Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [50]
Sure, doctors and educators agree that our kids can never watch enough TV And there’s probably A place in school for some television programs—I have fond memories of watching astronauts blasting off on the television rolled into my grade school auditorium. But out of the “daily twelve-minute Channel One broadcasts, only 20 percent of the airtime is devoted to stories about politics, the economy, and cultural and social issues.
That leaves a whopping 80 percent for advertising, sports, weather, features, and Channel One promotions.
Channel One is disproportionately shown in schools in low income communities with large minority populations, where the least money is available for education, and where the least amount is spent on textbooks and other academic materials. Once these districts receive corporate handouts, government’s failure to provide adequate school funding tends to remain unaddressed.
For most of us, the only time we enter an American high school is to vote at our local precinct. (There’s an irony if there ever was one—going to participate in democracy’s sacred ritual while two thousand students in the same building live under some sort of totalitarian dictatorship.) The halls are packed with burned-out teenagers shuffling from class to class, dazed and confused, wondering what the hell they’re doing there. They learn how to regurgitate answers the state wants them to give, and any attempt to be an individual is now grounds for being suspected to be a member of the trench coat mafia. I visited a school recently, and some students asked me if I noticed that they and the other students in the school were all wearing white or some neutral color. Nobody dares wear black, or anything else wild and distinct. That’s a sure ticket to the principal’s office—where the school psychologist will be waiting to ascertain whether that Limp Bizkit shirt you have on means that you intend to shoot up Miss Nelson’s fourth hour geometry class.
So the kids learn to submerge any personal expression. They learn that it’s better to go along so that you get along. They learn that to rock the boat could get them rocked right out of the school. Don’t question authority. Do as you’re told. Don’t think, just do as I say.
Oh, and have a good and productive life as an active, well adjusted participant in our thriving democracy!
HOW TO BE A STUDENT SUBVERSIVE INSTEAD OF A STUDENT SUBSERVIENT
There are many ways you can fight back at your high school and have fun while doing it. The key thing is to learn what all the rules are, and what your rights are by law and by school district policy. This will help to prevent you getting in the kind of trouble you don’t need.
It may also get you some cool perks. David Schankula, a college student who has helped me on this book, recalls that when he was in high school in Kentucky, he and his buddies found some obscure state law that said any student who requests a day off to go to the state fair must be given the day off. The state legislature probably passed this law years ago to help some farm kid take his prize hog to the fair without being penalized at school. But the law was still on the books, and it gave any student the right to request the state fair day off—regardless of the reason. So you can imagine the look on the principal’ face when David and his city friends submitted their request for their free day off from school—and there was nothing the principal could do.
Here’s a few more things you can do:
1. Mock the Vote.
Student council and class elections are the biggest smokescreen the school throws up, fostering the illusion that you actually have any say in the running of the school. Most students who run for these offices either take the charade too seriously—or they just think it’ll took good on their college applications.