The Parable of Speech in Class

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, are there circumstances where freedom of the press gives way to national security, and if so, how do we demarcate the limits the government can set?”

Josh spoke thus:

A teacher wanted a class of children to play a game.  In the game, there would be two teams.  One team would form a line along one classroom wall, and the other team would form a line along the opposing classroom wall.  The teacher would give a piece of paper to the first person in each line.  Each piece of paper would have a phrase written on it.  Each team would then pass the phrase along its line, person to person.  The person at the end of each line would then call out the phrase as it had been passed down the line.

“I know this game!” a student called out, “It’s called Whispers!  We whisper the phrase to each other.  The phrase is never right when it gets to the end of the line!”  Others in the class agreed that the game was indeed Whispers, and that it was fun.

Another student called out, “The game is called Telephone!  This is a great game!”  A number of students agreed that the game’s proper name was in fact Telephone, and that Telephone, like Whispers, was a lot of fun.

The student who had called out that the name of the game was Whispers ran to a wall and said, “Everyone who wants to play Whispers, come to my wall!”

The student who preferred Telephone ran to the opposing wall and said, “I’m playing Telephone!  Everyone who wants to play telephone come to this wall!”

Half the class joined the Whispers wall, and half the class joined the Telephone wall.  The teacher passed out a piece of paper to each line.  Each line passed its phrase ear to ear to the end.

The final person in the Whispers line called out, “Flea bomb in sweets!”

The final person in the Telephone line called out, “Free moms on the beech!”

Everybody laughed at the nonsense phrases, and the teacher told the class that the phrase was “Freedom of speech.”  The teacher gave each line another piece of paper, and the game was played again.

The Whispers line finished with “Freedom of a bumble bee.”

The Telephone line finished with “She comes from Cincinatti.”

The phrase was “Freedom of assembly,” the teacher told the class.

The game continued for a number of rounds.  The results became sillier and sillier, and the class laughed often and loudly.  It was clear that the students were deliberately garbling the phrases for comic effect.  Then the Whispers team passed the phrase, “petition the Government for a redress of grievances” exactly.

“That’s very good,” the teacher said.  

The Telephone line protested, claiming “petition the Government for a redress of grievances” wasn’t at all funny.  The teacher agreed, but pointed out that the object of the game was to pass the phrase accurately.

“We just passed the note down,” the leader of the Whispers team said.

“Did I say passing the note down was against the rules of the game?” the teacher asked.  The class acknowledged that the teacher had made no such stipulation.

“But it’s against school rules to pass notes in class,” a student said.

“Which is why the Whispers team is all on detention,” the teacher said, “Now class, what have we all learned about free speech and the importance of clear communication today?”