Punishment for peace

I don't know about you, but a senior prank is sticking a Volkswagen in the principal's office.  Not planting a garden in the student courtyard.

The fact that the garden was in the shape of a peace sign makes it less a prank than a statement of conscience, and a mature one at that.  Who doesn't want peace?  Isn't that a good thing?  Or do we want our children graduating from high school clamoring for the blood of our enemies? 

I think not.

Perhaps school officials should have asked for the help of military recruiters, now welcome in our high schools, to help "repair" the damage done to the school's lawn.  At least that way students would see clearly that the military promotes war, not peace, and not educational opportunity. 

Comments

[Mary Kusaka]

Terry, you may be right in most of what you said here, but if this is "a statement of conscience, and a mature one at that," then why did only one student step forward to take responsibility? Where is the "conscience" of all the others who participated? Doesn't a "statement of conscience" mean that your belief in the rightness of your cause is so strong that you are willing to take the consequences of your actions, regardless of what those consequences might be?

I believe that is why this incident has been relegated to the "prank" category: "pranks" are anonymous; "statements of conscience" are not.

[Terry]

Perhaps, Mary. I think the ringleader of the "prank" fessed up, though, with a fairly eloquent defense of the actions of the peace group.

If I had been the school principal, I might have convened a school assembly and put the "peace garden" to a vote. The threats came first, unfortunately.