Student activism finally seems to have taken hold at Stuyvesant. The Student Union (SU) has become less hesitant to criticize the administration and a new Web site, stuywatch.com, has formed around the banner of student action. Stuywatch’s attempt to build a community in which students can converse on a large scale is certainly laudable.
Yet these movements are not without their drawbacks. Most notably, they polarize students, creating a divide between those in support of and those skeptical of stuywatch and/or student action. Some students have even created a Web site to satirize and oppose stuywatch’s efforts: watchstuy.com. This polarization diverts students further from the goal of increasing student activism, which includes compelling the administration to better serve student interests by including students in the decision-making process.
The Spectator has long urged that policies be introduced to students before they are instituted, and that students have some power over what policies are implemented. We are glad to see more students thinking about these issues, but we still have a way to go.
Although the “Kids First” motto on stuywatch’s fliers was not coined by the site, when the slogan was conceived, it represented a set of values similar to those held by the site’s founders. A former Stuyvesant student first used the slogan for former Principal Jinx Perullo, whose administration inspired stuywatch.
Perullo, who served from 1995 through 1998, believed in progressive education, an approach to teaching and school administration that emphasizes trusting the students. The opposing philosophy is regressive education: trust the administrators, not the students. Under progressive education, students are given rights and are expected to learn responsibility through education and experience, and then apply this to future decisions. But regressive education dictates rules, which are enforced by the administration, for students.
Regressive education involves students handing over the power to determine their own rights and responsibilities to the administration at the schoolhouse gate. But at Stuyvesant, the question remains whether this trust and power can rightly be handed over.
The simple answer is no. The administration has abused its authority in several instances by introducing unfair policies without consulting the students. Using ID scanners throughout the day and yet refusing to grant us the right to go out during free periods is one example.
Another example of regressive education is the lunch policy. Rather than trusting students to come back on time to avoid facing academic consequences, administrators took the problem into its own hands. It cut down the time in students’ lunch periods and is penalizing them disproportionately for coming back late. As if that weren’t enough, members of the administration have recently asked certain students to refrain from public displays of student activism.
The installation of cameras and ID scanners illustrates this abuse of power. The heightened “security” provides little, if any, protection from terrorist attacks. Using the events of September 11, 2001 to justify policies limiting student liberties is completely inappropriate. For example, the administration has discontinued foreign exchange programs, claiming American students would be too vulnerable to attacks outside the United States. The steadfastness with which Teitel connects everything to September 11 and refuses to negotiate is unacceptable, and makes change from within extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Despite some setbacks, stuywatch has made a valiant effort to unite the Stuyvesant communit. But this does not mean the site is the crest of all activism. Both it and the students need to continue to raise awareness on all fronts. In addition to educating themselves and those around them, students should pursue altering unfair policies by pressuring Teitel to negotiate. Students should also inform parents of what goes on within this school: parents can actively participate in this effort. On its end, the SU should aggressively pursue bilateral negotiations with parents and administrators on a variety of policies.
If efforts toward diplomacy and negotiation fail, the students will be left with no other choice but to organize for student action.