OPINION - Editorial

The best civics lesson

This is better than any lab or lecture

THE PHONE CALLS went out around the state, from home offices to parents, from district HQ to cell phones, from confused moms in the kitchen to the kids downstairs. Most of those calls went out just about dusk on Tuesday night. And, from reports drifting in, they were disparate, to say the least.

The one we got was polite and quick to the point: The kids are going to protest tomorrow, there'll be a place for them, an assembly later, and please ask all the questions you have. The speaker on the recorded message didn't say punch and cookies would be served, but he might as well have. It was that kind of tone. Which proves that education administrators in our public schools aren't just bricks in the wall, but real live people, with souls of their own. And weren't just put together out of spare parts at the last education conference but might have once been students in school, too. It's a reminder that not only current students need on frequent occasion, but the rest of us, as well.

From Alaska to the Carolinas, from southern Cal to the UP, high school students, and not just high school students, walked out of class Wednesday morning, exactly one month after the latest school shooting in Parkland, Fla., a massacre that left 17 people dead. The call went out earlier in the week to mark the day and time, and in this day of social media, few kids hadn't heard the cue. Arkansas kids were no different. Arkansas schools were, however.

While young people chanted Enough Is Enough! or Books Not Bullets!, even releasing balloons at the appointed time, all in an effort to draw (even more) attention to the problem that guns present when troubled people get them, many administrators understood the teachable moment.

Michael Poore, the superintendent of Little Rock's schools, said such demonstrations, as long as they're appropriately supervised, are "an important opportunity to educate our students about the democratic process in action and the right to peacefully demonstrate differing views." Spoken like a man who understands what education can be. It's not just a lecture.

Imagine the Ben Stein character from Ferris Bueller's Day Off and his disquisition on the matter: While the First Amendment prevents Congress from making ... what? anyone? ... laws ... . prohibiting free speech, that doesn't prevent ... what? ... private companies and yes, schools ... from ... what? anyone? ... holding responsible anybody who ... what? anyone? ... .

Instead, on this particular Wednesday morning, students across the country got involved in what amounted to a student-led, national, real-time lab. And learned more than one life lesson.

For example, we understand a lot of students in northwest Arkansas found out that not every boss is a lenient one. Dispatches say some districts sent out letters saying that any student who marched in this protest, which wasn't a school-sponsored activity, would be counted absent and would receive an unexcused absence. Hey, kids, actions have consequences. Not every school district has a super who'll make accommodations for this type of thing. Bosses differ. It'll always be thus. If you left school and got this kind of demerit, well, that's why it's called a sacrifice. What is sacrifice without repercussions? It would mean nothing.

What an opportunity to see the country's democracy in action. Even in this modern age, most humans live under governments that wouldn't put up with this sort of protest without crackdowns and arrests. Even when students are involved. Maybe especially when students are involved. For you must start oppressing them when they're young. So they lower their cheek early. Or else they'll buck the system later. This nation, however, is a different kind of place. What a country!

WHENEVER SOME of us of a certain age think a time has come to talk down to the next generation, as if they don't understand their problems or the wider world, and they should always listen to authority, and that youth is wasted on them, and that they'd be much happier if they just did everything we suggest, we're reminded of a song from our own youth:

And these children that you spit on, as they try to change their world, are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through.

David Bowie got that one right.

Editorial on 03/16/2018

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