Our country has made many advances when it comes to human rights, equality, and discrimination. Women and minorities are allowed to vote and own land. Salaries of men and women are coming more into alignment. People of different races are given the freedom to marry and states are moving toward giving marriage equality to couples of same sex. We still have a way to go when it comes to discrimination, but we are making progress in a number of areas with the exception of one group that is making no progress at all.This group’s rights are being horribly violated. They are being denied the right to have a say in matters directly affecting their daily lives. They are being forced and coerced into doing things they don’t want to do and are having harm inflicted upon them in more and more ways. They are having their belongings confiscated from them like prisoners and are banned from things that free members of our society have access to. Those who stand up and speak out are often drugged into compliance. They are being silenced and told their voice does NOT matter, they have no say, and our nation is not ready to hear them. They are our nation’s second class citizens.
The group being discriminated against is school children.
Ironically, the refusal to hear and consider the voices of children, may very well be what leads to the demise of the public schooling institution as we know it. Kids are smart. In many ways, especially when it comes to technology and social media, kids are often smarter than the adults who are trying to control them. Students are using social media to connect and take a stand on a variety of issues. They are staging protests and boycotts. They are telling educational software providers that they hate their product. They are starting their own student-led schools and they are uniting to opt out of high-stakes tests.
Now there’s a new way for students who want a voice in ed reform to have one. High school student, international speaker, and author, Adora Svitak has formed a new group on Facebook called The Student Union. This group is designed to bring students (and adults who support them) together on issues that affect them. In many cases these will be the issues where they have been silenced for far too long.