on the rights of a student

During my junior and senior years in high school, I had some run-ins with my school administrators on the topic of school clubs. I was the mouthpiece for The Rock, a bible study recognized as an "organization" looking for recognition as a club. When the administration initially resisted our efforts to become an official club I did some research and found some surprising information that, sadly, most high schoolers are probably unaware of.

According to the Equal Access Law of 1984, a school that has at least one non-curriculum club must allow other non-curriculum clubs to organize and must allow clubs equal access to such things as bulletin boards and meeting places. There is no elastic clause here - the law and its stipulations are pretty clear. Why did I have such a difficult time convincing my school administrators to follow the law?

The sad truth is that a lot of high schools attempt to function in a highly established bubble. I wouldn't call high school a prison (as many discouraged students have), but I do recognize that students are often uninformed on, misinformed on, or completely denied the few legal rights they have.

Public schools were established to raise informed voters. Perhaps some emphasis should also be put on raising informed students.

Tswelela solofela,
Tom Bishoff

tom with a mandolin

on saving the world

For me, one of the scariest parts of college has been trying to figure out what I want to "do" with my life. For some people this comes fairly easily - my older sister, for example, has felt called to be a pastor since about eighth grade - but for the rest of us, it can be a frustrating process. Upon entering college all I really knew was that I wanted to save the world. This led me to a tough question: HOW?

After a semester of throwing this question around in my head, I enrolled in Modern African History to fulfill my Global Studies requirement. At first I was a bit apprehensive about all the reading involved in this class, but it didn't take me long to figure out that there was something special about what we were reading. Perhaps most significant to me was reading about the Soweto uprising in South Africa, which occured during apartheid. At this time black children were given a tragically subpar education, and they decided to peacefully protest this oppression through walkouts. Police began attacking the crowds of school children, and over the span of about a year about 1,000 students were killed.

These students were literally ready to die in order to get a proper education.

Reading about this tragedy led me to my answer: I would save the world by educating its children. I believe that through effective education virtually all of the world's problems can be resolved. This is why I choose to teach.

Tswelela solofela,
Tom Bishoff