Reply to Landon article from 7/1/10 Washington Post

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]11:59 is off base on #3 and #6

#3 some of my son's best education and developmental experiences were with teachers with non-traditional teaching backgrounds.  His most important transformative experience was with a relative young female teacher.

#6 if an honor system is student run with no adminsitrative controls, you might be right.  Indeed, the same charges could be made of UVA's  honor system which is entirely student run.  However, the administration provides checks and balances.

[/quote]

Okay, then fine maintain the status quo if you feel it is working so well.  However, # 3 is a commentary on the isolated nature of how Landon is operated and how its faculty, staff, students and parents can so easily be manipulated by a tiny cadre of leaders.  The reason being that there are no national standards and all of their employees are hired and fired at will making them all vulnerable to intimidation and dismissal.  Sure, there are many fine teachers at Landon, but the system is still fatally flawed and will remain so until it is changed.

#6 The honor code is a colossal failure because twelve and thirteen year olds are being taught not to tolerate their peers for real or imagined offenses.  This is an unfair and destructive burden to place on such young children.  It creates witch hunts like those written about in the Crucible or or brutal power structures like those written about in the Lord or the Flies.

If you think the present day policies at Landon are fine and of you are comfortable with twelve and thirteen year old boys patrolling the school for what they perceive as honor code violations, then fine.  But please, encourage the boys to be prudent with their witch hunts.  Also, let them know that popularity can be a very fickle and fleeting thing and that karma is a very powerful force.

Ironically, the victims of Landon's brutal policies in the long run will be fine.  They will move on to schools where they will be accepted and in all likelihood they will thrive.  Not only will they thrive, but they will also be better people for having had a Landon experience.  After being ridiculed day after day at Landon and feeling hated and desperate those individuals will never again in their lives think of kindness and grace as an entitlement.  After being denied kindness and grace for such a long period of time at Landon, these young men appreciate kindness and gentility more than they ever would have imagined before their Landon experiences.

Hopefully, the same will be true for the boys who are able to develop the skills required to survive those long years at Landon and eventually graduate.

BTW, the comparison to the UVA honor code is a red herring and it is completely erroneous.  This discussion is about Landon and not about UVA and the students at UVA are legally adults not tweens and early teens facing the most confusing years in any person's life.[/quote]

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