Letter to the Editor, March 16, 2018: National School Walkout Day

March 16, 2018

By Sonja Wang

Perhaps one of the biggest points of pride that our town of Bedford has is the oldest existing battle flag in the United States.  A high point of the Lane School experience is the third grade “Tour of Bedford,” which includes going to see the original, restored Bedford Battle Flag at the Bedford Library and a visit to the Fitch Tavern where the students learn about the Bedford Minutemen’s breakfast of warm ale and cold mush before they took the flag to battle the British at the Concord Bridge.  This history is passed down over the generations of Befordites, about how those who came before us revolted against what they felt was unjust and is celebrated here in town on many occasions.  However, sadly that same spirit was not allowed to be celebrated this week at Bedford High School.

This past Wednesday, March 14, was National School Walkout Day, which was started as a grassroots [event] and spread across the country, as a way for students to voice their sadness and anger over the Parkland and many other high school shootings.  While many Massachusetts schools, including Bedford, missed out on the March 14th date to walk out, due to the snow day, Bedford’s administration decided not to go forward with their plans to allow students time to walk out, saying in an email that it would be, “inauthentic” to do so because it was not on the same date as originally planned.  Many other MA schools did go forward with a walkout on the 15th to allow their students who wanted to the chance to express their emotions around gun violence and how it affects them, while BHS nixed the plan.

Yesterday, March 15th, a number of Bedford High School students decided to leave the building in their way to honor the Parkland 17 and express their frustration with gun violence, feeling that the school offering a moment of silence was not enough.  Those students were threatened with detention and the school doors were locked behind them by administrators as to not allow them back into the building for a period of time.  Ironically, the doors to all of the schools in Bedford used to be unlocked up until the school shooting at Sandy Hook in Newtown.  Now our students, from kindergarten to 12th grade go to school behind locked doors every day and have special glass installed so that another Adam Lanza cannot shoot his way into the front of the school.  They have numerous ALICE and lockdown drills.  This is the reality that THEY live with.  They hear on the news or through social media that their peers are being gunned down, whether it be in a mass shooting or one on one gun violence.  Yet they are told that it is no longer authentic for them to have feelings of sadness or concern or anger or desire to change the status quo or to take their Bedford Flag and march because it’s one day after an arbitrary date.

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Part of the curriculum at BHS is to learn about the Civil Rights Movement and the protests against the Vietnam War.  To learn about the Little Rock Nine, kids who went to a school and risked their lives every day for a cause and a change, even though there was disruption at that school.  What are you teaching our kids, when you tell them, that they can’t use their voices and their hearts and souls for a change?  Protest isn’t about doing things when it’s easy and safe, it’s about making people think.  My son walked out yesterday, and I was extremely proud of him, particularly because he’s not usually one to voice his feelings or strong opinions about things.  Don’t we want to encourage our teenagers who are waking up to an issue that affects them to act, to take 17 minutes out of a school day, to use their educational background to give voice to something that means so much to them if they desire to do so?  We must remember what our country was built on and how progress was made and how the energy and passion of the young can inspire great movements to occur, not tell them that they don’t matter.  Keep the flags flying and the doors unlocked for this generation.

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