Who hurt Lena? A parable
You are in your backyard one afternoon, digging some new potatoes. You look forward to a family supper with fresh garden produce, together with your husband Klaus and daughter Lena. You smile as you think about Lena, a gifted student in her Christian community school, always well-liked by teachers and friends, and wonder what cheerful stories she will have to share tonight.
As you put the potatoes on to boil you notice that Lena is later than usual and wonder if she stopped off at a friend’s house.
Suddenly you hear an awful commotion at the front door, a high-pitched wailing of pain and fear. You race to the door to find your daughter cradling her arm at an unnatural angle, blood staining her clothes, her tear-streaked face radiating shock and anguish.
Everything stops.
As you race her to the hospital, while her arm is being x-rayed, after the cast is on and you are back home, while you are trying to get your shivering daughter cleaned up, fed, warmed, and comforted, your mind and heart bruise and break as you try to grasp what she is telling you.
“My teacher broke my arm. He did it on purpose.”
“My friends didn’t do anything to help.”
“I went to the principal’s office and she told me to go back to my classroom and stop fussing. The school secretary told me to get out of her office because my blood was dripping onto the carpet.”
“When it was time to go home, none of my friends helped to carry my backpack to the bus, so it’s still at school.”
“I was crying really loudly in the bus, and no one sat next to me. The bus driver stopped the bus and told me to get out and walk the rest of the way home because I was disturbing everyone else.”
You ask about Lena’s best friend who lives at the same bus stop. “Didn’t Sarah get out and walk with you?”
“She said she preferred to ride. I was afraid I wasn’t going to make it home. I thought I was going to faint on the way.”
Where do you start? What would any shocked, horrified parent do after hearing a story like this?
You call the principal.
She says she’s traveling and she’ll get back to you next week. (A friend later tells you that she overheard the principal in the supermarket a couple of days later, saying to another parent who was asking her about Lena’s arm being broken by the teacher, “Wow, that would be terrible if it were true.”)
“Wow, that would be terrible if it were true.”
Three days later, you receive a DHL parcel with Lena’s backpack in it.
You spend a few weeks scrambling to get Lena into another school, to find her a therapist. She has frequent nightmares.
You decide to make a police report. You inform the school principal that you have done so, and emphasize that you still want to meet with her to discuss what happened. She does not respond.
You ask a friend to approach her. The friend comes back to you in disbelief and tells you that the principal said that since Lena is no longer enrolled in the school, you can’t submit a complaint about what happened.
You call the school board. They say, “Thank you for sharing this with us. We commit to holding it prayerfully and with care. We’ll be doing an investigation into this case, so we can learn from it. We will choose the investigator. You will get a report that shows whether your complaint was founded or unfounded. You will need to keep this confidential and not share it with anyone. We ask you to please cooperate with the investigator. Since you and your husband and Lena are witnesses, we ask you not to speak with each other or anyone else about the case. In our investigation, we’ll be doing an assessment of your credibility.”
You ask what will happen to the teacher in question. They answer that this is confidential.
You ask if the school will pay for your daughter’s medical bills. They agree.
After much anguish and discussion with Klaus, you decline to participate in the investigation.
You share the story with a local journalist, and it appears in the newspapers. People from outside your community seem more interested in the story than people inside.
The school secretary texts you to say they will extend their medical coverage by a few months during Lena’s rehab.
The principal makes a statement to the press, saying that because you have gone to the police, the school cannot engage with you in any way except through a police intermediary. You have set the terms of the engagement, the principal claims. And an impartial investigation is being done, so she can’t say anything more. Except she does emphasize that you have refused to participate in it.
You begin to agitate in the community, talk to other parents, talk to your local pastor, ask people to help shut the school down so other children don’t get hurt. To your horror, you find many other families whose children have been hurt by teachers, bus drivers, the principal, and even members of the board. Many of them are afraid to speak out. Some of them have signed papers promising to keep quiet. You also find that parents of unharmed children are hesitant to get involved. “If the school closes, then the children of this community won’t get a Christian education. We don’t want to cause more pain. At least they’re paying your medical bills.”
Another parent tells you that he believes your story, but he’s still going to make a donation to the school fundraiser. Why?
“We’ve always supported the school. It’s part of our community. It’s existed for a hundred years. It’s done so many good things. Plus, it’s so important for there to be a Christian school in this community, as a witness.”
A few months after you have gone public with your story, the principal issue another statement to the press saying that she laments the pain that Lena and a few others have shared with the community. She says that the school will designate a special room where students can come to share if a teacher has hurt them. Supposedly this will be a safe space to share, although she doesn’t say what will happen after the students come forward. She asks the community to continue their donations, so that the important work of the school can go on. She says that the school will be consulting with a local accreditation agency to refine its educational philosophy. She says that the school will review its policies. She emphasizes that no one except you has actually made a formal complaint to the school. She speaks at length about how much time she is spending listening to concerned community members, and how much she cares about their concerns, and how committed she is to resolving “conflicts” like this. She still hasn’t met with you, and you have become unsure whether a meeting with her would even be a good idea.
Meanwhile, you speak privately with a couple of teachers at the school. They tell you that the school has recently modified its policies so that teachers can be fired if they make any public comment about the case. They can also be fired if they share the text of the new policy with you. They say a few of them have gone to see the principal with questions about the teacher in question, but she told them to stay out of it because they didn’t know all the facts. Some of them tell you they are terrified for their jobs.
This situation grinds along for months. You are exhausted and alternate your energy between caring for Lena, agitating for change, and trying to keep up with your regular responsibilities. You have lost many of your friends, although you are thankful for a few, old and new, who listen and believe you.
A year after the events, the principal announces that an investigation into Lena’s case has been completed. The investigator has returned a finding of “inconclusive.” Apparently, some mistakes were made, and the school is putting into place some improvements, but she can’t say more because it’s confidential to protect the privacy of those who made the complaint. (You’re bemused by her sudden concern for your privacy, after you have been sharing your story with everyone who will listen for months. And you don’t understand why someone who broke your daughter’s arm should be entitled to privacy.) She hopes that this process can reassure the school’s donors and the community (most of whom didn’t seem that concerned anyway).
No one from the school leadership or the board ever asked how Lena was doing, or expressed shock or horror at what happened to her.
After this announcement from the principal, you and Lena and Klaus give up your efforts and decide to move to a new community.
Who is most responsible for the harm caused to Lena and her family?
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Writing parables is not my strong suit. As I write them my admiration for Jesus grows – his parables ended with a cryptic “Let those who have ears listen,” a kind of exasperated, “Do I have to explain everything to you?” I can’t resist the temptation to make the parallels so explicit that you can hardly even call this a parable anymore. So be it. I really, really want you to get it.
This parable was first published in Facebook on September 21, 2024. See https://www.facebook.com/anicka.fast/posts/pfbid02zjK7rCjV2dvbNpktZvrmM7Zwjh5JF299qA8mbHs7EKGzzUWiuP5Nti3oDn9nxsE7l