Nine- and 10-year-old children recently left Scotland’s Camden Primary School crying. The school’s administration was not the one lending a helping hand in the children’s distraught state. Instead, the school was the cause of the children’s tears, instructing the prepubescent students to draw a picture of a loved one that had just died and showing them clips of children talking about deceased relatives.
Upon complaints from parents, Camden defended its decision, citing curriculum and these instructions as ways to teach students ways to cope with grief.
I fully support schools trying to help children through emotions they may not know how to deal with. My only problem is that parents were not notified before their children were subjected to such ridiculous measures of “teaching."
School administrations need to check their egos at the door. Or, to put it in better terms, think twice when other’s kids walk through the door.
Administrations have the power to ingratiate enough knowledge within students to advance to the next grade level. However, they also have an obligation with that power.
Parents, as the most important people in a child’s life, need complete and total notification of what their children are being subjected to in an educational system.
Just take a glance at a recent shooting in Roanoke, Virginia, which left several schools within the area under a modified lockdown. This is typical protocol for these types of things.
What isn’t typical is that these same schools chose not to notify any parents of the situation until after the lockdown was over.
Parents need and deserve the right to know of potential danger in the area with their children at risk.
Schools are on a power trip in this day and age, fully believing in this false authority that seems to ooze from administrations.
A public figure needs to show some of these school administrations and head honchos that students need to be treated as students. There is no reason parenting or parenting decisions should be made for the student within those school walls. Leave that for the parent at home.
“@andersoncooper: Should high schools hand out birth control and plan b pills without notifying parents. NOOO they should NOT #AndersonLive
— Denise Uraga (@duragafuentes) September 24, 2012
No case exemplifies this better than a recent situation at a Seattle high school. Chief Sealth International High School now offers services to its female students involving implanting intrauterine devices (IUD), without having to use their parents health insurance.
In each of these cases, there lies one common denominator: These schools are stepping over a line, they shouldn’t even be near in the first place. It needs to end.
Related Links:
Editorial: The Columbine Generation
Reach the columnist at spencerhann1995@gmail.com or follow @spencer_hann on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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