Since February, 2006, Adam King, one of the leaders in NYRA’s chapter formation, has worked extensively to convince the Buncombe County Board of Education to add a student advisor to the board. This position would initially be non-voting, and the student would not be allowed to sit in on closed sessions that deal with personnel…
As reported in my last blog entry, I have been actively working to create a position on my local school board for students. I was expecting to speak at the March board meeting, but I was informed a few days before the meeting that it had been postponed until the meeting on Monday, April 3,…
During this semester, I am taking the honors-level version of a state-mandated civics and economics class at my school. The class is quite interesting, and it involves a lot of open dicussion and thought. On Tuesday, the teacher assigned a fun project in which we were to write a mock state referendum concerning a state…
By reading this title, you may be wondering what the hell it has anything to do with youth rights. This is more of a personal story in connection to a general youth rights theme, so just relax and keep on reading to find out more. I must let you know that I have been a…
As I write this post in my first period class at my school during my spare time, I realize that I am fortunate. While my school is mainly pro-student rights, I realize that there are some schools that are ageist and barbaric in their policies. This must change. Students are in school for nearly eight…
I wandered over to the SSDP blog and had a look at this entry. It got me thinking. Great. Students at this particular high school are fighting the proposed mandatory random drug tests. It is very refreshing to see students who, no matter how they feel about a proposed policy, aren’t just sitting back and…
Over the course of the past week or so, I have been working extensively on a project that I feel is important to youth rights. It may be considered one of the first stepping stones to gaining increased rights, but it is a step in the right direction – a gradual process. As a lot…
We’ve all had the feeling at some point. We’ve all seen a sign or been told something by a store employee, parent or school administrator that was just such an ageist injustice that it couldn’t go unchallenged. Even the least argumentative youth rights supporters must have felt the need to challenge a small ageist injustice…
Here are two essays I wrote for my English class last semester. The first is about “Involuntary Volunteering,” the practice in some high schools (and middle and elementary schools as well, which is actually worse) requiring students to complete a certain amount community service in order to graduate. (Community service graduation requirements, or for the Orwellians out there, comserve gradreqs. Doubleplusungood.) Since this was to be an evaluation essay, all I could really say was that they stunk, but the implication is, they shouldn’t be allowed either.
The second is about age-based curfew laws, a proposal that they should be abolished. I even unleashed the full power of Mike Males (who is, as you may know, a sociologist) and his coauthored study on the effectiveness in age-based curfews. Also doubleplusungood.
I think adult bullies are a part of the problem that spawns youth bullies. It’s the same situation that gets played out all the time. Power hierarchies turn into totem poles where everyone dominates the one below them. The boss yells at the working man, who goes home and hits his wife, she screams at…
