I thought the superstition that people can control you by knowing your
true name had died
out long ago. But no, apparently it's alive and well and lurking
in the staff of NLSS. When The
Eagle Spirit asked the office for a list of teachers, for fund-raising
purposes, we were met, initially,
with flat refusal.
When a list was finally surrendered, after
a lot of unnecessary aggravation, it came with
explicit instructions to return it and not to photocopy it. Who
do they think they're fooling? The
list was nothing we couldn't come up with on our own. Asking
for it was merely a time saving
measure.
The sheer stupidity of the act is not what
confuses me. I'm so used to seeing screw up
after screw up in education that I can accept the fact that the staff
is so dense they believe we're all
too stupid to know the names of more than four teachers. What
I'm having a problem discovering
is the motives behind this act of useless secrecy.
It's not as though we don't have a right to
know who's teaching us. We all pay taxes (if
not income then you're still gouged whenever you buy practically anything
other than bread or
milk), and therefore contribute to their salaries. And, as
students, don't teachers work for us? I
know this is true only on paper and not in practice, but censoring
the list is another example of
how teachers take so much stock in what's on paper. Why are our
rights the exception to this
rule?
Possibly, though unlikely, this attempt at
an anonymous staff is a prelude to the days when
all our lessons are given over the PA, and the only authority figures
in the classroom of two-
hundred restrained students are twenty large men wearing ski-masks
and carrying nightsticks and
pepper spray. It's not that I don't see education going this
way, I just don't see withholding the
list as a significant part of this conspiracy.
More likely, this is merely about control.
Most of you will agree that teachers are control
freaks. Control is one of the perks of the job. Withholding
the list could merely be another
example of their infinite power trip.
Or is it just a way to alienate the school
paper? We seem to be a prime target of late.
Could it be just another way to alienate Roslyn
Fuller, our editor? She seems to be a prime
target all the time.
The answer that seems most probable is that
any list from the office would be an official
record, and they want as few official records of their career as possible.
If the teachers of this
school were truly proud of what they do, they'd want to tell the world.
They would demand that
such a list be openly distributed. But that isn't the case.
Apparently, their fear of exposure has
made them so deranged that they think having no official record will
keep the word from getting
out. They simply don't want to admit what they do for a living.
And the way education is sliding
in our society, I can't say as I blame them. If I were a teacher, I'd
be ashamed to admit it too.
Author's Note: This article did more than just enrage a few teachers,
it eventually lead to the truth
behind this illogical regulation. During the "discussion" I had
with Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Fich
about this article, I was told this is a ministry policy and not a
school policy.
It's interesting that the school has violated
this policy both by eventually showing a list
and by having a picture of each staff member in the main foyer.
Why were they so reluctant to break it again
in this case? Mr. Fich revealed in his
statement "I have left instructions with the office that Roslyn is
not to be given anything she asks
for." So, at least one of the reasons I suggested