Often, when school kids get into a fight on the playground, the teacher or someone on yard duty has to step in and pull them apart, separate them, and march them to the office.

There they wait, sometimes glaring at each other, while their parents are called and the dean or vice principal begins the talk, who did what, who started it, why, blame, consequences, are you sorry, will you stop. And punishment, suspension, one day, a week. And a resolution to everyone’s minimal satisfaction, what all agree to live with. And then they’re sent home to think about what they did, and how to avoid it in the future.

Countries fight like little children. They call names, they spit, they start hitting, they grapple, they roll on the ground. Where’s the Adult Supervision to step in, separate them, end the fight, find a resolution they can live with?

When kids get older, high school, they carry weapons, bring them out, use them. The fight gets serious. They’re acting like adults, they can hurt deep. School discipline and supervision needs bigger stronger hands to separate and force a resolution.

Where are the bigger adults now to end the fighting?

I remember the earlier days when we kids all sat together in the classroom and learned together. If there was anything worth fighting over, we felt it wasn’t there with us in the classroom. We understood, dimly, that someone outside the classroom made the rules we were being forced to follow. We began to learn, dimly, that what was worth fighting about was not immediately visible to our young eyes and our young minds.

Then, before we could quite figure it out, we were graduated into the world, at the mercy of those large invisible controlling hands.

I’ve learned long ago the need to keep learning, even go back to school, to see what needs to be seen, fix what needs fixing.

I started to teach, kept teaching, now, even after retirement, continue teaching, because that’s the way, the best way, maybe the only way, to move ahead, and, in the current instance, break up the fights.

Kids under supervision confront each other, talk it out, confront their differences, come to terms, shake hands, know they’re still under close watch on probation, but they know the fight is over, and are required to say so.

Why can’t adults act like children in school?