Two Proposals for John Jay High School

Managing Noise in the Library

Proposal:

To establish the back of the library – from the doors of the flat lab to the computer of the checkout desk – as a “communal work” area, where students are permitted with greater leniency to carry on quiet conversation with their tablemates.

Rationale:

Homicide, pestilence, insanity and precious stones – and a great many others things that catch human desire and passion – have all at one point or another been viewed through a cloudy lens of irrationally and mythology. Fortunately, the lights of human reason have dispelled these clouds. The first library was opened in Alexandria more than two thousand years ago, and since then, the idea of the library has occupied a place in the wildest dreams and fears of western culture. For this reason, traditions are fought for irrationally. Among these traditions, is the wide-held belief that a library – by nature of the books on its wall – must be entirely silent. This silence, however, often hurts, not helps, the positive role the library facilities play.

The John Jay High School library is regarded by many as one of the best public high school libraries in the region. Many students – the vast majority of students – who use this library want to enjoy its facilities in ways other than just silent study: working together on projects, discuss homework assignments, talk about extracurricular activities while they review their study notes. However, teachers, in varying degrees, believe that silence or near silence must be enforced in the library.

The conflict – and the tension and problems and power struggle that arise – between those who wish to work communally and those who wish for silence could be resolved if the back of the library were open to quiet discussion.

First Time Mistakes

Proposal:

To establish a discretionary “First Time Clause” whereby first-time offenders will not be removed from and/or disqualified for admittance into the National Honor Society and/or the Peer Group Leadership Program. Such first-time offenders will be put on good-behavior probation, as outlined by the administration.

First-time offender is a student without record of past equivalent infractions and without record of infractions that warranted in-school suspension or higher punishment.

Discretionary is the administration’s right to waive the “First Time Clause” if the infraction is deemed weighty enough to pose a specific threat to the wellbeing of the High School campus, such as drug possession on campus or violence on campus. Such discretionary decisions can be appealed by the student to the superintendent.

Good-behavior Probation is a period during which a student can be removed from Peer Group Leadership and/or the National Honor Society for lesser offenses and can be required to check up with social workers, administrators, guidance counselors, as designated by the administration.

Rationale:

One of the primary purposes of school is to aid students along the pathway of intellectual and social maturation. Integral to this process of growth is the prospect of punishment and reward: students must learn that actions have consequences, that grades cannot be earned without diligence and positions of leadership cannot be held without sacrifice. However, in a school, dicipline is only a means to the end, because the purpose of school is to teach, not to punish. Zero tolerance justice, the official policy of Peer Group and National Honor Society, oversteps John Jay High School's goal of aiding students as they develop to become decent members of society; it shifts the education process to the discipline process and damages futures rather than guides them.

Adolescents are not children, but they are not adults either. In opportunity, we have an adult-world expanse; but in experience and perspective, we have a child-world naiveté. And in this no-man's-land between opportunity and insight, mistakes are made. A hallmark of adolescence is error, and school functions to elucidate and correct this error.

Because adolescents are not adults, and because the vocation of the student is experimentation, high school students cannot be held to standard of absolute perfection. National Honor Society and Peer Group Leadership require students to live as role models in the school and community. However, building character is a process, not a singular triumph; likewise, tarnishing character, like tarnishing metal, is not a singular act. Students ought to be judged as leaders on how they grow from past follies, because growth, in the schoolyard, is triumph.

Providing students with second chances, and puting them through a reform probation period, John Jay High School will better realize its goals of educating rather than punishing. By allowing for error and consideration, reform will occur; conversely, by removing students from important organizations, the will to reform is struck dead, and the growth that constitutes primary education stops also.