My opinion of the ASTI Constitution involves its objective, and what our students really think about it. After about an hour of reading through the posts of fellow ASTIans, I've received the same message from just about all of them: "Bullies have onced been bullied...bullies bully others to make themselves feel better...bullies are pressured to bully...blah,blah,blah...". The word bully has reached its limit with me.
So who decides what a bully is? Teachers? Students? Outcasts? When do we have the time to stop and label a person as a bully? What prevents a bully from doing...what bullies do? How should they be punished? I ask these questions because they tie into my thoughts on the effectiveness of the constitution.
Speaking for myself only, the constitution is just something to fall back on. It is a piece of paper that we as a school, and as a unit, can point to and say, "Yeah, we made that. We follow the rules and love each other." (No disrespect intended.) The teachers, I believe, felt that if us students collaborated on our own to think of rules/consequences for the school, that we would take responsibility for it and embrace it with the best to our abilities. They. Were. Wrong.
A student - especially an early-college high school student - knows right from wrong. From there, it is their own responsibility to decide what choices to make. Having a piece of paper stapled around campus will most likely not make the least bit impact on the decisions made. Truthfully, half the time when that choice is made, the student didn't have a reason for why. Think of it this way: you're walking down the street, and see a lone, freakish styled woman. In your mind you think, Woah, what the hell is she wearing? You judge her, but you don't know why. If she didn't want everyone passing judgement, she wouldn't dress that way. Right? And you do that to anybody who seems a little different from you, or just a little off in some kind of way. Can you explain why? No. But the constitution is there so that when you are caught, the adult can say, "You should have remembered the constitution."
One quote I found through the thousands of posts, was one by Constance Wilde:
If you're privileged enough to be one of the cool kids, you don't notice the changes because for you there aren't any changes. Suddenly there's someone new to be mean to, maybe, if you're so inclined. That's all.Kids tease each other, they gossip, they bicker; that's life! School is for academics; but in between all that there are important, adolescent, social concerns. We begin to form our reputation and our position in school 8am-3pm from the very first day of school. After that, we're on our own. Whether the constitution is there or not, kids will be kids.
My point is, the constitution has a great purpose, and will may be the guidelines to surviving life at ASTI for some students. On the other hand, I think teachers should know that most students are not going to commit themselves to it. At least for now. That's my opinion.
*My opinion on the ASTI Constitution has no relation whatsoever to my opinion of ASTI itself.*
Wow. I can see you are a no-nonsense type of writer. Glad you took the time to reconstruct this and if your first draft was even better than THIS than I'm sad I didn't get a look at it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I noticed the "bullies have already been bullied themselves" pattern. And I also agree that writing ten nice things on a piece of paper does not make them so. (And have you noticed what's been happening to our COUNTRY'S constitution recently?) But maybe if we can find ways of learning more about each other so that we are no longer tempted to make snap judgments like the ones you describe...? Am I naive? Don't answer that.