"Security guards in schools?

This is not the Bronx or Brixton!"

I overheard that outraged comment on the train yesterday. Someone was having a conversation on his mobile phone. I could not hear the person at the other end. It was probably just as well.

Yes, we do have security guards in some schools here. We should not need them but we do. There are schools I would not wish to visit now at all. 

I was once going in and out of secondary schools all over the metropolitan area. They varied greatly. There were some where discipline was definitely a challenge but nobody had yet employed a security guard. Cigarettes were a problem and there was a little bit of "weed" in some schools but the students did not use them openly. Now they deal drugs in some primary schools. Why?

"School," I am told, "Is boring."

Even the children in this street, still in primary school, tell me that school is boring. They are all intelligent, indeed four of them are above average in ability and achievement, but they still find school "boring".  I have tried to find out why but they don't seem able to tell me. I see two of them in the library at least once a week. When they are there "finding stuff" they seem very able and enthusiastic but their mother, a paediatrician, is concerned at the way they expect school to be exciting. They expect to be entertained there.

I wonder when it all changed. We did not expect to be entertained at school. We just knew we had to be there and that we were expected to learn what was put in front of us. 

The Senior Cat used to tell the story of one of the boys asking how learning something was going to help him milk the cows. The Senior Cat's response was,"It won't; but it might help you if you decide you don't want to milk the cows." That was an end to the matter. The boy went on learning. I doubt that answer would help now. Something has changed.

I am unlikely to ever visit New York so the Bronx will remain an unknown to me. When I lived in London I went in and out of Brixton on a regular basis even though some people warned me it was not safe. I suspect I would still go back during the daylight hours but with perhaps more caution than before. I am not sure I want to go into a school where there is a security guard.