A Rightful Restrictions System
“Sure, I am a prep, but stricts suck anyway,” Vinayak Kurup said in his Op-Ed last week, titled “Disciplinary Conditions.” He detailed his experience in front of the Attendance Committee and complained that his grades should have been taken into account. Kurup claimed that, in present day, the administration fails to “provide a conducive learning atmosphere” because it disregards students’ reason and argument.
First of all, half of the the attendance committee’s purpose is to “hear petitions from students as a last court of appeal on whether a particular unexcused absence counts,” according to the E Book. The other half is to interview students and “determine an appropriate disciplinary consequence.” Contradictory to Kurup’s claims, the committee is made to take into account students’ arguments; the meeting is held to assure that any disciplinary action taken is justified.
Clearly, Kurup wrote his article with a narrow mindset. He made assumptions on behalf of the student body based on his own unique, particular “extenuating circumstance.” “The tale of students getting stricts is quite common at the Academy, such a commonality in fact that trying to do anything about them is frowned upon,” Kurup wrote. In addition, he repeatedly insisted that in the eyes of the school, circumstance did not matter and the committee failed to achieve a “certain degree of justice.”
Kurup told the committee a “story” in which he had been sick with “health-center releases” and had “missed class because [he] had asthma.” But he refused to provide us with more details. According to both the E Book and common knowledge among students, the health center clears dickeys for those who visit at the start of class or stay to rest in its facilities. In addition, students are expected to exercise reasonable judgement and visit the center when need be. In his article, Kurup failed to elaborate on his own situation, and we can only assume that the blame rests on his own shoulders.
To provide a little leniency, the committee gave Kurup a week to clear his dickeys. According to his article, “the health center wouldn’t budge, teachers were reluctant and the administration did nothing to hear [his] concerns.” It seems to us that Kurup is blaming his restrictions on those three entities, rather than taking responsibility for his own actions. We can infer much about Kurup’s supposed situation if the health center, teachers and administration all rejected his pleas; we are led to believe that he simply slept through his classes, which most definitely does not constitute a valid excuse.
Kurup correctly said that justice is an “agreement between the managers… and the members... in which the members expect and receive a certain degree of justice.” But justice is a word too extreme for this topic, one that regards an accumulation of dickeys. Kurup’s Attendance Committee meeting had nearly nothing to do with justice. Kurup did something wrong, purposefully or not, and he had to pay for it—with a horrendous eight o’clock curfew, nonetheless. A dickey is objective; there is no room for interpretation. Either a student has an excuse to miss a class or does not. The committee’s supposed disregard Kurup’s alibi is not emblematic of widespread systematic problems in the justice system.
On a more general note, we believe that the current Disciplinary Restrictions policy is sound and the Attendance Committee should not factor grades into the decision process. The Academy is centralized around a world-class education. A world-class education extends beyond just grades. We’re here to become good people, unifying goodness and knowledge. Admissions pinpoints applicants who present good character alongside ability. This said, there should no excuse, even for students with stellar grades, to miss class without proper authorization.
Kurup also claimed that the Academy fails to provide an aforementioned “conducive learning atmosphere” because the Attendance Committee “brushes off reason and argument.” Rather, the committee is doing everything it can to grow that atmosphere, punishing acts that disrupt the learning atmosphere. By missing class, a student affects the class dynamic. Participation, the center of the Harkness method, revolves around those who attend. Each day of class offers something different.
Kurup’s claim that the Attendance Committee disregards student concerns is unfounded. His call for the factoring of grades into committee decisions is absurd—as absurd as the consideration of net worth during jail sentencing.
The current system for restrictions works well. There are clearly defined rules for attendance and punishments for those who break them. Kurup is simply crying over spilled milk. He claims that his naivety has disappeared, but it clearly has not. ♥