School’s Paranoia

Policies between schools are mostly the same, or can differ in a large variety of ways. Some schools have absurd policies, such as not being able to leave the cafeteria when you are done eating.

Some schools have acceptable policies, such as, you get detention for not doing homework. These are what allow fairness, and what limit freedom. It is completely understandable that students often provoke teachers by being disrespectful and an absolute mess during class or school hours in general. Students have two options, either to care or to not care. The consequence of the students who do not care always comes back to everyone else. One person in a highschool of about 150 people can affect each and every one of them.

Teachers need to understand this, and take it into mind next time they forward a policy. When teachers tell me that I cannot have a phone in my pocket, I often wonder why I should do so. Personal objects should be kept by the owner whenever he/she pleases as long as it is appropriate. Devices are appropriate when they are used right, so why should we put them in a bucket, on a desk, or in an office with the teacher? I think that my personal belongings, should be with me, you can’t remove them from me. As long as the device is not used in class when the teacher said not to, and as long as it is used right then there is not a single problem, just paranoia that students will not follow directions. I have a right to leave the cafeteria to go to another teacher, or to go get things from my locker.

You are not under supervision, is what teachers tell me. If I am in another teacher’s classroom, and they are watching me and in the same room, then I am under perfect supervision. Breaking windows? Stealing? No, I am either printing a piece of paper or getting my wallet that is in my bag. Locking me in a big room, as if I am a stray animal isn’t right and not very fair. Seventy students can’t be in one room talking, and being yelled at when we stand up or take a bit more tissues than we needed.

Teachers need to recognize that you can’t have such strict policies that are out of the picture and make students deal with them for eight hours, five days a week. Allow freedom, no one is asking foran overwhelming amount of freedom, but a fair and acceptable amount that will earn respect. Granting permission to go to your locker or to another teacher during lunch allows freedom but for educational purposes of printing something or getting extra time to get your materials for the next class. The suspicion between teachers and the whereabout of students, and what they do with devices needs to be taken down a notch and taken into serious consideration for the sake of the students. The more strict policies get, the more students get rebellious and start going against the rules. If the school has acceptable policies then students will be more respectful because they are getting some respect from teachers by getting more freedom.

Let school and the people in it improve