For a little more than a year, myself, and the rest of the country, have been treated to a never ending stream of words that appear to be the opposite of what they used to mean. There is a continual feeling of living in backwards land.  Recent examples include arming teachers with handguns.  This is utterly ridiculous because teachers are supposed to, well, you know, teach.  They aren’t there to deal with gunslingers.  I also thought this was ridiculous because I grew up with nuns as teachers.  We did not cross them.   The nuns, and all teachers, were the rulers of their domain and if one misbehaved in their school, it was at their peril. The nuns were their own special brand of sharp shooters.  If their law and order was not heeded, the principal would be summoned.  The principal would make certain order was kept and parents would be informed.  There was no need for guns.  We lived in a world where adults spoke, children listened and things proceeded  in a way that was organized around those basic tenets.   Now I’m being told that the adults in charge of the country don’t want to do anything about the current problem in our schools/malls/public places.  Somehow, small groups of people are supposed to fend for themselves by arming one or two individuals to keep watch.  If we arm those individuals, then who will we get to teach the children?  Children do not need to be taught the caliber of anything save their own character.

Why can’t the teachers just be teachers?  Couldn’t we just agree that they are in charge of their classrooms and the schools overall and that the children will abide by the rules and regulations set forth.  Couldn’t we also agree that the teachers generally do this so that the best interests of children as a group are served in an effort to educate the population as a whole.  I realize that this will keep some individual students from achieving the status of being “special,” but perhaps they can rely on their parents to impart that notion.  If we have teachers doing the teaching, couldn’t we have our LAW makers implementing some laws that would protect this system so that children are safe in the hands of those same educators.

It seems backwards to me that teachers would be expected to keep law and order and that law makers don’t seem to have any expectations, other than pointing fingers and blaming others.  Another backwards idea is that we elected people to do a job and they look for ways to trickle down their responsibilities.  I don’t want guns in our classrooms.  They should be filled with children who are safe to read books, complete assignments, take tests, learn music, make art, make friends, and get made fun of when they pick their nose.  I want classrooms where rules are enforced for the good of everyone so that all go home at the end of the day.  I also want the politicians to step up and put some laws in place so this can happen.

We live with elected officials who want me to believe that orange is the new black.  Their backwards logic is presented as just another season of reality television.