PUNISHED FOR SILENCE

‘What was I supposed to do?!’, my son exclaimed as I asked for the backstory. We sat at the table and I listened as he explained, as the only thing I knew thus far was that he was asked to go see the assistant principal.

It is Tuesday. The day after another school holiday. And as soon as my son gets to his class, his art teacher requested to speak to him.

It was not the teacher asking about what my son did for the three-day weekend or how he was feeling in general. It was to confront him about an accusation from a girl in his class. I am certain even most adults in such a situation would feel defensive and attacked.

‘She sits directly ahead of me. If I look to the left or right, there’s other girls. Am I supposed to keep my head down?!’, my son continued to tell me.

The story was that a girl in his art class reported him on Friday for looking at her. Stating that she felt ‘uncomfortable’. My son saw this as her being insecure. I immediately saw this as the start of what women are able to do to men when they falsely accuse them of things and then men bear the blame for whatever women do – whether or not it is true.

Yet again, my son is caught up in another case of standing up for himself. Of believing that he has a right to choose to stay silent. And now being punished for silence.

After two failed attempts at getting him to come to the office, he was sent a threatening letter from the principal. The same principal who last year told me that he didn’t care if I was terminally ill, in reference to my saying that I would be unable to drive my son to LEO – the alternative school.

The letter threatened to send him to LEO, again, if he did not come down to the office immediately. After having listened to me last year, when I told him to stand up for himself, and then walking off the school ground and subsequently having been chased by another assistant principal and then getting sent to LEO for five weeks due to insubordination, my son complied with the threat from the principal and walked down to the office today.

He did not, however, speak a word. Instead, he wrote ‘I have a right to be silent’ on a piece of paper. When they threatened to keep him on campus after school hours, my son informed them that it was illegal. Again, writing the words down on paper. A paper which they then took from him as ‘evidence’.

I had not checked my emails during the day and thus did not see the one titled ‘Please Read’ from the assistant principal. The email which explained how my son refused to come to the office.

I chose not to respond, especially after the incident before the last one, with my ‘choice’ words to her over the phone about her interfering with my work day. That was on a Thursday, my busiest day, and she went on and on about yet another incident with my son. The one before the bullying incident, I believe. I am losing track of all the calls and emails. But they have been on a weekly basis.

Apparently, the school is not able to handle someone who is not ‘moldable’ to their standards. Wanting instead to make robots out of children. Of stripping them from all creativity and thoughts of their own. Of their right to be silent, when they wouldn’t listen to their words anyway.

‘Making bad choices?’, my son heard the principal’s snippy comment as he walked out of the building. What a ‘great’ example we have of someone in power who chooses to use it for his pleasure. It’s no wonder that children feel helpless in a world filled with abuse. Choosing instead to be silent, even if it means being punished for it.