Pretend vs. Real Safety Threats: What are NPS Students Learning?

Students in Natick Public Schools need to learn that hearing speech you don't like or ideas that make you uncomfortable is not a safety threat or violence.

In his book The Coddling of the American Mind, renowned psychologist Jonathan Haidt powerfully explains the dangers of a culture that allows the concept of “safety” to creep so far that it equates emotional discomfort with physical danger.

This type of safetyism culture is obsessed with eliminating threats (both real and imagined) to the point where people are unwilling to make reasonable trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. This deprives young people of the experiences that their anti-fragile minds need—making them more fragile, anxious, and prone to seeing themselves as victims. 

Safetyism culture, which also runs the risk of exaggerating perceived threats and downplaying real ones through school policies and procedures, is practiced in public education across Massachusetts, including Natick Public Schools. Moreover, many of these practices manifest themselves in so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. But as David Bernstein, Founder and CEO of the North American Values Institute, astutely points out, “we must stop pretending all diversity initiatives are benign.”

Be mindful of these pretend threats to safety:

• Hearing speech you don’t like or ideas that makes you uncomfortable 

• Needing designated identity “safe spaces” to fully participate in classroom learning

• Challenging ideological curriculum that favors "my truth" instead of facts  

  
  

Beware of these real threats to safety: 

• Hiding students’ medical information (i.e., “private preferred name” and more) from his/her parents

• Committing physical violence against anyone, including someone with different beliefs

• Teaching students to view oppressors as victims and victims as oppressors solely based on skin color, sexual orientation, or religion

NHS course materials teach students that victims and oppressors can solely be based on skin color/race, which can confuse students' perception of violence and victimhood.

For the sake of supporting real student safety, improving students' mental health, and teaching students how to engage in a healthy society, Natick Public Schools, through its policies and procedures, should help course correct this public education crisis.

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