According to the Oct. 11 story in the Recorder, “School resource officer proposal defeated,” the Greenfield School Committee’s majority opinion was to defeat the proposal for a school resource officer because some students would “not be comfortable with law enforcement,” that is, with police officers.

The School Committee’s majority opinion was that the most compelling issue is to protect these “some” children from their discomfort. Moreover, we permit those children to condemn an entire profession on the basis of some negative experience. Given that rationale, if several students had traumatic experiences in a hospital, we should expect the School Committee to dismiss all the district’s school nurses to protect those students from feeling “threatened” or “triggered,” or even just “uncomfortable,” right? That, of course, is utterly ridiculous. But then, so is the reasoning that was offered by the School Committee majority.

Given the fact that life will inevitably cause us disappointment, frustration and fear, it is incumbent on adults to foster in children as great a measure of resilience as possible. That means fostering the courage to confront, and the resourcefulness to move through, the challenges that life poses. If there are children who have cause to fear police officers, what better opportunity to confront that fear than in a setting where the individual is one who specifically chose to be present with students to offer them real physical protection.

Instead the School Committee has followed the current peculiar idea that children can be shielded from all confrontation with things discomforting, that it is, in fact, the responsibility of society to provide such a shield.

That is an utterly empty promise — there are no “safe spaces.” There is no protection from shocks, disappointments, or betrayals beyond the ability to navigate them as best as possible. Hiding from them, even pretending they can even be hidden from, is to foster in the child an enduring infantilism: I’m scared, or upset, or “threatened,” or “not comfortable,” or “triggered,” and so you need to provide me with a shield, a guarantee that I won’t ever have to confront this thing again.

I hope that the majority of the School Committee are unaware, at the moment, that their vote sent the following messages to our children: no police officer can be trusted; and better that a fight in your classroom progress to the point of severe physical injury or that a gunman find himself unopposed in your hall some school day, so that some handful of students not be made “uncomfortable.”

I hope even more, that if the “safe space” argument is all the majority can muster, they will reconsider the mayor’s proposal promptly.

Stephen Hussey lives in Greenfield.