I want to congratulate the Mirror for the recent article written by your journalist Raechel Dawson regarding a school expulsion case.

I believe it has great instructional value for your readers relative to understanding the expectations and demands we have for our school children in terms of rules, respect for authority and discipline versus the demands we face as adults.

As a board member I am not going to address the case. I would rather leave the confines of school and enter a hypothetical world for all your adult readers where the people are all like them in age, gender, ethnicity, everything.

In this world of adults they go shopping at their favorite store when a store clerk is told a pair of reading glasses has been stolen. Your reader has reading glasses draped over their neck so the clerk stops them to ask “Where did you get those reading glasses?” I am one who asks “Why?” so would probably extricate myself quickly in this encounter, but perhaps your reader is like Mr. Federal Way and retorts, “None of your business.”

The clerk continues to follow the reader asking for a reply and so you might stop and respond or maybe some would ignore the clerk and keep walking. So now store security has been called to ask you to stop and answer the clerk’s question.

Your reader might comply at this point or become outraged and talk about how you were brought up to stand up for your rights and not get pushed around. So the reader tries to leave, but is grabbed by the security guard. At this point some might finally comply, but there might be some who might angrily yank their arm away and perhaps even say something inappropriate.

Now your reader has had enough and tried to leave the store, but your reader gets physically restrained and taken to the security office where the police are called in and by golly your reading glasses have your name monogramed on them.

No witnesses were brought forth to say you stole any reading glasses so you are now free to go. The police may need to write up a report on this encounter, but no harm no foul and your reader goes on their merry way.

At this point perhaps we can ask the popular question, “So how did that make you feel?”

Here again, I want to make very clear that this is a hypothetical adult world and story that has absolutely no bearing on the article written in your paper about an incident in a school.

I offer this hypothetical story to show the difference in context we face as adults compared to the demands for obedience we necessarily have for our school children.

Your favorite store “X” does not tell you not to wear a shirt with beer brand “Y” emblazoned on it or be sent home.

That is the great thought provoking lesson in your story, even as some readers hear somebody humming in the back of their mind, “Kids are people too, Wacka Do Wacka Do Wacka Do!”

Hiroshi Eto, Federal Way Public Schools