Thursday, March 27, 2008

Whatever Happened to Student Power?

Whatever Happened to Student Power?

By Raanan Geberer
Reprinted from Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Most people, when they think of student demonstrations in the ’60s and ’70s, think of students demonstrating for civil rights, against the Vietnam War and the like.

This is correct — but only up to a point. Often, even at the same time as they were protesting for these weighty causes, they were often demonstrating on their own behalf. At times, student issues took center stage, such as during the (over the top, in my opinion) demonstration about the Columbia University Gym in 1968.

The Columbia University demonstration aside, student demands, at least at my high school, the Bronx High School of Science, took a more moderate form. Some of these demands seem positively innocuous, such as the right to go outside during lunch, the right to have soda machines in the school (alternative health types would consider this “politically incorrect” today) and, believe it or not, the end to the rule that girls couldn’t wear pants. One day, hundreds of girls came to school with paper bags, went into the bathroom and emerged wearing pants. That was the end of that rule!

Along with these were more serious issues — students’ seeking more electives, the right to distribute “underground” newspapers on campus, and more student control over the curriculum. At some point, a student-faculty-parent committee was formed, and although I was only dimly aware of what it did, it apparently did have some positive effect. (By the time I got to college, the protest era was largely over.)

Today, the idea of students’ rights has largely disappeared, at least in the high schools — the victim of more intense competition for college admissions, of the rising rate of crime within many schools and the resulting crackdown on it, and more rigid curriculum requirements dictated from Washington, Albany and the Department of Ed.

And in the final analysis, one might think, of what consequence is it anyway whether someone has the right to buy a can of soda in the school building or wear jeans?

Very little — but those who think only in such terms are missing the point. Participating in demonstrations, challenging the “powers that be” gave young people an incredible high! Jumping out of planes with a parachute, bungee jumping, backpacking in Thailand, taking mind-altering substances, driving 200 miles per hour in a racing car — forget it! No one who ever lived through those years and took part in these events will ever forget the thrill of collective action, of challenging our parents’, our teachers’ world — and winning!

All of their lives, we had been dictated to — and now, here we were, saying, yes, we might be 16, we might be 17, we might be 18, but when we say something, we deserve to be listened to! And today’s young people are all the poorer for not experiencing the same thing.