I hope our French readers will forgive us for this small intrusion in Shakespear’s language, but I think it’s important to publish an English statement. We attempted to put an end to this story yesterday when we published a French statement, but we are still receiving numerous calls from media outlets across the globe. To make things easier for everyone, we’ve decided to publish the English version of yesterday’s post.
This whole Ziploc story has grown to unimaginable proportions. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since Friday, and we have been buried under the sheer number of emails and comments we’ve received. We did speak to a few media like the Journal de Montréal, the National Post, CBC, 98.5, etc., but we have now started to decline interviews, including those from TVA, ABC News and MSNBC.
We feel it’s important for the public to understand that we have a real life outside the Web ;-). We have two little monsters we love dearly, and real jobs that require our attention. We are not activists or warriors. We are simply normal parents who, like millions of other parents, are trying to succeed in our personal and professional lives.
We reacted emotionally to a situation we felt was wrong, and it reached thousands of people, from coast to coast and well outside our borders! It sparked vigurous debate in the comments, on Facebook, on Twitter and through many other mediums.
When people looked beyond the « Ziploc » bag, many people saw something much more important that needed debatting. They saw and issue that was bigger than a teacher, a school or a school board. They even saw something that was about more than environmentalism. They saw an issue with the values being taught in our schools, and this debate is greater than us. It has now reached unbelievable proportions.
To end this story, we want to say that we met with the school principal and apologized for not consulting with her sooner. It should have been our first step. It would not have changed my original blog post, but we would have been able to include the principal’s views and opinions on the matter.
My wife and I are not journalists; we simply blog about our lives, and have done so for years. However, we do accept the blame — next time, I guarantee that we will speak with the principal before blogging about something concerning the school.
When we met with the principal, she explained the school’s « Green Plan » and the many challenges the school faces every day. We also understand the school receives criticism far more often than praise for all the good things it does. It’s sad, but it’s human nature to talk about the bad things, instead of the things that are going well.
We explained to the principal that the story grew to unexpected proportions and that we did not intent the blog post to go so far. We made it clear that we never released the name of the school or the names of the individuals involved. We simply talked about a very specific issue that is the symptom of a much larger issue.
We expressed our frustration, there was an overwhelming amount of debate and we explained our side of the story to a few journalists. Now, it is time for this to end. We believe we’ve said everything we had to say about the issue.
We would like to thank everyone who participated in this debate on our blog, including those of you who have vigorously opposed our opinion. That’s fine. No offense taken ;-).
My wife and I now have to return our attention to our primary focus: our family!
However, we will continue to write on our blog, and I can’t promise that debates won’t arise again in the future ;-).
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