There’s more on the Henry DeGroot in China story today.
The Boston Globe’s editorial page weighed in saying “the feisty, red-blooded American kid[‘s]…punishment was an overreaction on the part of Newton school officials and a bad lesson all around.”
DeGroot may have violated the student conduct code. And he damaged his school’s relationship with a Chinese counterpart in a worthwhile exchange program. But Newton’s decision to resort to formal discipline went too far. For a moment, school officials seemed to forget which country tolerates free speech and protest.
On the other hand, Globe columnist Joanna Weiss sees it differently….
I respect his anger at the repressive Chinese government. But for jeopardizing a longstanding sliver of Sino-Newton relations? I think it’s OK that DeGroot had to miss his prom.
….DeGroot was clearly self-satisfied with his act of disobedience — like an American superhero, swooping in to save the foreigners — and unconcerned that he might have gotten an innocent Chinese kid in trouble, or jeopardized the future of the exchange.
Maybe not quite a superhero Joanna, in fact, Henry DeGroot told the TAB …
“I honestly didn’t think anyone would see it.”
And then there was this interview on NECN where the North senior said the Newton/China exchange program ‘wasn’t that great’ anyway.
Well, first off the editorial is wrong on a significant fact: he didn’t write “on a classmate’s notebook”. The Chinese students weren’t his classmates. He was a guest in their class, and in their country. As a guest, he knew in advance what was and was not expected of him and he failed, quite purposefully it seems, to behave in accordance with those expectations. How often are we in Newton accused of being left-wing moonbats who coddle our children? And in the instance where we have expectations clearly set out, in writing, signed by the student, and try to follow through with the consequences as agreed to, we hear that even though he violated the rules, even though he insulted his host, it’s a-okay.
This was a trip under the auspices of the Newton Public Schools, and he represented this community. His conduct in the classroom was foolish. His behavior afterwards and his refusal to personally deliver an apology was childish, arrogant and an embarrassment to the community.
He says it was an act of “civil disobedience” yet he isn’t the one being oppressed, and certainly the other students aren’t oppressing anyone. He was flaunting freedom and doing it in a room where students can’t even raise their hand to ask a question. After all this he gets back to Boston to tell a newspaper: “I wasn’t going to go out of my way to take a 30-minute train ride to deliver the [apology] letter”. Exactly why did he have this option to refuse this?
It’s becoming very clear to me that this story is less about DeGroot’s punishment or even the potential repercussions for the relationship between Newton and the Beijing Jingshan School than it is about the connection that young DeGroot’s family has with the Boston Globe. When I read the story yesterday, I wondered why the paper ran it on page one. My question was answered today when I saw the editorial. I’m not one for conspiracy theories, and as I said on an earlier thread, I think DeGroot deserved more punishment than he received.
But, really, this is a Newton school discipline issue. Why is the Globe turning this kid into a hero? The editorial stance doesn’t even make sense. On the one hand, it states that the Chinese education administrators “should recognize that their young American guests come from a culture where challenging authority is a tradition with deep roots. They shouldn’t expect immature young people from the United States to suddenly adopt the personas of students who live in a society that places severe restrictions on their civil liberties.”
At the same time, on the 25th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, where protesters weren’t much older than DeGroot, the editorial writers acknowledge that “the Tiananmen Square protest is a taboo subject in China, and virtually ignored by textbook writers and state-controlled news organizations.”
If I am interpreting this correctly, The Globe is expecting the same government that won’t acknowledge its own actions in a horrible massacre just 25 years ago to understand that, hey, kids will be kids. I hear countries that don’t prioritize human rights often make that distriction.
I’ve seen the Globe waste ink on editorials many times. This one ranks in the top ten.
He is lucky they are letting him attend graduation ceremonies.
Do NNHS and NSHS kids spend a year abroad in Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia or the UAE? Talk about no persona freedoms, especially for women (girls) and LGBT. This kid messed up and I agree wholeheartedly with Joanne. Grab your burkas girls and spend a semester in Afghanistan!
@Gail- how was your question answered? Do you mean it was put on p1, so it would have enough prominence in order to justify the editorial?
Their country: Their rules. Complete arrogance to exonerate this kid.
Sorry, as a relative newbie to Newton (7 years), I sorta see him as the spoiled “bad guy” kid from an 80s movie or worse, Karate Kid.
What a loser.
@Charlie: I didn’t mean to imply that I asked my questions to anyone. These were mere conjectures on my part. But yeah, I was guessing that they put the story on page 1 in order for it to have enough prominence to justify the editorial. In hindsight, I was probably a bit hasty in drawing that conclusion. The Globe often views Newton as an easy target, so I can see where the decision to put the story on page 1 — assuming a slow news day — came from.
But I still question the thinking behind the editorial. Again, the Globe likes to pick on Newton and one could go so far as to say the paper loses perspective where Newton is concerned. It’s odd enough that a major metropolitan newspaper bothered to editorialize about whether a high school senior should have been allowed to go to his prom. But, the Globe is criticizing a NPS disciplinary decision when an 18-year-old who was responsible for his own decisions showed complete disrespect for a hosting country’s and school’s way of living, disregarded his own school district’s expectations of his behavior while representing his country and school, and “damaged his school’s relationship with a Chinese counterpart in a worthwhile exchange program,” according to the Globe itself.
The editorial writers then trump their own nonsense by expecting the host country, which reportedly doesn’t take criticism very well, to shrug it off because hosting young immature Americans means one should tolerate that kind of behavior.
Yet, not attending a prom is too harsh a discipline? That’s why I questioned the motivation of the placement of the story and the subsequent editorial. When I see the Globe not only omit logic from its editorials, but replace it with nonsense, I suspect an agenda.
Gail – I believe that if NPS had not disciplined this kid, the Globe would have come down on the other side of the issue.
@Gail- Thanks for the response. I did not feel any implication of a conversation. Rather, an experienced editor’s conjecture which seemed very logical to me.