DD1 got a splinter in her hand while playing at school yesterday. She told her teacher who sent her to the school nurse. The nurse cleaned her palm where the splinter was, put a band air on it and sent her home (with the splinter still inside her palm). When dd came home and told me she had a splinter and that she went to the nurse and got it fixed, I didn't worry too much. Later in the evening I took the band aid off to look at the wound and found the splinter still inside.
I took it out with a pair of tweezers - this is a feat because I'm the most squeamish person imaginable. I am not good at these kind of things. So, if I can do it, why couldn't the nurse do it?
http://forums.webmd.com/3/parenting-elementary-ages-exchange/forum/886/8
Now I'm not saying all splinters can be removed. If a splinter's in too deep, that's one thing. Nor would I expect, as one parent responded to the above entry, for a school nurse to physically restrain a child and wrestle a splinter out. But to not even try? I'll never forget the little boy in my own second grade class, Dalton, who came back from the office with a bandaid over his splinter. It was a fairly large splinter, just under the skin. Anyone with a pair of tweezers could have easily removed it. The little boy even stood patiently and bit his lip a time or two as I tried removing it with a pair of needle nosed pliers I'd fished out of my desk. As another parent noted on webmd.com, "Splinters hurt & can be quite bothersome. I know for my kids they complain continuously until it is removed."
Our school did not have a licensed nurse on staff. Instead, bandaids were administered by the attendance secretary, who was a loving, intelligent, and always helpful person who had raised a number of children. She would probably have been more than happy to remove Dalton's irritating splinter had she not been prevented by our District's policy. I have told Dalton's story to at least two licensed school nurses, and neither was surprised. If I remember correctly, and it's been a while, both of them told me they were prohibited from removing splinters.
Whenever someone asks me why I think our public schools are dysfunctional, I tell them the story of Dalton and his splinter. I also think of Little Loewy from Darkness at Noon. Little Loewy was a disillusioned Bolshevik, a true believer whose eyes were opened by the seemingly corrupt and counterproductive actions of his superiors in Moscow. The problem was, Little Loewy only thought of his communist ideals. He had no broader vision, no realpolitic. That's why he felt betrayed when Moscow began secretly shipping arms to Nazi Germany. In the story, he's just finished telling Rubashov, the protagonist, some bitter tale of woe about some incomprehensible thing the Party leaders in Moscow have done. "What are you telling me this for?" Rubashov asks. Little Loewy responds:
"Because it is instructive . . . because it is a typical example, I could tell you of hundreds of others. For years the best of us have been crushed in that way. The Party is becoming more and more fossilized. The Party has gout and vericose veins in every limb."
There is a parallel here. Just as Little Loewy couldn't understand the broader vision of realpolitic that led the party leaders in Moscow to do what they did, many parents and teachers don't understand why school nurses can't remove a splinter from a child's palm. But just like Little Loewy, we too lack the broader vision of our superiors. All we see is the face of the little hurting child, imploring us to do something about that splinter. We lack the broader vision, which is the fear of lawsuits that those who run our public schools are all too aware of.
Attorney Phillip K. Howard, author of Life Without Lawyers (2009) says that fear of lawsuits has upturned our society's "sense of balance on ordinary life choices."
Broward County decided to ban running in the playgrounds after it got a report showing that it had settled 189 playground awsuits in the prior five years. "To say 'no running' on the playground seems crazy," said a member of the Broward County School Board, "but your feelings change when you're in a closed-door meeting with lawyers."
The child with the splinter in his palm and the school board that feels compelled to ban running on the playground are of the same piece. What seems crazy is not crazy after all, esecially if you've been "reeducated" during a closed door session with lawywers. That's where you learn that you must remove all risk, no matter what the cost. "Sorry kid, I can't take that splinter out, and be sure you don't run on the playground when you get back out there."
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