Breaking the ‘Law’ at School

In recent years a furor has been raised concerning public education in this country. The public education system and its minions, the teachers, are to blame for every mistake graduates make. Is a child’s education limited to the classroom? Does a young individual learn nowhere else? What educational lesson was taught to a recent “graduate” in Commissioner Eleanor M. Palk’s courtroom?

A young graduate of Villa Park High School recently learned that he could (a) break the law and escape the consequences, and (b) could abrogate a contract and not be held liable.

High school is supposedly a “training ground” for the real thing, for life. The rules and regulations of the school represent the laws of the real world, and the observance of school regulations carries the same sense of obligation. School regulations direct a student to be in class on time with the same authority and sense of consequences as “Thou shalt not exceed the posted speed limit,” or “Thou shalt not commit forgery.” Violation of school regulations or “laws” carries with it a consequence just as a violation of a statute.

When a student at Villa Park High School exceeds a certain number of class absences or tardies (10), he is put on a contract. The terms of the contract state that the individual realizes his responsibility to either come to class or to come to class on time, and that said individual is cognizant of the consequences of breaking this agreement: namely, being dropped from the class with an F penalty.

School contracts are not taken lightly by either teachers or students since they incorporate all of the characteristics of a “real” contract in the “real” world. Since the young graduate was on a contract at the time of the offense, what do you suppose he learned from Palk’s action allowing him to take part in the graduation?

What do you suppose are the conceivable results of Palk’s action in this case? What do you suppose other students have learned? Do you suppose our attendance regulations will have any validity in the future? Perhaps in the final analysis it doesn’t really matter--the graduation ceremony, which at one time was a rite of passage to adulthood, has degenerated into the joke it is today.

PHILIP J. THONER

Villa Park

Thoner is an instructor at Villa Park High School.