Breaking routines is difficult. Even more difficult is dealing with a routine that is broken for you against your will. Every week on thursday I've got lunch one hour later than the other days. At the 11:40 buzzer, I suddenly get hungry like one of Pavlov's dogs salivating to the little jingling bell. But on Thursday lunch isn't until 12:30. Imagine running in a marathon, but right when the finish line is just in sight, some officials grab the tape and move it back another mile or two. It's a sick and twisted social experiment, I say.
Alberta high-school students can take a very valuable lesson from Lynden Dorval's suspension by the Edmonton school board. After refusing to heed repeated warnings and deadlines to complete a certain task - giving the consequence-free mark of "not complete" to assignments not handed in, instead of zeros - he received meaningful disciplinary action. Setting aside whether this suspension and the policy behind it are just or practical, this is the real world and employees get in trouble when they don't follow the rules. He is being punished for holding his students to the same standard of behavior that he is being held to by his superiors, under the umbrella justification of doing what's best for the students. The lesson here, as students who passed their English classes by actually handing things in already know, has to do with irony. Of course being a students is not the same as being an employee, and nor are high schools me...
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