Bradley Fenner, is considering phasing out the school ball following the death of David Raynor. He is reported to be considering speaking to other college headmasters about the same issues of student safety. I can't help but being reminded how poorly we are all equipped to deal with suicide, the way it works silently among us, among youth in particularly often without visible outward signs and the shock it brings to bear in it's aftermath.
However, the answer for Kings most likely lies within the school and the current pupil crop. That is an answer good enough that can be arrived at for a very complex situation. The school could conduct a confidential audit of sorts, among the peer groups of those who have used alcohol to excess, and friends of the deceased. Simply banning the ball is shifting the whereabouts or catalyst for potential problems like this into the future. I think the pupils and their parents deserve to know as much as possible about what, if anything has linked the recent deaths and look for common denominators that will allow strategies to put in place to overcome the deeper problems of alcohol and drug abuse. Parents and staff might not necessarily like the answers but they will be armed with an understanding and strategies to help the pupils cope through what is proven to be a difficult time for all teenagers.
Those conducting the audit would be probably ex pupils or those of an age the pupils would be able to identify with and share what isn't being seen now. There is a picture adrift from those presenting neatly in uniform, high achieving but with elements of disarray that appear to be contributing, or potentially contributing to binge drinking or drug taking without control for at least a number of pupils. Wouldn't the interest of other pupils, parents and the school be better served of a composite profile of all those who past through the school gates, something able to map changes as the pupils become older. An informal study of what they perceive as socialising, what underlying pressures might be brought to bear by sub-cultures within the school culture. Could knowing more about the pupils, behind the facade, be in anyway detrimental?
Isn't every parent, right across society, concerned about their child's teenage years and how they should be navigated without harm? Does Kings have anything to lose? I wouldn't say so, but everything to gain. Even the argument between parent and school responsibility is already crossed on this one. Who is the real Kings pupil and what are their characteristics, what changes does Kings bring about in them or they in one another.
On the question of what is to lose, I'd suggest nothing. Kings, through Fenner and others, has acknowledged problems within the school and that is a significant step. He has also rightly pointed out that the problems are not universal to all King's pupils and are probably shared with pupils from other schools - there is no denying that. But it appears that the shock that follows such things, or a number of such things can be immobilising, and not formerly something which might have been prepared for, or indeed even envisaged - a situation that doesn't necessarily bring blame but which however cries out for a remedy.
To many minds Kings are getting beaten up, but probably to a greater number an anticipation of what Kings might do. Shutting down the ball (whilst probably a good general idea) doesn't measure against the known phenomenon - that geographical change (or in this case another less public event) doesn't correct the drivers of problems that manifest themselves into disaster.
Two points are already defined, alcohol abuse, and suicide, the later perhaps being suicide from a particular bridge or in a particular way, and surely no adult could be as naive to expect that there is not a subtext of covert dialogue underway among King's pupils over these issues, nor that the dialogue is divorced from a probably largely hidden sub-culture among the same pupils.
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