Ma’at: preventing chaos, or denying civil rights?
Mark K September 9th, 2008
My daughter recently started her sophomore year of high school and came home complaining about a situation that had arisen at her school. During the summer before her freshman year, the school had completed an extensive building project and among the additions was a brand new state-of-the art library. The students loved the new library and began to gather there as a social meeting place at lunchtime, during breaks and after school. The librarian and administration soon found that, with all of the socializing, the noise level was too high for those who intended to study.
The administration tried various solutions: asking students to be quiet, evicting offenders, and designating one room as the “quiet study” area. The students countered that they had been promised a student center and since it had not yet been provided, it should be acceptable to use the library for socializing. The administration felt that after spending a small fortune on the new library, those who actually wanted to study shouldn’t have to be confined to a separate room. By the end of last year, no solution had been found.
This year, the administration decided to try a different strategy; that’s when they purchased “Ma’at”.
What, exactly, is Ma’at? Ma’at is an electronic noise sensing device which lets you know when the noise in the room has passed a certain level. The librarian can set the level and if the ambient noise is below that level, Ma’at displays a green light. When the noise level approaches the set limit, the green light changes to yellow, as a warning. When the noise level surpasses the acceptable level, Ma’at displays a red light and everyone is kicked out of the library!
My daughter explained (with much rolling of eyes) that it’s called Ma’at because it’s named after the Egyptian god of balance. It seems that Ma’ats duties included setting order in the universe out of the chaos of creation.
My daughter complained that when she studies in the library, she has trouble concentrating – not, mind you, because of all of the chattering – but because she has to keep one eye on Ma’at at all times as the light switches back and forth from green to yellow, and eventually to red. She says that Ma’at is programmed to average the noise level every ten seconds, but that if a student is sitting close to the sensor and coughs at an inopportune time, this is enough to make Ma’at see red. Worse, she was convinced that the librarian was setting Ma’at at a lower noise threshold each day. What, she asked, will happen when cold season sets in?
The school is known for encouraging students to think for themselves, to question, and to speak up. Not surprisingly, many of them refused to give up without a fight.
A group of students banned together and started a counter-Ma’at insurgency, taking their case to Facebook and encouraging others to join their cause. My daughter read to me the impassioned statement written by the leader. I was impressed with how well written it was. It was stated that the installation of Ma’at smacked of Big Brother and that the students were being deprived of their right to meet and socialize and that the administration had renegged on their promise to provide a student center. It was further suggested that the school culture was slowly but surely changing – it was becoming more rigorously academic, pressure-filled and rule-oriented and less open-minded, student-centered and creative. A new head of school had recently been hired and it was feared that this was just the beginning of more changes to come. The author – who boldly identified himself – encouraged others to leave their opinions and to join him in an act of civil disobedience in protest to Ma’at.
The idea was that every day, the students would purposely cause Ma’at to flash the red light. Every day everyone would be asked to leave the library and no one would be able to use this brand-new, gorgeous facility. They would make a mockery of Ma’at to the point where the administration would have to rethink their policy and return, it is presumed, to old-fashioned shushing.
I was intrigued by the whole story and was especially tickled when I found out if the device had a name. I asked some questions that only served to further aggravate my daughter (Do they sell a home model?) and felt sympathy for the new head of school who might be facing a precedent-setting test case early in her administration.
I offered to enter my opinions on Facebook, but my daughter informed me that the cause of exercising one’s freedom of speech didn’t extend to meddlesome, embarrassing, ill-advised parents. I’m hoping that I have accurately represented the opposition’s message, since I have been further advised that “it would be really weird” for anyone my age to have anything to do with Facebook.
Meanwhile, Ma’at sits on the library wall passing judgment, unaware that she might have created more noise than silence.
