Student scolded for saving a life; School doesn’t ‘condone heroics’

By David McElroy · June 4, 2013

When 13-year-old Briar MacLean saw a bully put another student into a headlock in class last Tuesday, that wasn’t the worst of it.

“I heard the flick, and I heard them say there was a knife,” the Calgary, Alberta, teen told Canada’s National Post.

He quickly stepped up and pushed the bully out of the way. The teacher came from the other side of the room and the principal was called. Briar was obviously a hero for saving the other boy from the bully’s knife.

It wasn’t until later in the day that it became clear that the school didn’t see it that way. Leah O’Donnell, Briar’s mother, said a vice principal called from the school to say that her son had been involved in an “incident” and that he had decided to “play hero.” She was told that Briar’s action had been wrong.

“I asked: ‘In the time it would have taken him to go get a teacher, could that kid’s throat have been slit?'” O’Donnell told the National Post. “[The vice principal] said yes, but that’s beside the point. That we ‘don’t condone heroics in this school.'”

According to the rules of the Calgary Board of Education, Briar should have left the victim to his fate while he went off to get the attention of an adult to come intervene. Instead, he did the right thing by potentially saving another child’s life — only to be investigated, lectured and have his locker searched, as though he were a criminal.

O’Donnell said she teaches her children to stand up to bullies and that this isn’t the first time her son has gotten into a trouble for the same thing.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather live in a society full of people like Briar MacLean and Leah O’Donnell than with the myopic people who run the Calgary Board of Education. Yes, it’s a good thing to teach kids to avoid fights, but the “one size fits all” nature of the school system’s robotic application of the rules is wrong-headed.

We need more heroes. Sometimes those who try to help can be hurt. There’s always that chance. But those who choose to help others should be lauded and emulated, not treated as though they simply need to watch helplessly while others are hurt or killed.

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