mme_hardy | Lessons I don't want my children to learn

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9/11 memorial: Security guard shouldn't have silenced choir

NEW YORK (AP) — Officials at the Sept. 11 memorial said Monday that one of their security guards shouldn't have stopped a North Carolina middle school choir from singing the national anthem on the memorial plaza.
"The guard did not respond appropriately," said the spokeswoman, Kaylee Skaar. "We are working with our security staff to ensure that this does not happen again with future student performances."

...
[Teacher] Brown said her students learned from the experience. "We turned it into a teaching moment and taught them that even if you don't agree with it, or understand it, you must respect authority," she said.
Putnam echoed the sentiment.
"The lesson learned here is always to respect authority," the principal said in a telephone interview. "And I'm so proud of our kids for conducting themselves the way they did."

That right there. That is called authoritarianism, and we've got a lot of it.

Crossposts: http://mme-hardy.livejournal.com/318813.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

kore

We turned it into a teaching moment and taught them that even if you don't agree with it, or understand it, you must respect authority

//moves to Mars

From:

sollers

Don't bother to go that far. Just come to the UK.

From:

movingfinger

On the one hand, I agree that authoritarianism is bad. On the other hand, a middle-school choir of fifty kids belting out the national anthem at the 9/11 memorial smells of jingoism, especially if the national anthem is described as "kind of a sacred song". It's a public space, not a church, and there are other users and uses to consider. (Especially problematic if the backpedalling on this now leads to a normalization of spontaneous choir performances, which it may well do.) There is not a clear-cut disrespectful/respectful dichotomy here.

From:

mme_hardy

Apparently you're supposed to get a $25 permit, and the permit explains what is acceptable and unacceptable (no amplification, mostly.)

I was creeped out in the extreme by "sacred song".

From:

movingfinger

I think a modestly-priced permit system is not, in this case, infringing anyone's rights, nor overly authoritarian. For one thing, it allows the management to schedule groups and prevent overuse of the space for this purpose (to the detriment of others' uses).

From:

mme_hardy

My concern was not with the permit system, but rather with the school authorities' reactions that the Valuable Lesson learned was to do what people told you to do, even if you thought it was wrong. There are a lot of Valuable Lessons to be learned, but that one was authoritarian.

From:

movingfinger

Still thinking about this. I realized last night that, as far as the public reporting goes (and I do think it would have included this), the adults involved did not apologize, either to the memorial management or to the children. "We're sorry, we didn't know we were supposed to get a permit." And to the kids, "We screwed up, and we are sorry we told you it was okay to do this thing that it isn't okay to do. We should have checked into rules about public performances. This is a big city and they have to manage a lot of people's wishes, and they do it with rules like requiring a permit for a performance in public."

The kids I think deserve a real apology. Maybe not a do-over, but certainly an apology for screwing up.

From:

legionseagle

I'd have thought the teaching moment was, "Don't go ambushing people with patriotic songs in public places. Many of them have seen both Cabaret and Donald Trump's current standing in the polls."