Science Olympiad and Bush Jumping

Paul Harvey died February 28. Along with him went a unique ability to appreciate and convey a sense of values that defined several generations of America. A Wall Street Journal eulogy specifically referenced his stories about “personal responsibility as opposed to individual license.”
When I learned last week of the Science Olympiad to be held Saturday, March 7 featuring the efforts of hundreds of Middle School students from many districts engaged in various scientific endeavors I determined to attend if only briefly. Here would be personal responsibility for learning exhibited on a large scale. Here too would be adults engaged in helping students expand their knowledge committing a full Saturday to the endeavor.
My effort was rewarded. There were robots in action; catapults launching items across distances; exercises in group cooperation to achieve stated goals and rockets being launched with cargoes of eggs to be delivered back to earth undamaged. I got a bit too close to that activity and Professor Anderson volunteered me. He put a stopwatch in my hand with instructions as to its use. Commandeered was more like it.
A joy to watch hundreds of students and adults all across the Marietta College campus engaged in constructive activity. Taking personal responsibility.
Contrast that with my experience later in the day when confronted by some unhappy folks who told me about their experiences with Middle School students who travel through their neighborhood at school day’s end. “You can hear them coming long before you see them. And what you hear is not fit language for anyone much less these youngsters. And the girls are as bad as the boys.”
The foul language reports were nothing new of youngsters that age. What struck me as alarming was the damage to property being inflicted on the neighborhood as the students were practicing their own version of the rocket experiment. These students were jumping into the air and landing on bushes and shrubbery to soften their fall. Fine for a safe landing, but destructive to the shrubbery. Students had also stolen a tricycle and engaged in bullying a smaller student in the neighborhood.
Requests to cease the behavior had been rebuffed with more bad language and intimidation. The police had been called on at least one occasion but with reluctance as the property owners feared retaliation with future behavior. They understood the concept of individual license that our society has granted in the name of free expression. Which sometimes trumps property rights.
I listened politely and sympathetically though with growing resentment that we have somehow failed to impart a sense of decency and self-respect to some of our students. Sadly it appears the absence of foreign language instruction at the middle school level has not stifled student’s abilities to speak in language foreign to their neighbors.
The day balanced out when I learned of the results of our science students. In individual events, we had five
1st places, five 2nd places, six 3rd places, six 4th places, three 5th places, and five 6th places. We placed in all but one event and qualified for the state competition in April. An impressive showing by all accounts.
Further good news of constructive activity came in the form of an announcement about the upcoming Academic Expo to be held March 17th at the Middle School. Over 200 students will compete for spots in the district level competition for National History Day to be held later at Marietta College. Hard to imagine these students would be engaged in property destruction tricycle theft, bullying and foul language. And now you know the rest of the story.