Rumors make things worse

Our local school superintendent put out a message recently about rumors and threats that were made in the middle school. I don’t have any more information than the average parent in the community, but something stood out to me.

According to Mr. Schmidt’s post, the problem started with ‘verbal altercations’ between students that went unreported. Then things escalated as other students started (unfounded, thank God!) rumors about a shooting threat, which then spread like wildfire through social media.

There are two big lessons we can learn from this situation:

First, the Fourth Commandment (“Honor your father and mother”) is not only about honoring our parents, but honoring all legitimate authority. When there is misbehavior in the schools, everyone who knows of it has a Christian duty to report it to the proper authorities.

Second, the Eighth Commandment (“Do not bear false witness”) tells us not just that we shouldn’t lie, but that we should protect our neighbors’ reputations. That means that if we know something negative about someone, even if it is true, we are not to spread it around. Aside from reporting something negative to legitimate authorities, (in this case, a teacher or administrator), we should just keep our mouths shut.

This should be fresh in the minds of our middle school students, as we recently have covered these commandments in Confirmation class, but I suggest that parents spend a little time with their kids reinforcing Christian teaching on rumors, gossip, and proper authority.