I watched Spotlight this weekend. It’s the ensemble piece that won Best Picture at the last Academy Awards. It’s pretty good–kind of like a Law and Order: SVU that cusses a little and takes on Catholic priests molesting kids. The point of view is Boston Globe reporters following the case and trying to find the entire scope of crimes.
The part that resonated with me the most was something that ties in to education, and maybe any job. When the reporters are getting ready to blow the case wide open and shine a light on the Catholic church, which we are told over and over is HUGE in Boston, they remember an article they buried years ago about the same claims against priests. It is implied that the same reporters who about to print this new article were the ones that buried it years ago.
It’s the age-old argument that goes along the lines of “We knew it, and we let it happen.”
This blog is mostly cathartic for me, a chance to bring me back to the discipline that is writing, but to think about all the things that happen at a public school, and all the times, days, weeks, months, years where certain things just happen–it’s some staggering facts that no one wants to know. We all want to believe that our schools, much like the Catholic church in Spotlight, are places that provide that safe and supportive environment for students. After all, it’s the language of the schools themselves.
And most of the time, school provides everything you hope it will. But sometimes it does not. Do we get a free pass for the “most of the time” behavior? or, much like our social media world today, should we be judged for the other moments? I don’t know.
But many people know. And things happen every day.