Education or Vandalism?

Angelene Woo

Signs were put up around campus in regards to Dalat International School’s new campus construction. One of these signs had a comma splice, and English teachers Bethany Weidemann and Emily Grad decided to take the matter into their own hands.

The school year of 2015-2016 saw the start of the construction of Dalat International School’s new campus. Signs were placed around campus warning students of the dangers of the construction work and expressing the need for caution. One such sign requested that the students kindly welcome the construction workers as Dalat’s guests. This sign, however, contained a ghastly flaw! Dalat International School, who prides itself on producing students with perfect grammar—mostly thanks to Tommy Tompkins—, printed a comma splice on signs all over campus! A comma splice is a serious offence and is defined by Dictionary.com as, “the use of a comma, rather than a semicolon, colon, or period, to join two independent clauses in the absence of a coordinating conjunction.” (See picture below).

Disgusted, Weidemann and Grad trekked around the campus one afternoon, laboring to manually fix the comma splice with their nifty markers. With one dot, they transformed the comma, on three signs, into a semicolon. Clearly these actions were premeditated, but what was Weidemann and Grad’s motive? Did they earnestly hope to educate Dalat students? Or did they wish to provoke the authorities?

When asked of her motive, Grad simply replied, “I have no comments; I will not speak without my lawyer.”

Many other questions arise: “Should the school board address this issue as an act of vandalism?” and “Should they, as teachers, face consequences for poor role modeling?”

Page 43 of Dalat’s Student and Parent Handbook says, “Not being respectful towards property owned by the school, teachers, or other students, including theft and vandalism, will be subject to major disciplinary action.”

Will the authorities take action to discipline these outrageous rebels? Or will faculty be above the law?