When it comes to school, do students feel powerless? Are students afraid to stand up to their school and to object to their rules and way of order? Around the schools, you can hear that students are not at all happy about the way their school run things. A majority of students don't realize that their schools could be violating their own rights. Students would think that the school has them on lock down when it comes to the rules, but they don't. School rules have many holes in them. Students are able to widen those holes and reveal the areas in which the school has not covered. When a student actually reads the guidelines, they figure out ways to bypass the rules. The school staff think that they know the rules and what to do if one of those rules in broken, but they don't. School rules are overly absurd now in days. It makes me wonder if they actually take time to think about how the students would feel about these rules and if these certain rules are of need. Which brings me back to students feeling powerless. Students will not stand up against their school because they are afraid of the consequences and most of all, afraid of their own parents. Why? Because their parents are free to take away everything they have. I urge for students to really read the guidelines carefully to find the holes. I urge the students to find the rules that don't belong. I urge the students to take a stand against their school and say "this isn't right". Parents are reasonable. Parents will agree with the student if they let the student explain their reason for the outburst. As for the consequences, there is nothing the school can do that would be reasonable for punishing the student for wanting a change in the way of order. Why do I feel so strongly about this? Because I've had to sit and watch students' rights be abused by the staff who think they know the rules like the back of their hand, one student being my dear friend Martelia Tallent. She brought her new camcorder to school, thinking that if she brought it to lunch, she wouldn't get in trouble. She was wrong. The vic-principal actually was the one who took it from her. Why? His reason was "you can't have that here". If it were me, I would have demanded a better answer. I've read the guidelines and know that her bringing the camcorder to lunch wasn't a violation of the rules. The section I found this hole was in the following guideline:
"Playing cards, dice, headphones, radios, CD players, cell-phones, i-Pods, mp3 players, digital cameras, DVD players and other types of devices that would disrupt learning are not to be out or on between 7:00 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. will be taken up and parents will have to come by the principal's office in order to recover them."
First of all, if someone can't understand how to use proper punctuation and spelling, they shouldn't be making rules. Notice that "iPod" and cell phone don't have dashes in the words and also notice that after starting ". . .between 7:00 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. . . .", the creator of this guideline leaves out proper sentence structor and starts a new statement. If these rules are to be taken seriously, the people who create them should take them seriously. Now, back to the camcorder. The guidelines states " . . . would disrupt learning . . ." Pardon me if I'm wrong, but the cafeteria is absolutely not a place in which students learn. Having the banned items in the cafeteria would not violate the rules, right? Yes. Students should be able to have fun in the cafeteria. Students should be allowed to have their cameras, iPods, and CD players out during lunch. As for the other items, I would understand why they wouldn't be allowed. In fact, this specific guideline doesn't mention anything about having these items during lunch.
The second reason as to why I feel so strongly about students standing up against their school is because on Friday, I had to watch as a girl's food, which was brought to her by a parent or family member, was taken up by a lunchroom assistant and put in the teacher's lounge. You may be wondering why the assistant done this. The truth is, she only done it because the food was from McDonald's. The handbook says that there is not to be any outside food in the cafeteria. Food is food, though, and it was absurd for the assistant to have to take the food and drink from her.
Once again, I urge students to take a stand against their school. Many schools also urge their students to complain against the rules. But how many students will take that stand?
