Editorials

Here at Allderdice we have many rules. Some of these rules are explicitly explained to the student body; some of them are well understood because we know how the school system works, while some are understood because we are social creatures and we know how other people work. You go to the class you're supposed to go to, because it's on your schedule. You do your homework because your teacher tells you to, or because you'll get a bad grade if you don't. You abide by the rules because you believe in them, or you fear the consequences.

There are just rules, however. Obviously, not everyone follows them all the time, and chances are, at one point or another, everyone has broken some of the rules (some more than others).

The simple fact is that rule-breaking is just what people do. No amount of authoritarianism will change that. Members of the school staff are often guilty of breaking the unwritten rules to which students are generally more adherent.

Take, for example, humiliation. In modern society, public humiliation is a form of rule-breaking. That rule isn't written in any book, but it's something we all understand. History classes will teach you that public humiliation used to be not only a social norm, but a legal obligation. Fortunately, however, we aren't Puritans, so that doesn't apply. Yet, when a student misbehaves, we all--everyone within hearing range--are subjected to that student's conviction. We all know immediately who it is, because his or her name is announced so eloquently on the intercom, and by the end of the day we all know what he or she did, because we know someone who knows someone who knows the student involved. It isn't our job to know these kinds of things, and as school administrators, it isn't their job to tell us. That information is juicy, no doubt, and makes for great gossip, but the school is not a soap opera. If the powers that be want to accomplish the main goal in coming to school everyday, they should take the time to find the student themselves, which apparently is harder than it appears, rather than subject us to that student's search and seizure. The rest of the school is trying to get on with their education.

 

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The Unwritten Rule Book

The Allderdice Foreword

An Award Wining Publication