Wilton Bulletin
Commentary by Barbara Alessi: Setting the record straight on ‘Voices’

Apr 5, 2007

It is time to set the record straight. The electronic block Bonnie Dickinson had placed on the script of record, the most important document file of this dispute, has been broken. Finally the facts of the matter can be brought forth and the controversy can be understood for the contrivance that it was. It was never about the hallowed principle of freedom of speech but rather the vengeful public airing of an academic issue.

With the release of the lock, and for the first time, the public has been given the opportunity to review the actual documents that comprise the basis of this controversy. There can be no informed debate without fact.

It is the March 5 script that is the script of record. The e-mail attached to the file identifies it as the actual script that was set for rehearsal.

At the point of rehearsal, the script is complete. The New York Times reporter acknowledged this fact in the article when she wrote that “at the point that the student actors were polishing the script.” That point was the March 5 script. A line may be tweaked or some other minor adjustment may be made but this was the finished script. This is the script of record.

This script of record was the script upon which the administration based its initial decision. This script of record was essential to the New York Times reporter as the basis for fact in her article.

This was the script around which all public debate should have revolved.

That the NYT reporter did not identify, never read and did not use as the basis for her reporting the script of record, destroys any attempt to defend the article as based on fact. The NYT further perpetuated the deception by linking an extraneous version to the article. This version of the script and all that post-date March 5, were hastily composed attempts at substitution made by Ms. Dickinson during that very short time period between the March 8th date of the administrative review and March 21, the date the New York Times arrived in Wilton.

The New York Times tried to defend its actions by stating that Ms. Dickinson had told the NYT that anything earlier than her last-ditch attempts at a false fairness “was a lesson plan or early notes”. Ludicrous! When, ever has a lesson plan been set for rehearsal? These was not early notes, this was March 5, seven weeks into the semester and this was no lesson plan, but the actual script that Ms Dickinson, left unchecked, would have presented.

The script drew all armed forces character from a single source, the documentary film, The Ground Truth. The script was a word-for-word verbatim replication of their statements found therein. It would be quite illustrative for everyone to sit and follow along with the script as the movie plays. The documentary is a genre that, by its very nature, informs from a single, strongly communicated viewpoint. It is by its very nature unabashedly biased and can be, as in The Ground Truth, slanted to the point of propaganda. In an academic setting, the lack of intellectual equilibrium inherent in a documentary prohibits this type of source material from being exclusively employed to represent any complex issue.

To achieve a balanced production, which is essential in an academic setting; multiple perspectives must by given weight. An issue as complex and important as this demands that each perspective have a commitment in time and study commensurate with the others.

The production time line was unavoidably elongated by the decision of Ms. Dickinson to rely solely on a documentary film for military character development. It took from Jan. 22 to March 5 to develop one source and perspective for the military voice. It was Ms. Dickinson and her class who, at their demonstrated pace, made, obvious and unavoidable, the decision that the play had to be postponed indefinitely. Reflecting an approximate time commensurate with that spent in the research and development of a single perspective, some seven weeks, it would take well into next year to give weight to the many other perspectives inherent in an issue as complex and as important as this one.

It was only one of many poor decisions which Ms. Dickinson made. Another was the decision to employ the book, The Voices of Conflict as nothing more than a title for her play. “The Voices”. was a cover literally and figuratively for Ms. Dickinson. As of March 5, in the script of record, not one military character was drawn independently from The Voices. She had turned its use in that way into an additional, insurmountable roadblock to play production this year. One need look no further that the first page of this script to understand the degree of bias. Placed there is a patriotic poem incongruent to the content of the script. It is another disingenuous attempt to dissuade any need to turn the page to examine the actual script for the extreme bias that lay within. Ironically, this ruse served only to sharpen the contract between it and the body of the script and further debunked the claim of extensive research, for, after seven weeks of work, the only positive material

Ms. Dickinson had in her possession was one poem obtained from an e-mail to her from Gabriella.

It was because the very premise of the play was set from the first day of the semester. Though the play was to be an indictment of the troops, Ms. Dickinson was misrepresenting intent from the very beginning. Though she states in The Wilton Bulletin that she never said her play was to honor the troops she most certainly did, often and consistently. ”To honor the troops” was the precise language which she used with me in my meeting with her of Jan. 30 and is documented in an e-mail follow-up. And again, as late as Feb. 28 in a handwritten note to a soldier’s family pleading for their support which had been denied (and remained so after the note) she stated “It is our hope that through these works, we can, for just one moment, bring honor and attention to the brave men and women who have put their lives on the line for this country.” To have said this in direct contradiction of what material her script contained was shameful.

What was done, after the administrative decision was made, was a quick and superficial rework, adding random sources and additions to the script. This hasty quest to add-on to the script did not carry, during the six school-day period of time between the promulgated decision and the arrival of the NYT in Wilton, even a minuscule amount of the weight in scholarly time and research that the development of single perspective took and which would be necessitated for it to qualify as an academic school-sponsored or venued project.

As once, tragically, again, the flag stands at half-staff in the shadow of the high school, I know we are all reminded of the respect and gratitude we share for the service and sacrifice of our brave and selfless fighting men and women. That we should all work to insure that any academic examination of their roles would be balanced and reasoned. Isn’t that the least we owe them? When reciting the Soldier’s Creed, each soldier stands and proudly states “I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life. I am an American soldier.”

This was never about the ideal of freedom of speech. It was about the manipulative use and abuse of that principle by a vindictive teacher who used the hot button issue to attract the attention of the New York Times. Once Ms. Dickinson failed in her attempts to coerce my child's cooperation with this highly objectionable production, all that was left was to punish her for her stand. Who, but Ms Bonnie Dickinson would need to use the newspaper as her vehicle to attempt to publicly punish a student whom she blamed for the indefinite postponement of her play and to pressure, by use of the unwarranted negative attention, a school administration to reinstate a school production that fell far short of meeting the most minimal of academic standards. Further does Ms. Dickinson believe that the media firestorm would inoculate her from all negative repercussions once the uproar died down and her actions were exposed? If she does, I believe she is wrong.

The New York Times, in writing, has stated to me that Ms. Dickinson made specific statements to the Times concerning my daughter by name. Activities that Ms Dickinson stated that she personally witnessed and ascribed to my child never happened. Why would a teacher make absolute incontrovertibly untrue statements about a student?  Is there any other conclusion to draw than that this teacher sought, with specific intent, to publicly malign my daughter and impugn her good name? To this date, The New York Times is scrambling, post publication, to verify Ms. Dickinson's claims. They will be unable. It was and remains without any factual merit.

In reality Gabriella Alessi-Friedlander is a principled young woman whose only transgression was to have the courage to stand up to this teacher and refuse to be cowered

To that end, I have initiated a formal Wilton School District administrative review of Ms. Dickinson's actions.  I am confident in its outcome.

My confidence in an equitable adjudication in this matter is in acknowledgement of the consistency with which this school district has been able to meet every challenge posed to it in the past with equanimity and balance and always with the best interest of the students as its raison de etre. The strength of any school system lies in the excellence of the teaching staff as well as that of its administrative body. I can state categorically that, save this one exception, the teaching staff throughout Wilton School District is superior in the quality of their skill sets and in their availability to support and encourage their students. I am blessed for the 20 years of quality education that my children have received as students enrolled in the Wilton School system. The consistency with which the Wilton School District has  maintained its rank as one of the finest school systems in Connecticut as well as nationally confirms my very statements.

Ms. Alessi lives on Branch Brook Road.


© Copyright 2007 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers