FALL 2003Drew Smith
Head of School
he weekend before the Salem Quarter News deadline, Paul Bremer, the U.S. Occupational Administrator of Iraq, was featured on “Meet the Press.” I did not watch the interview at the time it was broadcast, but I did watch clips shown later on the news broadcasts. What was striking to me about these clips was the matter-of-fact way that Bremer spoke of the “killing” of Saddam Hussein as an important objective of our government’s current post-war Iraq policy. And it was not just one mention; in the short clips of the Bremer interview I watched, he used the word “kill” more than a few times. Killing as national policy.
Then, the following Tuesday, we all received word that Hussein’s sons had been killed. Again, in listening to and watching the news that evening, I was struck by the matter-of-fact nature and tone of the reporting about this event. Not only matter-of-fact, but also good for the economy, according to the analyst I watched. Killing as good for the economy. I did not hear any other viewpoint. Not even on public radio.
I was glad to know I was not the only one who noticed. It came up during a Board subcommittee meeting that night. Completely unrelated to our agenda, but disturbing enough that it emerged as a topic—if only briefly—of concern.
So what does this have to do with Friends’ schools? Well, these examples demonstrate as well as anything, the current culture in which our schools and Quaker meetings exist. And although I know that general Quaker opinion and thought has historically run somewhat counter to that in our society (to put it mildly), right now this culture is feeling especially approving of violence as the antidote to our anxieties, and as a solution to resolving the roadblocks to our national peace and prosperity.
At the last meeting I attended of heads of Friends’ elementary schools (there are twelve of us within the purview of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting), the issue of how we teach to our school missions within this society emerged as the issue we collectively believe will challenge all of us the most in the years ahead. We are all especially concerned that we maintain a strong sense of a Quaker presence and guidance in all of our classrooms, despite the fact that most teachers and students at our schools are not members of the Religious Society of Friends.
The Quaker presence is all of you. It is all of us in the monthly and quarterly meetings and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The beauty is that presence and guidance can take many forms. It can come through helping students see the alternatives to violence through service, or it can come simply by attending mid-week meeting with our students and teachers. Our Friends Schools need as many Quaker hands on deck as we can muster.
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
