While Adults Wrangle Over School Issues, Students Speak Out

To hear the constant battling over open school buildings, critical race theory, and other current panics in education, one might conclude that many adults have simply forgotten to include students in the discussion at all. But across the country, students are speaking up anyway.

In Kutztown, PA, eighth grader Joslyn Diffenbaugh created a Teen Banned Book Club to meet at a local bookstore. Noting the nationwide instances of schools considering and implementing book bans, and after watching proposals to ban books in her own district, Diffenbaugh decided to take action.

I wanted to make sure teens have access to books that they can personally relate to or have interest in and not to let groups in our community dictate what we can and cannot read.

The group had its first meeting on January 12 with a modest turnout.

The Washington Post recently published an essay by Christiane Calixte, an actual high school student enrolled in one of the few high school courses about critical race theory. Calixte’s message? Adults need to chill out. After discussing what CRT does not do (it doesn’t promote hatred of white people, or demand white guilt), Calixte addresses the concerns about indoctrination:

In our discussion, CRT also wasn’t presented as absolute and unchangeable truth. Throughout the lesson, teachers emphasized that all students had the right to agree or disagree with the teachings.

Not one of us was crucified for failing to succumb to some “leftist agenda.” My fellow students and I had the opportunity to voice our opinions and explain the reasoning behind them.

Is this not what learning should look like? Should education not emphasize the critical thinking that students will need to use in future endeavors?

And while political and education leaders debate how much COVID mitigation is needed to open school buildings safely, students from Boston to Chicago to New York to California have been staging walkouts in order to draw attention to their own concerns about education and pandemic safety.

“Students have demanded and teachers have demanded for the safety of people in our school communities. We know this has not happened,” said Catlyn Savado, 14, a Chicago freshman.

“We hope this walk-out will make the governor and DESE do something and not say it was just a bunch of kids, as he has called us before,” said Xyra Mercer, a Boston student.

“It doesn’t feel safe to be in school to be honest,’ said Danny Mui, a New York City sophomore.

As debates rage around school issues, students are working to remind adults that they have a stake in these issues as well, and they deserve to be heard.