Congratulations to Hurston Reed and James Belina for being elected this morning to serve as the 2009-2010 Freshman class representatives to the Honor Council. As always, these are very close elections among deserving young men, and it is a great honor for all boys nominated to be held in such high esteem by their peers.
It's a different day for the vaunted MUS Honor System when our boys regularly travel about with hundreds of dollars of relatively compact electronic equipment, not to mention excess cash in their wallets. It puzzles me as to why a middle school boy needs an iPhone, video game players, and more cash in his wallet than lunch requires. Not only are these items distractions here, but also they are unnecessary for school, and they provide significant temptation for use by the owner as well as make for something someone can steal. Obviously, I cannot police every action done in secret, and I urge our boys to be sensible as they guard themselves against exposure to theft by having in their lockers only that which is necessary for school.
Just because we have an Honor Code does not mean that some of our boys will not lie, cheat, and/or steal. Overwhelmingly, we think that we enroll the right kind of person who respects our precious freedoms as well as their neighbor's property. However, from time to time, someone chooses to break the Honor Code. When we know about it, when these newly-elected boys and their peers work within the system, we act appropriately in response. Some boys receive instruction, experience the consequences, and change their ways as a result. Some boys do not. They are expelled.
As for the explosion of cell phone usage by students, parents are to be reminded that the office is available during school hours every school day to receive and deliver messages for our boys. If their request to call you is reasonable, we allow them to use the phone. If your family chooses to send your son to school with a cell phone, that device can easily be secured in a place in their bag which deters a potential nere-do-weller, rare as it is. Believe it of not, sometimes these guys just mess with one another, going into each others' lockers and temporarily removing various contents just to cause irritation. I know, I know, "not my precious boy." Well, sometimes their actions are not mean-spirited, but the horseplay communicates differently. Sometimes someone temporarily misplaces a book, and a classmate either allows their friend to borrow a text (not permitted, by the way) or a classmate takes the law into his own hands and borrows a text without their friend's knowledge by going into a locker that is not their own (also not permitted).
Needless to say, the Honor Council has a difficult job in the 21st century, and they historically function with the highest level of integrity. The student body as a whole respects the Honor Code to a very high degree. We have to admit, though, that access to the new technology we all enjoy provides new temptations. Let's continue to encourage all of our boys to work daily, hour by hour, in order to create an honorable environment so that we can both preserve and provide the best school culture in our region. One way to do that is to leave expensive toys at home.
