Stanton wrote:I heard this evening that a letter has been written to the governors of St James demanding this and that, and ending with the chilling words, '...otherwise the children will be harmed'.
Blackmail is always intolerable and threats to harm children are wicked and insupportable. If true, this is a new low.
Whatever your feelings about your schooldays, whatever frustrations you may entertain, if you have been involved with this letter then I do beg you to consider this: what twisted logic can say that 'I have suffered harm, therefore I will inflict harm in return?'
This is not the way, it never is the way. If you find yourself now so eaten up by anger - and you won't have been the first or the last - then I request you most earnestly to seek help.
No good ever comes from inflicting harm. You can stop the cycle, it does not have to continue. It does not have to continue.
And Alban's response
Alban wrote:Stanton,
I have not seen this letter, and by the sounds of it, nor have you. However, I have to say that the quote that you have reported:
'...otherwise the children will be harmed'
...can be taken in at least two ways. Yes, you could understand it to mean that someone intends to harm the children of the schools, but you can also read it as a consequence of lack of action. (e.g. If you don't stop teaching the girls that a man is a superior being to be obeyed, then the children will be harmed [in the long run])
Given those two possibilities, which one do you think it is?...Lets face it, it is far more likely to be the latter isn't it? but we don't know unless we see the context in which it was said.
I am assuming that this letter was as an open letter to all members of the SES (otherwise you wouldn't have been privy to it's contents), so maybe you could get hold of a copy and publish it here, then we can all make up our minds.
Until this is the case, then I'm affraid you are just perpetuating a rumour, obviously eminating from somewhere inside the governors office (you said the letter was addressed to them). Obvioulsy, being a fine upstanding member of the SES I'm sure you wouldn't want to give a false impression, would you.
Alban