Gunning after Education

NYT reported on Thursday, in a piece titled "In Texas School, Teachers Carry Books and Guns" that the school board in Harrold, a rural hamlet in North Texas, has decided to let some teachers carry concealed weapons. “Our people just don’t want their children to be fish in a bowl,” said David Thweatt, the schools superintendent and driving force behind the policy. “Country people are take-care-of-yourself people. They are not under the illusion that the police are there to protect them.”

Yesterday I asked my students if they could identify the richest country on the planet. UAE, Saudi Arabia, and a few others were suggested but not the U.S. However, students readily identified the U.S. as the most powerful country, militarily, in the world. It is ironic that the richest and the most powerful country cannot keep its people- children, students, and adults, safe from drunk driving, drive by shooting, and so on. Power, individually and systemically, is corrupting and easy to use, and it takes a lot more courage and conviction to restrain oneself from exercising power.