“The fault dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
(Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”).
I would like to comment about the petition to withdraw from RSU 5 by starting with a story or two. I’ve had a sick Jersey cow in the barn. She’s 10 years old and had twin heifers. She never really made it back to her old self, and eventually just seemed to give up. The vet came and gave her this medicine and that medicine. But nothing seemed to work, to the point where my wife and I were talking about putting the old cow down. For the last night, we put her twins in with her, sentimentalists that we are. That night, around midnight, I went out to check on the cow and she was standing, nursing both calves.
Hearken back to my college years, sitting in Philosophy of Government class. Coincidentally, my whole soccer team took that class. Professor Rip Reynolds taught in his first lecture that one could not teach democracy undemocratically. He caught all of us off guard by modeling a democratic teaching methodology that forced a gaggle of lazy soccer players to actually do the work.
The Freeport High School Mission Statement (because I know many of us have not read it) states: “As a community we promote high levels of academic, civic and social development. We celebrate and respect individual talents and diversity of our perspectives. We come together with the belief that as effective communicators we create a safe environment and opportunities for all. We value self-reliance, personal integrity, and social responsibility. We take pride in our achievements, knowledge and our ability to adapt to change. We are passionate about learning and understand that it is a lifetime process that goes beyond the walls of our school.”
From my perspective, which has been influenced by a 10-year-old Jersey cow, Professor Reynolds, six years of serving as a selectman of Pownal, and the father of three boys who are 8, 6 and 4 years old, (as well as a doting husband to a wonderful wife), withdrawal from RSU 5 models a vision that is antithetical to the high school mission statement or to the effort required of democracy. I can only imagine what effect the controversy has on the students of all three towns. Perhaps a high school student might think:
1. The adults of the RSU 5 towns, when faced with adversity, diverse opinions or change, choose self-interest over the work of democratic debate, choose conformity of thought over hard, provocative discourse.
2. The adults of the RSU 5 towns are ignoring the hard work of the board of directors, the hours of meetings and fact finding, the well-heeled discussions. The journey of the budget or the school expansion or the athletic fields has been rocky and filled with divergent opinions. It certainly would be easier if everyone would just get along, but the RSU is composed of people who have differences. Don’t we celebrate diversity of perspective?
3. The adults of the RSU 5 towns have not embraced a leadership model that reflects the social responsibility espoused in the high school mission statement that demonstrates that as effective communicators, we create a safe environment and opportunity for all. Abraham Lincoln, on Nov. 19, 1863, stated, “We are now engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure.” Hardly as momentous, the RSU 5 secession drive smacks of a similar desire to reject unity for prurient self-interest.
4. Of course, being a high school teacher myself, I realize that the Freeport High School kids might not be thinking exactly like me.
There is nothing wrong with the RSU 5 that a 10-year-old Jersey cow can’t teach us to how to heal. Stick with it. Democracy is hard work. I enjoin the residents of Freeport to stay with the RSU, demonstrate that “learning is a lifelong process that goes beyond the walls of our school.” The fault, my friends is not in our stars, but only in ourselves. These issues will continue to reduce us to underlings if we slay the RSU (see “Julius Caesar”) and not face them honestly.
Jon Morris
Pownal
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