Civil Disobedience

I'm not sure why people are so afraid of teens.

Today, on the day I'm writing, our school allowed interested students to participate in the nationwide student walk out in protest of gun violence. This wasn't an easy decision for our admin, but it didn't take them long to decide to allow it either. There were a lot of conversations about what it should look like, if the students should face consequences for walking out of classes, and what behaviors were allowable. In the end the decision was to allow them to dress in black and walk in observances of the lost lives, which was a subtle shift from the idea of a protest march. The consequence was having to make up the lost 17 minutes with the teacher walked out on. It was a decent compromise and at least allowed the kids to express their feelings related to the issue.

I view it as a win, and I cheerfully spent 17 minutes with a kid reading his independent reading book which is what he missed in the walk out. No biggie.

Several of the staff criticized the ineffectiveness of it happening during class time. Some even when so far as to discuss options with their students such as events and marches occurring off school time. On the one hand, I do agree that the walk out had little observable effect, but I think some of my coworkers over estimate the ability of most of the kids to get around the city. Most of my students don't have cars and many wouldn't have parents who support that kind of activity for one reason or another. Did it have a lot of effect...maybe not, but at least it was accessible.

Dekalb county schools had a lot of students walking out. Some teachers walked too. Yay Dekalb. Cobb however did not support the walkout. There are some reports of schools being locked to prevent students from leaving. County officials are denying it. I'm not sure what I believe, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out it's true.

Kids mostly don't want violence. They want to feel safe. So sure something like this needs to be monitored, but these kids don't want trouble, they want the opposite. Walk outs and peaceful demonstrations are a healthy way to express group views...especially for those who can not engage in the right to vote yet.

In my view, squashing peaceful protest often leads to non-peaceful protest.