The Principal of the Thing
I remember being at Thomas Harrison Middle School after a dance two years
ago, and chatting with a couple of assistant principals in the hall while the
place cleared out.
To paraphrase Alan Jay Lerner, I could have chatted all night. The principals
were both interesting, hard-working individuals with a perspective that was
useful to me in making decisions about education funding. But it was apparent
that even though they’d worked a full day and chaperoned a dance, they were
still heading back to the office for more work before they went home, and every
minute I held them up was one taken away from their families.
So when I read in Saturday’s paper that these people were pursuing a radical
agenda to harm our children and convert them to a deviant lifestyle, my first
thought was: Where would they find the time? The only thing that keeps the
accusation from being funny is the possibility that someone might believe it.
(One principal’s name outed him as a Brethren, by the way, and the other I knew
was Catholic -- hardly left-wing churches.)
I recall hearing a statistic during a recent campaign that as few as 1 in 8
voters has a child in public schools. That would mean that 7 in 8 voters don’t
know that the city’s school principals arrive early and leave late. Most people
don’t watch as they each man-age dozens of dedicated but strong-willed teachers,
nor do most folks have cause to consider that principals deal more often with
discipline problems and disruptions than with the bright, hard-working kids who
make education fun.
Our principals are still trying to get students to wipe their feet when they
come in the door. If they were going to drive anything from children’s lives, if
would probably be baseball caps and gang jackets.
But those 7 in 8 voters who don’t see the schools may not know that. They may
not know that our principals are members of the community, church-goers,
taxpayers, home-owners and parents.
They may instead, unfortunately, get their information from an all-but-announced
candidate for the General Assembly, who, for whatever reason, is not identified
that way by the local media. I’m willing to reserve judgment on whether the
recent attack on our principals is a cynical political ploy by someone who
watched President Bush win reelection partially on a platform of values, and is
now trying to find emotional buttons to push in the Valley that can bring
similar success.
Regardless, motivations in this case matter less in the short run than possible
out-comes, and the worst outcome in this case might be the loss of the Gay and
Straight Alliance at Harrisonburg High School.
It is astonishing that a word with only three letters could carry so much
baggage. Say “gay” to some folks and they picture people with AIDS joining in
same-sex marriages and undermining the Judeo-Christian heritage. But the word
means something a lot different to a teen-ager who’s starting to develop strange
feelings.
The hormonal surges of adolescence are discomfiting, to say the least, for every
child. And in a culture where many teens band together, wearing the same clothes
and hoping to drive the same cars, in a bid to fight confusion by belonging,
there is nothing worse for any child than to be unable to belong anywhere.
The teen developing gay feelings bears first the isolation of knowing he or she
is different. Next is the helplessness of having no way to know who among the
peer group might feel the same. Next is the vulnerability of knowing that
openness and honesty about the difference might lead to charges of weakness,
oddity and sin.
Students at HHS have formed a club to make these students feel less isolated,
helpless and vulnerable. I think it’s fair to question the Christian values of
anyone who would say that’s a bad thing.
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