A friend recently resigned from her teaching position at a public high school. The students were having intercourse in the classroom while she was teaching. I assume this is a rare and extreme case; at the local blue-ribbon, top-rated public high school, the students show restraint, saving sex until they can get to the restroom.
I live in a cave, but I am not naive. People of reproductive age will in fact reproduce. What alarms is that the public school administrators are both persuaded they are unable to enforce a no-copulation zone, and also that they do not feel any obligation to attempt it.
These are public schools, so there are facts that don’t apply to, say, your local bar or brothel:
- We taxpayers are required by law to send our money to these schools, under pain of fines, imprisonment, and forfeiture of assets.
- Parents are required by law to send their children to these schools. If they do not do so, their children can be taken from them.
Most parents do not have an alternative public school available. Most parents cannot afford private school tuition. Homeschooling is daunting for most and impossible for many; appeasing the authorities is an on-going problem.
But what stands out most about this problem: No one really seems to care.
Why isn’t this in the news? Why isn’t this a hot topic at school board and superintendent elections? How can a school be top-ranked, or a county promote itself as “A Great Place For Families”, when this is the atmosphere in which students are expected to learn?
Apparently there is a vast gulf between those who feel these sorts of things are a serious problem, and those who feel they are no big deal*.
I keeping hearing all these complaints that American politics is so “polarized”. This is why.
*I don’t think this is a left-right divide. Not at all.