Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

I have an op ed submission I titled “The Bullies Are Winning” that included a recent incident at a Vermont HS Women’s Soccer game between Hartford (VT) HS and Fair Haven as an example of how January 6 “insurrection” emboldened bullies in their public efforts of intimidation. As reported in detail in a recent local newspaper article, The incident involved taunting from the Fair Haven student section directed at particular members of the Hartford soccer team, taunts that were crude, misogynistic, and cruel… taunts that were so bad they led one of the players on the Hartford team left the field at which point the Hartford Coach pulled all of his players from the field and took them home.

The result of his action, as described in today’s headline article, was an outpouring of support from HS students in the school and across the state as Student Governments respond with resolutions forbidding the taunting of individual players in an effort to maintain a healthy environment at athletic events. This is very heartening, for it indicates that MAYBE students will be able to lead the way in anti-bullying efforts in the same way young black students in the South in the 1960s led the way in the civil rights movement. MAYBE the children can lead us out the spiral our country seems to be in when it comes to taking vaccines, wearing masks, respecting the rule of law, and being kind and courteous to each other. These “basic skills” are far more important than those measured by standardized achievement tests.