Jury Duty

Ameila is serving on JC this week. Everybody, regardless of age, has to serve on the Judicial Committee. There is usually a staff member and either 2 or 3 students representing the different age groups on the committee. JC meets every day at 11:00 am and goes through all of the write ups from the previous day.

Des was getting anxious about serving, "I don't know how to read. I dont know how to give a sentence to someone. I can't do it." Amelia replied, "Des, it's so easy. You just sit there, eat your lunch and say yes to everything." The first day was tough because she was there for about two hours. I know that she is getting more comfortable because she said she recommended a sentence of a non-credit cleaning job for someone yesterday. I believe the charge was littering.

It's been a great vocabulary topic at our dinner table. We've talked about what investigate means and the difference between defend and offend. We've also talked about how a punishment should be different if someone meant to do something or if it was an accident. We talked about why judges have to recuse themselves when Des asked Amelia to promise not to give him a sentence if he got written up. It's been pretty cool.

Thinking about ethics and ethical behavior does not seem to be in vogue these days. Nor is the virtue of personal responsibility. Leaders set the tone and right now our leadership has different priorities. It is not always easy to do the right thing, especially when you make a mistake and have to own up to it but it is so important and it is so important to teach kids this and nobody seems to want to do it. That's why I called this post Jury Duty. We all hate it but i'ts so important that we all participate when we can.

The other good thing about JC is that it gives everyone a voice and problems can be resolved and everyone can move on. I'm sure there are grudges and personality conflicts and what have you but nobody can say that they weren't listened to or that they were treated unfairly.