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Student Rights? September 4, 1997 Hey Anthony! Do you remember where that Access Excellence site for first week activities was? I've been unable to find it. Marc, It took some hunting, but I found it. Start at the Access Excellence site. There is a discussion called First Day of School Activities with 55 messages. It can be found by going to the "discussion " section, AKA Teachers' Lounge, and clicking on the Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment line. Then you will see a list of discussions, and First Day Acitivities is one of them. You may need to log in as a participant to post anything. September 6, 1997 Anthony, Thanks for this resource. It was very helpful. There was another discussion in the Teachers' Lounge which I found very interesting. It was called "Why do we have to know this?", the question we both agreed is a very important one. The First Day Activities discussion gave me a bunch of ideas: having kids start out playing with gross things (like worms?), playing a game where two people have to have something drawn (one person gives non-verbal directions only), or describe your peanut well enough to be identified and then describe yourself well enough to be identified (even wearing different clothes). I may give my students a choice of these activities (but will ask the whole class to do the same thing, probably) on Monday. I also want to take some time presenting them with whatever documentation I can find about their RIGHTS. I'd like to turn the tables around a little: normally they're told their responsibilities. You know, actually, even their responsibilities could be presented in terms of their rights (eg right to an insult-free environment, a clean classroom etc.) MY rights could be part of such a discussion too. Do you happen to know of a site on the net that specialized in student rights? I haven't done any searching yet. I do have an essay called "Enforcing your Student Rights" by Araceli Alejandre, a Fremont High student, and something from Kateri Rivera, an Oakland Tech student. She writes, among other things: "... These are your rights, but they can also be violated. My name is Kateri Rivera and I was attending Montera Jr. High School in the 1996-1997 school year. I got suspended for being tardy to my first period class nine times in one semester. I was given early moning detention, then I got suspended for one day. I did not know my rights, so I could not enforce them. That's why I want to know my rights so that next time I am tardy and they try to suspended me, I will tell them that it is illegal." She quotes an OUSD policy: "A student may not be suspended or expelled from school for truancy, tardiness or other absence from assigned school activities." In line with our interest in critical pedagogy, it might be interesting to ask students what rights they have (eg search and seizure, etc) before presenting them with what they are; a discussion might also be centered on "why do we have these rights?" or "what rights don't we have?" or "why aren't we better informed about our rights?" or "how does all this compare to US citizens' rights?" I think we need to make it clear where we stand in - or how we deal with - conflicts between students and the administration, which is perceived by many students as an enemy. I found these two student essays in Issue #1 of Excel Magazine, published by Kids First! in Oakland. I'm getting very excited about teaching Biology through issues of environmental justice. I had some discussions with Carleen Lloyd of PUEBLO (People United for a Better Oakland). She told me about some of the history of the environmental justice movement in Oakland. She also gave me an article by Running-Grass, who now works with the Environmental Justice group in the EPA. I'm going to get in touch with his group, The Three Circles Center for Multicultural Environmental Education, in San Francisco. I'm very excited about all of this! I think it holds a key to making biology class the kind of class I want it to be. I'll tell you more about this later. I'm getting tired writing and I'm scared I'll lose you with all of this monologue - I know I myself sometimes find it hard to read very long e-mail messages that don't offer me much opportunity to respond at each step of the way. Maybe I need to use the "Include Previous Message" option in my replies to people in order to make e-mail more of a dialogue. I will also respond to your Goals document very soon. All the best, Marc Marc, Your exploration of student rights sounds interesting. I would be very interested in hearing what students feel the *teachers* rights are. Student rights are often expressed in terms of conflicts with authority, as in the example you gave from Montera. I am also interested in the students' right to an education. What happens when a student is disruptive, thereby depriving other students of their education? In my experience, students start with a pretty immature understanding of their rights, emphasizing their personal freedom, and it is a struggle for them to grasp that sometimes the expression of their desires can impinge on the rights of another. Schools are institutions that emphasize conformity and compliance. This often seems oppressive, but it is not always so. For example, at my school, we have a vice principal who walks the halls during passing period with a bullhorn, cell phone, stopwatch and clip board. Students who are late are given after-school detention, and if they miss that, Saturday detention. If they blow these off, then they are suspended. After years of desultory tardy sweeps and students playing catch-me-if-you-can in the halls, we finally have an effective system for getting students in their classes. As a result, the halls are quiet during class, and students are on time. A teacher can begin teaching when the bell rings, and students get a full period of instruction, uninterrupted by stragglers. I do not think we do students any favors by allowing them to arrive at school or to class when they please. Students are actually desirous of limitations on behavior. There are norms for behavior wherever we go, and their enforement by authority is not necessarily oppressive. The key issue is the relationship of the institution to the aspirations of its inhabitants. If a teacher is enforcing rules arbitrarily, or in a way that attacks the integrity of the student, then, of course, this is oppressive. If the rules serve on the authority, and operate against the interests of the subjects, this is unacceptable. But if the teacher and school have as their goal the development of strong, capable students, and treat them with respect while setting limits, then the exercising of authority to establish and maintain a good learning environment is legitimate. So I am saying that this is a very complex issue, and teaching kids about their rights in a narrow legal sense is OK, but I think I would want to get into the more complex issues as well. Alongside of discussing their rights, I think it is very important to define with your students your common purpose for being in class, so that you can make you are fulfilling their right to a quality science curriculum. I think it would be very important to define what that education would look like -- that is where hands-on activities, field trips and a quality curriculum come in. Then things which are disruptive or distracting can be addressed by reminding them of the goals of the class. Personally, I feel very strongly that a teacher needs an effective management strategy, including some coercive measures, such as detention. Detention also provides you an opportunity to discuss the issue with the students. In my experience, students decide early on if a teacher is "serious," based on your willingness to give detentions, call home and write referrals. Sometimes this baseline respect is necessary before you can even get their attention to get them engaged in serious discussions. Do not worry about writing for too long. I enjoy these discussions and the issues you raise.