Conversation with Mr. De Vries

Well, I just finished a 22 minute conversation with Mr. De Vries. He's quite an amiable man who is more than willing to calmly discuss (and mildly debate) a topic.

Here's what I discovered. Mr De Vries is basing his belief that children are safer at school than home upon safety conferences he has attended. When questioned, he answered that KYCSS, the Secret Service, and other groups host the conferences. He maintains that just about all of them will tell you that children are safer at school.

When pressed even further, he admitted their statistics were the findings of insurance companies and were based solely upon where children die more often. He believes I should do more research on the statistics. I informed him that I do not listen to statistics that try to tell me the exact opposite of what I see in reality.

He said it sounded like I have a very safe home. It's not my home he's worried about.. it's all those other homes. The ones where all those abused kids are living. *rolls eyes* It's the ever existent (yet ever elusive) mob of bad parents spoiling it for us all again!

He has just finished telling me the goal of the staff was open communication between the students and themselves. (Sound familiar?) When requested, he told me all about he lock down process. It's a typical lock down process which ends with the children cowering in the corner of the classroom in complete submission. "Well, that's going to hinder communication." I said. He didn't understand how this could be.

In the end I requested that he be more careful with his wording. Even if a study proves kids die less frequently at school it still doesn't mean they are safer at school. He acted as though he completely failed to understand this as well.

It reminded me of something I read in George Orwell's 1984.

Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical.....Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.