The Choice Channel

Some lessons our children learn at school are not found in the pages of textbooks or lesson planners. Some lessons go beyond the facts and figures we normally associate with institutional learning. How often has it been said that children are like little sponges that soak up knowledge from everything around them? How wonderful it is indeed to learn while things are as fresh and new as they are to a growing child. Adults, particularly parents, teachers and school administrators, should remember these simple truths always when dealing with today’s young people. Be ever mindful of what your children are learning from what you do to them, for those lessons are just as important as the ones held by textbooks and lesson planners doled out daily by the well-intentioned professionals of America’s school systems. Be careful we do not turn American pupils into prisoners of a government system that tries to do too much for too many.

“Melissa Galarneault’s fourth-grade class at Indian Mounds Elementary had just started a math quiz when the alert came over the loudspeaker: ‘Attention staff, this is a lockdown.’”

That was the lead-in of an April 5th report on CNN’s website entitled, “Fire drills give way to lockdown exercises.” What do you think Ms. Galarneault’s class learned at school that day? Did the students remember the answers to the math quiz that was so abruptly interrupted by the announcement of a “lockdown?” Or, did they learn that they are subjected to the same treatment that convicted felons must endure every day in American prisons? Did the children notice that what came across the loudspeaker that day was a line that can be heard in practically every prison movie or jail scene ever produced? Yes, what did Melissa Galarneault’s fourth-grade class in Minnesota learn at school that day?

“The 20 children instantly dropped their pencils, sprang from their desks, scrambled to the front of the classroom and sat silently on the floor. Galarneault rushed to the doorway, dimmed the lights, scanned the hall for stragglers and pulled the locked door shut. She checked to make sure the blinds were drawn, and then joined the huddled youngsters until a coded, all-clear message was sounded over the intercom.”

According to the CNN report, that is what all of the children at Indian Mounds Elementary School learned that day. The whole incident lasted only about four minutes, and they were careful to point out that this was just a “drill.” Apparently lockdown drills are becoming commonplace in school systems all across the country in response to “…terrorism fears and school shootings like the one at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.” If some Minnesota legislators have their way school children will be required, by law, to undergo lockdowns no less than five times a year. For children spending their whole academic life in the public schools of Minnesota that would mean being in a lockdown at least sixty times before they graduate high school.

So, we teach our children that in order for them to be safe at school we must treat them like common criminals in jail? If school is that dangerous of a place to be, why would you send your precious little ones there in the first place? How many of those little minds are asking, “Why do Mom and Dad send us to such a dangerous place every day?” What do they really learn if we treat them like prisoners even if it is for their own good?

Now I know many of you are sitting there saying, “What’s the big deal? I think it is great that the leaders of our schools are trying to make them safer places for our children to learn and grow.” Of course, who could be against that? I am all for making this nation’s schools safe havens of learning and growing. But we still must realize, and take responsibility for, the way our children learn by how they are treated. I mean, it would be fine if we could trust the good intentions of government bureaucrats. It would be wonderful if we could trust them to administer something like lockdowns responsibly and not over step the boundaries they themselves set for such programs. But alas, it is not to be. They cannot be trusted to act responsibly. How do I know? CNN told me so, a mere twelve days after the original report from Minnesota was published.

On April 17th CNN published the news in a report entitled, “Buckets used as bathrooms during school lockdown.” The opening sentence of the article really says it all:

“A principal trying to prevent walkouts during immigration rallies inadvertently introduced a lockdown so strict that children weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom, and instead had to use buckets in the classroom, an official said.”

Let’s be clear about this. This was not a drill. This was the real deal. According to CNN, Worthington Elementary School Principal Angie Marquez imposed a lockdown on March 27th so strict that students were forced to use buckets if they had to relieve themselves. Was she trying to save student lives? Well, no. Was there a crazed gunman running loose on the campus firing an automatic weapon at anything and everything that moved? Nope, not this time. Had the California principal received a report of an imminent terrorist attack? Not even close. Angie Marquez initiated the most severe type of lockdown in the “handbook,” designed for nuclear attacks, to prevent her students from going to a protest. In other words, she wasn’t trying to save their lives; but rather, she was keeping them from doing something she didn’t think they should do. (In my opinion she also violated all of her students’ Constitutional right of free speech, but perhaps I’ll leave that topic for another day.)

Hey! Don’t we lockdown criminals to keep them from doing things we don’t think they should do? Well, at least the criminals got a trial first. Principal Marquez’s pupils didn’t have the luxury of a trial. Heck, they didn’t even have to do anything wrong. All that was required for them to be in lockdown was the fear by someone in charge that they “might” do something. You cannot tell those children that lockdowns are just for their own good. You cannot expect those children to believe that lockdowns are only done to protect them. Not anymore you can’t. It is a lie. They have learned well, I promise you. They have learned that people in positions of authority lie. They also learned that they are nothing more than prisoners in their own school who serve their sentences at the whim of an over-zealous warden, I mean principal. These cannot be considered valuable lessons for growing children.

We have to be aware that children learn from what we do to them as much as they learn from what we tell them. I am reminded of the old adage my own Mother must have repeated to us a thousand times when we were young, “Actions speak louder than words.” It may be cliché, it may be trite, but it is nonetheless true. It will not matter how often you tell a child he or she is a pupil if you treat that child like a prisoner when they are at school. When programs they are told are designed for their own protection wind up being used to violate their most sacred rights, what do you think it teaches them? Children will always learn more from your actions than they will from the things that you tell them, especially when what you do is so very different from what they are told.