Color Coding Your Kids

I was a senior in high school when they began the whole procedure of having students wearing ID badges to differentiate students from unauthorized people in the building. This was prior to the events at Columbine High School when school security was important but not as important as it had become. Having worked numerous summer jobs on controlled access facilities, I was used to wearing an ID badge around. There was some reluctance on the part of many students to wearing one simply because they could help identify you as a freshman, senior or what have you. That was of particular concern when you were looking to avoid another wedgie. Not a problem for all people but for some of us it was.

After Columbine school security took on a decidedly serious tone and student ID badges were not an option, they were a requirement. Although most ID badges have been turned generic to avoid the stigma of being a freshman or whatever, teachers at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland hit on what must have seemed like a brilliant idea at the time but turned out to be a major faux pas. Blair High School is one of the most well reputed schools in Maryland. They have major programs and activities that have made already bright students among the brightest graduating from schools today. So it was with a bit of surprise when I heard that the Principal of the school had decided to color code his students.

Now before you get into a tizzy about what this means, let me give a bit of background. As I said, there are many programs at the school and the idea behind it was to color code each of these programs so that faculty and students could easily identify others in their program. In addition, most grade levels had a specific color code as well. In the military most units have a certain sense of pride being associated with their unit; take this up a notch and you'll see that this extends to their branch of service as well. Take a look at any stadium during a game and you'll see thousands of fans also dressed up in the regalia of their favorite team or player. This sort of color coding is helpful. In the case of the students it is helping exacerbate a pre-existing problem.

Most of us who went to high school here can probably remember being teased for being associated with certain clubs. And even if we didn't get teased ourselves we knew of others who were. I'm sure there are members of the Audio/Visual Club who are still nursing the scars from all those years ago. As it is there are already divisions among high school students, I don't get why the Principal would want to create more. If the purpose was to create pride in the individual programs then that's fine but color coding is far too much like segregation for a lot of people. I'm sure that wasn't the intent when the plan was proposed but I'm curious just how much discussion was held on this before it was put into action. I'm sure the concern would have come up ahead of time if it had been. It's unfortunate that we live in an age where such efforts can be easily misinterpreted but this is the way it is, so we all should take steps to avoid making such situations even worse!