Jaico
(mono no aware)
What do you think about student councils? It doesn't matter if you were in it, if you had one at your school, or whatever - I'd just like to hear people's opinions on student councils...what they are, what people's perceptions of them are, what people think of the members of council, what they should be, what councils should represent, what people like about them (if anything at all), and so on. I'll start...
Alright...here we go. I think student councils, if implemented properly, would be a wonderful thing for the students and for the school. There's a lot that they could do - act as liaisons between the general members of the school and the administration, serve as voices for the students (i.e. if courses needed to be changed, or if a 'go-green' initiative was called for), pump up "school spirit" through dances/pep rallies/what-have-you, and all that jazz. I believe that although there should be organization and a visible command structure, council ought to be fairly open to new ideas and on the whole, be accepting and non-judgmental - even to ideas that might sound far-fetched. General meetings and "board" meetings should be open to everyone who wants to attend, and everyone should be given a fair chance to speak; ideally, the atmosphere would be one where everyone feels comfortable speaking their mind and all (constructive) criticism would be respected.
As you can probably guess, my student council certainly didn't live up to those standards...don't get me wrong - council members worked hard, but...the council at my school only really did one of those things - pump up school spirit. I remember that people always asked me, "what does council do?", and unfortunately, the only thing I could tell them was, "dances and pep rallies". Looking back, I see that our council wasn't too innovative when it came to establishing its goals. I'm not bitter about it, but...there was so much more that could have been done.
I was on council for my three years in high school, and it didn't change one bit while I was in it. The people in it didn't seem to care about trying to help the student population in ways other than raising school spirit, and a lot of times, the opinion of one person in power would dictate policy, without any input or insight from others - the group feeling wasn't really one that let people speak freely or encouraged critical thinking. Trying to make large changes to how things were run was a big taboo...student council felt more like an old boy's club rather than a tool that should be used to improve the school. I think that this was really the thing that got me feeling pretty miffed about council in my third year...
I guess it's not entirely council's fault - teachers and students wouldn't really approach the student council with things that they thought needed changing...there was always a disconnect between council and students. The gap really perpetuated itself, because neither side was really trying to get in contact with the other, so our council essentially became the school spirit council...
So, my question to you (aside from all that other stuff in the beginning) is:
Student governments - are they effective at being representatives for the general student population (if they should be that, at all)? Or is that an impossible task, given the social conditions and nature of high school and high school students?
Alright...here we go. I think student councils, if implemented properly, would be a wonderful thing for the students and for the school. There's a lot that they could do - act as liaisons between the general members of the school and the administration, serve as voices for the students (i.e. if courses needed to be changed, or if a 'go-green' initiative was called for), pump up "school spirit" through dances/pep rallies/what-have-you, and all that jazz. I believe that although there should be organization and a visible command structure, council ought to be fairly open to new ideas and on the whole, be accepting and non-judgmental - even to ideas that might sound far-fetched. General meetings and "board" meetings should be open to everyone who wants to attend, and everyone should be given a fair chance to speak; ideally, the atmosphere would be one where everyone feels comfortable speaking their mind and all (constructive) criticism would be respected.
As you can probably guess, my student council certainly didn't live up to those standards...don't get me wrong - council members worked hard, but...the council at my school only really did one of those things - pump up school spirit. I remember that people always asked me, "what does council do?", and unfortunately, the only thing I could tell them was, "dances and pep rallies". Looking back, I see that our council wasn't too innovative when it came to establishing its goals. I'm not bitter about it, but...there was so much more that could have been done.
I was on council for my three years in high school, and it didn't change one bit while I was in it. The people in it didn't seem to care about trying to help the student population in ways other than raising school spirit, and a lot of times, the opinion of one person in power would dictate policy, without any input or insight from others - the group feeling wasn't really one that let people speak freely or encouraged critical thinking. Trying to make large changes to how things were run was a big taboo...student council felt more like an old boy's club rather than a tool that should be used to improve the school. I think that this was really the thing that got me feeling pretty miffed about council in my third year...
I guess it's not entirely council's fault - teachers and students wouldn't really approach the student council with things that they thought needed changing...there was always a disconnect between council and students. The gap really perpetuated itself, because neither side was really trying to get in contact with the other, so our council essentially became the school spirit council...
So, my question to you (aside from all that other stuff in the beginning) is:
Student governments - are they effective at being representatives for the general student population (if they should be that, at all)? Or is that an impossible task, given the social conditions and nature of high school and high school students?
bastards!
Anytime "the people" vote for a proposition or referendum that "they" don't agree with it gets denied. 
)