Contradictions

"I've been told you are paying too much attention to recycling."

Ah. So that is what this meeting is about. Again. I deflate a little, into a familiar idling depression.

"I know it's hard to see students throw away so much food. And make so much trash." she talks sweet as treacle. "It's hard for me too. But you know what?"

Well, yes I do. But go on, and tell me anyway.

"I just have to look the other way."

There it is again. I've been told this at least ten times since I started working for Jefferson County Public Schools. This is what I am supposed to do with important issues. This is what I am supposed to do when I see something wrong. Not help. Not do the right thing. Not set an example of good behavior. Look the other way. If this were India, they would be asking me to look the other way when women were raped and set aflame.

This is the attitude we have running though our world. Willful ignorance. Keep your head in the sand and just keep walking.

"I know," she continues in her honey voice, "that it is a passion of yours. So what can we do to make this better? I know once we had a teacher who took fruit scraps to an animal."

"That would be great!" I said. "I also heard recently that we can save unopened food containers and re-distribute them."

"Oh No. We can't do that."

"...are you sure? It seems so... easy."

"I know we Can't do that."

Silly me, I assumed it was some misguided fear for the sanitation of the world. That sharing sealed food might get children poisoned. So it would be hard to budge anyone on the issue. Sanitation is never, it seems, good enough.

Sadly, it isn't. Schools aren't allowed to teach children to share because the district never learned that lesson: They are afraid of being robbed. That's why they can't share unopened food: someone might be getting something they didn't pay for.

The really sad thing is every school is plastered with the opposite message: "Do what's right, even when you're the only one" type posters.

Feeding one message, and showing another.

That's more than a little confusing.