The Dim Bulb

The Occasional Musings of an Educator

by Michael Keany

The brain is capable of performing 10 quadrillion (that’s 10 to the 16th) “calculations,” or synaptic events, per second using only about 15 watts of power. At this rate, a computer as powerful as the human brain would require 1 gigawatt of power. Maybe a dim bulb isn't really as dim as it seems.

The photo at the left is the Livermore Centennial bulb, the world's longest burning electric bulb. 

Number 9

April 17, 2014

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Principals:  Have Some Self-Respect Please!

Lately, I’ve noticed a rash of news stories in which school principals sacrifice themselves to some degrading spectacle, all in the name of rewarding students for some achievement or to foster support of a worthwhile charity.  For example, there was the elementary school principal who allowed students who had read a certain number of books to take aim at him with whipped-cream pies.  Another was the high school principal who allowed himself to be duct-taped to a school wall as a fund raiser for a national charity.  (Students paid $1 for a length of tape.)

Why does this bother the heck out of me?  I applaud these principals for what I assume they thought was an unselfish act to support students striving for a worthwhile goal.  However, there are several things about this practice that make me wince.

1.  Since when do we teach students that a reward for effort or charity is the degrading of someone else?  I could see the same principals handing out disciplinary consequences to students who participated in such behavior toward their peers as prime examples of bullying or hazing.  If it’s wrong to demean someone, it’s also wrong to demean someone even though you read a hundred books or contributed to the American Cancer Society.  It’s also wrong to demean someone even if they give you permission to demean him or her.  By the way, doesn’t reading and contributing to a charity have its own intrinsic reward?

2.   Principals should hold a position of respect in schools.  It’s part of how they lead.  When you are taped to the hallway wall, slammed in the face by a pie, or dunked in a tank of water, it’s hard to maintain that level of respect.  I never see newspaper accounts of physicians, attorneys, engineers, or politicians participating in such activities.  We would never think of asking our local pediatrician to subject himself or herself to such goofiness.  “Oh, come on Doc, the kids would love to get back at you for all the needles you gave them.  And besides, it’s for a good cause!”  I don’t think so.  Why?  Because we have too much respect for those community leaders.  (Politicians? Umm ...)  No, even politicians deserve our respect because eventhough we may disagree with them, we owe them respect for the office they hold.  Indeed, every person deserves our respect.  Isn’t that what we teach in school?

3.  Many of you know that I’m a bit of a circus history buff.  In circus sideshows of decades ago in an era where we are not as sensitive as we are today, there was often a booth where you could throw baseballs at a human being as he dodged out of the way.  This mutated into the dunk tank where a well-aimed ball would cause the hapless victim to fall in a tank of water.  Often the person who was put in these situations was mentally deficient or a member of a minority racial or ethnic group.  The parallels between this sorry practice and this "good fun” in today’s schools are all too clear to me.

4.  Students have a difficult job separating fun from harm under normal circumstances. Often when I was a principal, students who had just engaged in some idiotic transgression used the “We meant no harm.  It was just a prank,” defense.  Every prank has a consequence.  If it hurts someone physically, or emotionally, it’s not harmless.  Why is it all right to tape the principal to the wall and it’s not all right to tape the rookie on the football team to the goal post after practice? As a person of advanced years, I disapprove of both but I can see shades of difference.  Kids often can’t.  It’s a short trip from good-natured laughter to the cutting laughter of degradation. 

Schools should be places of respect.  Respect for everyone.  Let’s for one moment engage in a thought experiment.  Suppose a group of students proposed that the class valedictorian be the subject of a wall-taping, the target of pie-throwing, or the victim in a dunk tank.  Let us further suppose that the valedictorian, for whatever reason, agreed.  Can you see the trouble the principal could get into if he or she agreed to this?  Lawyers would be lined up around the block!

Please principals (and teachers too, of course) have some self-respect.  It’s important to the crucial work that you do.

I’d love to hear your comments on this topic.