The Silken Tent -- The Soul Ajar

May 3, 2005 Tuesday My local newspaper, the Patriot-News, the one I'm always disparaging for (among other things) their inability to distinguish between "who" and "whom" (or to distinguish correctly) and for their printing of unedited reader-prepared obituaries, published a letter from me today. About ten days ago some middle school students in a college town not far from here were caught sharing vodka-laced cranberry juice on the school bus. Concerned peers who knew about the activity alerted some teachers, who intervened swiftly. They determined that the vodka had been obtained surreptitiously, not provided by a complicit adult. Although some of the substance was consumed, nobody got sick. Underage drinking, especially among children so young, is a serious matter. Youngsters who come from families who teach and practice conservative attitudes about drinking are nevertheless exposed to popular culture ideas and images that present getting drunk as a rite of passage. A college town has some additional problems, since some of its temporary residents who are of legal age often act irresponsibly when it comes to alcohol, calling attention to themselves with rude behavior or supplying alcohol to their 19- and 20-year old classmates. The adults who investigated and adjudicated this incident should be applauded for demonstrating a willingness to take the matter seriously and not shrug it off as an example of kids being kids. The students were suspended from school (a requirement of the district's drug use policy). The matter was then referred to a county youth aid panel charged with determining further punishment or rehabilitation. They considered imposing a fine, but, probably knowing that even a small sum would not be extracted from middle schoolers' allowances but be paid directly by their parents, they directed that the youngsters write essays about the deleterious effects of drinking. Sigh. Here's my letter: The Lamberton Middle School students recently charged with under-age drinking "have been suspended and probably will have to write essays as part of their punishment." This assignment will likely come from the Cumberland County Youth Aid Panel in the hope that writing about drinking and its effects will give the youngsters "a little more education than they've already had on substance abuse and peer pressure." I hope that the panel reconsiders the essay as a means of punishment. For more than twenty years, the National Council of Teachers of English has tried to discourage the use of writing in this way. Using writing for punishment distorts the principles and defeats the purpose of instruction in this important life skill and causes students to dislike an activity necessary to their intellectual development and career success. In all likelihood the panel went ahead with its recommendation and the youngsters spent part of last weekend working on their essays. I doubt that their research, which surely must have been superficial and confined to the first three hits Google produced from the string "underage drinking," told them anything they didn't already know about alcohol consumption and abuse. I wonder if anybody actually read their essays, and what they did with them afterwards. For the record, I don't know what the answer is, and I don't know what I would have done were I a member of the county panel. Ironically, the same morning that I read the article and wrote the letter, I undertook a rereading of the novel at the heart of my longing to go to Wyoming. Mary O'Hara's My Friend Flicka opens with a scene of young Ken McLaughlin riding alone on his father's property one summer morning. His school term in Laramie has just ended, and he knows that at breakfast he will have to face the consequences of his not having done well, especially in English. He's failed the class, in part because his dreaminess makes him spend the whole writing portion of the exam deciding what to write about, so that he never actually writes anything. His stern and unforgiving father determines that the youngster will spend each morning over the next months not breathing the air and the light of a Wyoming summer, but confined to his room, writing. The first time I read Flicka I was a dreamy ten-year-old with my nose in a book more often than not. And I was already writing, mostly modernized versions of plots I stole from Louisa May Alcott and the Bobbsey Twins books. (I was always the main character, always the girl half of a set of twins that went around having adventures and solving mysteries.) But even then I was sad for Ken. Nearly fifty years later, I still am.

May 3, 2005
Tuesday

My local newspaper, the Patriot-News, the one I'm always disparaging for (among other things) their inability to distinguish between "who" and "whom" (or to distinguish correctly) and for their printing of unedited reader-prepared obituaries, published a letter from me today.

About ten days ago some middle school students in a college town not far from here were caught sharing vodka-laced cranberry juice on the school bus. Concerned peers who knew about the activity alerted some teachers, who intervened swiftly. They determined that the vodka had been obtained surreptitiously, not provided by a complicit adult. Although some of the substance was consumed, nobody got sick.

Underage drinking, especially among children so young, is a serious matter. Youngsters who come from families who teach and practice conservative attitudes about drinking are nevertheless exposed to popular culture ideas and images that present getting drunk as a rite of passage. A college town has some additional problems, since some of its temporary residents who are of legal age often act irresponsibly when it comes to alcohol, calling attention to themselves with rude behavior or supplying alcohol to their 19- and 20-year old classmates. The adults who investigated and adjudicated this incident should be applauded for demonstrating a willingness to take the matter seriously and not shrug it off as an example of kids being kids.

The students were suspended from school (a requirement of the district's drug use policy). The matter was then referred to a county youth aid panel charged with determining further punishment or rehabilitation. They considered imposing a fine, but, probably knowing that even a small sum would not be extracted from middle schoolers' allowances but be paid directly by their parents, they directed that the youngsters write essays about the deleterious effects of drinking.

Sigh.

Here's my letter:

The Lamberton Middle School students recently charged with under-age drinking "have been suspended and probably will have to write essays as part of their punishment." This assignment will likely come from the Cumberland County Youth Aid Panel in the hope that writing about drinking and its effects will give the youngsters "a little more education than they've already had on substance abuse and peer pressure."

I hope that the panel reconsiders the essay as a means of punishment. For more than twenty years, the National Council of Teachers of English has tried to discourage the use of writing in this way. Using writing for punishment distorts the principles and defeats the purpose of instruction in this important life skill and causes students to dislike an activity necessary to their intellectual development and career success.

In all likelihood the panel went ahead with its recommendation and the youngsters spent part of last weekend working on their essays. I doubt that their research, which surely must have been superficial and confined to the first three hits Google produced from the string "underage drinking," told them anything they didn't already know about alcohol consumption and abuse. I wonder if anybody actually read their essays, and what they did with them afterwards.

For the record, I don't know what the answer is, and I don't know what I would have done were I a member of the county panel. Ironically, the same morning that I read the article and wrote the letter, I undertook a rereading of the novel at the heart of my longing to go to Wyoming.

Mary O'Hara's My Friend Flicka opens with a scene of young Ken McLaughlin riding alone on his father's property one summer morning. His school term in Laramie has just ended, and he knows that at breakfast he will have to face the consequences of his not having done well, especially in English. He's failed the class, in part because his dreaminess makes him spend the whole writing portion of the exam deciding what to write about, so that he never actually writes anything. His stern and unforgiving father determines that the youngster will spend each morning over the next months not breathing the air and the light of a Wyoming summer, but confined to his room, writing.

The first time I read Flicka I was a dreamy ten-year-old with my nose in a book more often than not. And I was already writing, mostly modernized versions of plots I stole from Louisa May Alcott and the Bobbsey Twins books. (I was always the main character, always the girl half of a set of twins that went around having adventures and solving mysteries.) But even then I was sad for Ken. Nearly fifty years later, I still am.