Sex Ed: Are public schools using the cult-technique of shunning?
/By Rubashov
A blog called “Chaos and Control” ran a story about what happens to children whose parents opt-out of the Murphy administration’s sex-ed curriculum mandates. The blog carried several photos of the room in which a child is banished while his or her classmates receive instruction on the finer points of masturbation or the joys of hormone blockers. Here is an example:
You can see all the photos and read the full story by subscribing to Chaos and Control.
https://chaosandcontrol.substack.com/p/kids-shoved-in-closet-literally
According to the blog, “the image above is allegedly the Martin J Ryerson Middle School (Ringwood NJ) closet (off the main office) where they keep the 6-8 grade opt-out kids.” The blog suggests that “some schools want to purposely make it uncomfortable or down right dangerous for kids to opt-out.”
The blog notes: “This is their view, 5 days a week, for a 45 min period, since school started in September. Parents have been told that an adult checks on the secluded kids to make sure they are OK, but someone at that school needs to explain how this is appropriate or even humane to do to a child.”
“This room wouldn’t even be appropriate for a detention, let alone a kid who’s only crime is to be opted-out of the NJ state Sex Ed classes. Apparently we need a child bill of rights to make sure the administrators of the schools use good judgment when handling our children.”
By nightfall yesterday, the Superintendent of the Ringwood Schools had issued a letter raising more questions. In his letter, which was ostensibly designed to reassure parents, the Superintendent spent many words on the former use of the room in an attempt to describe its size. As everyone who has ever dealt with a realtor knows, floor space is best described in square feet. What are the dimensions and square footage of the room in the picture above?
Is it larger than a standard sized prison cell housing one inmate? The American Correctional Association standards require a minimum of 70 square feet for a single inmate cell. How many children are housed in the room pictured above at one time?
The Superintendent took a number of curious “steps” to address the publication of the story. These included calling the Ringwood police department and filing a report. Why? Was it to report possible criminal activity by the school or was it an attempt to intimidate a journalist exercising her rights under the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights?
The Superintendent notes: “Action will be taken to secure the network rack behind a wall or partition. While the wall or partition is being installed around the (computer) network rack, students will not be in the room.” Does this mean the room’s current configuration is a safety hazard? Does it create the possibility for child injury and open the district to legal issues? His statement seems to suggest so.
What concerns us most about this situation is the psychological effect such physical isolation will have on the children of dissenters. The threat of shunning is a practice often used by cults to achieve conformity. Cults use this technique of isolating dissenters as a punishment for expressing non-conformist ideas. In our opinion, such methods should not be turned on public school children.
Instead, schoolteachers and administrators should publicly support the decision of the parents and the children of those parents. They should explain how dissent is an American tradition and forms the basis of the laws that protect conscientious objection to a variety of government prerogatives – including war.
Who knows, such knowledge might lead some future generation to stand up to our nation’s endless infatuation with armed conflict. Its fixation with violence. One can only hope.
