s front page. Predictably, the ensuing article didn’t exactly beg for inclusion in an upcoming Chicken Soup for the Soul. “The good news,” we learned, “is that there were no homicides or kidnappings in any Monroe County high school last year.” That sounded promising.
But I’m not sure which was worse, the statistics or the solutions. Or, for that matter, the attitude of the reporters. One model school scrutinizes young American citizens under 42 hallway surveillance cameras and employs 8 hall monitors to hurry them between classes. The writers called this being “proactive to keep the peace.” Peace? Sprinting past security cameras? Given this approach, there’d be even more “peace” if students were strapped to guerneys and wheeled between classes. And it would make more jobs.
But if educators and reporters might be asked to elaborate further on their idea of a safe learning environment, at least these writers were clear on why we need that safety. I would have thought it was kind of a given that you don’t want kids getting sexually assaulted, but according to the Democrat and Chronicle, there’s actually a very special reason. As a sidebar on the front page explained:
What’s at stake: The safety of students while they’re at school. If kids aren’t safe, or don’t feel they’re safe, it interferes with their ability to learn, educational experts say.Yes, that’s a quote from the front page of a major city newspaper. If kids aren’t safe, it interferes with their ability to learn. Thanks for clarifying that. It might also interfere with their ability to enjoy life, respect themselves, make friends, keep their virginity, or walk home on both legs, but these are surely minor tangents. The point is that safety, at least running-between-classes kind of safety, is necessary to ace those SATs. Let’s buy more cameras. And don’t you go saying that the daily threat of gang violence doesn’t make it harder to get good grades. Educational experts said it does. I’d never have guessed, personally. What I really want to know is, did someone go ask these experts? What other wisdom do they have to offer? Maybe next week we’ll find out whether falling off a cliff would interfere with the ability to learn. As a layman, I have my intuitions.
