This commentary is by Marianne Donahue Perchlik of Marshfield, a local educator who has worked with families and their children for 25 years in central Vermont. She is pedagogical leader of Orchard Valley Waldorf School, and a musician and songwriter.
Even if you have never been into a school in your adult life. Even if you know not a single child. At some point, you were a child. Every one of us was a child. I appeal to that child now.
Do you know how high the rates of teen and youth suicide have become? It isn’t a sudden shift. The rates of youth suicide and mental health crisis have been elevated for over 10 years. There are no facilities nor staff with the resources to care for this intense health crisis.
Are you aware of the number of drills that schools practice? And the increasingly invasive technologies that are used to essentially keep children locked up while at school? So commonplace are shootings in schools, churches, synagogues, grocery stores, bowling alleys and other public places that we now entirely burden our children with the constant consciousness that they are unsafe, that at any moment an armed madman could come into their school or onto their playground or ball fields.
It is a universal understanding in child development that regular rhythmical daily routine is a foundation for human health and learning. When we agree to interrupt the days of our children over and over with terrorizing paramilitary drills, we assent over and over again to compromise the health and education of the rising generation. When children believe themselves to be unsafe, we are creating illness in their bodies and minds that they have no power to alter.
As we approach Veterans Day, I would like to ask us all to consider, is this freedom? Is this the freedom we talk about fighting for each year at this time?
We must not quietly assent to the devastation of the rising generation in exchange for the passions and idiosyncrasies of individuals. For those who link their freedom to the manufacture and possession of guns and other weapons, it is time for them to bear the burden of this freedom with the financial liabilities that accompany other dangerous equipment. It is also time for us to own the harmful post-traumatic stress of our war-machine economy and heal those who live in such daily terror that they feel a need to carry a weapon.
Apart from the drills, children are already struggling. When an alarm sounds or a loud dramatic interruption, one child may hide under a desk, another may flee, one may stretch out on the ground screaming. Now this comes as a regular feature of classroom study at a time when more and more students have stronger sensitivity to noise and interruption.
For those who feel yourselves charged with the health and welfare of our community, please consider making universal health care, including mental health care, as well as family leave, the utmost priority.
We don’t have the staff to care for the number of distressed children in any school, hospital or health care facility.
We have the power to prevent these harms and restore our health. It is time for leaders who are unwilling to take action to step aside and allow the necessary bold action to take place.
