David McElroy

What kind of dreams do you have? I’ve always been fascinated by mine, even though I’ve never figured out whether they’re just nocturnal patterns of nightly neuronal weirdness or if there could be something deeper about them. I read something Tuesday from a man who’s certain that his dreams are meaningful, because a dream he had when he was 16 years old changed his life.

I don’t know much about this guy. He lives in Great Britain and was a loser early in life. Nobody expected anything of him, including himself. Well, I’ll let him tell his story, which he told Tuesday on a message board:

I was written off at school when I was 10. The teachers at this massive school decided that there was nothing that I could learn and it was pointless to try and teach me. I followed the lead and paid no attention in class. Life was pretty bad at home so to get attention, I’d ruin class for everyone else. Parents would ask the school for their kids to be in classes where I wasn’t. No future.

At 16 years old, I’ve somehow scraped through my exams with the minimum grades required and into senior class. And I have the dream.

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A physics teacher in Edmonton has been removed from his classroom for having the guts to insist that his students’ actions have consequences. A year and a half ago, his school adopted a policy forbidding teachers from giving students a grade of zero on work they don’t turn in. He refused to comply — and he’s been suspended for standing up for academic integrity.

Lynden Dorval comes across as a teacher who simply wants to do what’s right for his students. (See video from Canada’s CBC below.) He couldn’t comply with a policy that gave students credit for things they didn’t even attempt to do. He’s appealing the decision, but says it’s the right thing even if it permanently costs him his job.

A new principal at Ross Sheppard High School brought the new policy last year. It’s the same policy in place at various other local schools. In fact, it’s been the policy at Edmonton junior high schools for decades, but it’s now spreading to high schools.

The idea is that assignments that aren’t turned in and tests that aren’t taken are simply behavioral issues, so they shouldn’t count against a student’s academic evaluation. Teachers are told to ignore any work not turned in and simply give grades based on the work that was completed.

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In 2009, three baby girls were among the victims of a missile attack launched on their village in Pakistan. They were badly burned and someone placed the three into a trash bin to die. A volunteer doctor from House of Charity found them and tried to save the little girls. Two of them died, but one of them, Shakira, lived. Barely.

Later the same year, Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. What will Shakira think when she grows up and discovers that the man who was inexplicably lauded for being a peacemaker was also the man who unleashed terror on her and her village?

How can we live in a world insane enough to give a peace prize to the man who gives orders for missiles to destroy random sections of remote villages just because someone suspects a U.S. enemy might be there?

It was under George W. Bush that the drone program was launched, but it was under Obama that it was greatly expanded. The administration has recently admitted that U.S. policy basically says that if you’re in the vicinity of a terrorist, you must be a terrorist. Can you imagine if police used that standard for criminal cases here? If a criminal suspect is said to be in an office building, they’d just blow up the office building.

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