I just discovered something fun: this post is the top Google result for the search, “creating a student council.” Maybe it will make other student councils less juvenile, and open their eyes to the possibilities for real leadership in the real world that student councils COULD embrace.

The teachers running student council seem to have a stick up their behind, even then. With so many real-life ways for students to gain leadership experience, why does this relict of the past still hold sway in modern high schools?

It is not my point that planning for these school events is entirely meaningless; in some aspects, it does give us the chances to collaborate with other students, and learn to work as a team. However, it shouldn’t be too much of a commitment that we are not able to explore outside of the school.

And I think that’s what colleges really want from students. They are looking for possibilities, not “perfect students.”

-Lynn Hong, your old student

The problem is, she’s a good person, means well, etc. She just seems completely unaware of the implications of her approach and actions here, and in channeling student leadership generally.

Carolyn, your suggestion that he talk to the principal is a good one. I think I’ll talk to the principal as well.

But “school spirit, sequestered style” - meaning one-hour pep events occasionally, or the random hallway decoration campaign, or sports team glorification - is big here. So who knows.

Is there a way for the student to show the Stucco teacher the work he has done on Project Cooling, the website, and emails he’s exchanged so he can see it is purpose.

And then work out a compromise?

To me it is not just about Stuco or the halloween decorations–it’s about any sponsor that thinks their event is more significant than any other event, and isn’t willing to compromise and share the student with their other interests.

To me, that is the aspect of “schooliness” more than the significance of the event. We want to be supportive of the whole child.

I understand there are times students have to make a choice–you can’t sing the solo in the concert but not be available for rehearsals, for example. You have to be able to have your “ensembles” together. But that doesn’t seem the case in this situation.

He may have to make a choice, and sure, I agree that colleges will look on either activity favorably, and would look on his making a choice favorably. It shows good habits of mind.

But I’d also support him making it in a calm and mindful state of mind.

Another choice I can see he has is talking to the principal about it, and saying that he’s not sure how it’s being handled is fair to students who want to participate in more than one thing.

Sorry he’s in this unfortunate situation!

Students shouldn’t be faced with this type of “choice” - how does your Administration feel about the whole issue?

No easy answer. Sorry.

“Our children will not survive our habits of thinking, our failures of the spirit, our wreck of the universe into which we bring new life as blithely as we do. Mostly, our children will resemble our own misery and spite and anger, because we give them no choice about it. In the name of motherhood and fatherhood and education and good manners, we threaten and suffocate and bind and ensnare and bribe and trick children into wholesale emulation of our ways.”-June Jordan