By: Edie Farrell
Photo courtesy of GHS Website
New to Golden this year is the GHS Code of Conduct. When I say new, I’m not talking about the rules themselves; they’ve stayed more or less the same, but the way they were delivered has changed. The new Code of Conduct was shown to students in their homeroom class, pretty basic stuff: bathroom policies, a new hall pass system, AI policies, PDA reminders, etc. But going through all these new rules, a thought arose to me: were student perspectives considered?
For starters, as a student who has attended Golden for 4 years now, it seems like common knowledge that only a portion of students go to homeroom in the first place, and (not that I condone it, but) many students choose the extended lunch on Wednesdays instead. This doesn’t promise a very wide awareness of these new rules, nor does it put much of an emphasis on them. Shouldn’t staff want the Code of Conduct to reach as many students as possible? I understand the approach of homeroom since every student typically, regardless of their schedule, has a homeroom. But every student, no matter the grade, typically has an English or history class, and in my opinion, a core class is more likely to have full attendance than a homeroom class.
I wanted to know if other students felt the same way about the scheduling of the Code of Conduct, so I approached a few students during their off blocks to ask how they felt
about this new Code of Conduct and if they were even aware it existed. Out of the seven students I interviewed, four students were aware of the presentation, and only two could think of something substantial they remembered from it. Obviously, these aren’t very strong statistics for the prominence of this new code of conduct. But the rules are still, of course, very important, which led me to ask students if they think a homeroom slideshow was the most effective method of laying ground rules. One interviewee, Klara Smith (junior), doesn’t think so.
“I feel like we’re already being talked at so much, especially in the first few weeks, that like, it’s all gone.” Similarly, another interviewee, Ivy Hughes (junior), feels “like a lot of the rules are like… what? Why?” In other words, some context behind these rules would be nice.
Klara Smith and Ivy Hughes bring up some pretty noteworthy points; not only can it be hard for students to remember all these new rules when the first weeks of school are so jam-packed with syllabi and guidelines, but there is also virtually no context behind these rules. We are expected to follow rules without knowing why or where they came from, which feels especially ironic in a school environment where students are typically encouraged to use their critical thinking skills. Another student I interviewed, Bella Steinmark (senior), when asked if there’s any better way to express important rules or announcements, said: “Probably Instagram, I mean everyone looks at Instagram.” It might sound unprofessional to use social media to announce rules or important school changes, but Bella has a point; GHS students are definitely more likely to frequent Instagram than they are homeroom. This being said, even if there’s a change to how rules are announced, that doesn’t solve the problem of having little to no context behind these new rules. Sure, things like locking more doors or restricting PDA are easy enough to explain; most people know a story where unlocked school doors led to tragedy or where a pair of students were a little too touchy in the hallway. However, when it comes to AI policies or hallway restrictions, it’s a common feeling among students that the lack of ‘Why?’ diminishes the weight of these rules to a simple “Because I told you so.”
I knew a better perspective on teachers giving context to rules could be from a staff member, so I decided to ask the Child Development teacher, Ms. Roberts, about this concern and the reason why students don’t know all the details behind the rules. According to her,
“I think [staff] could do a better job of being transparent with you guys about the process leading up to whatever we’re doing… and we know, like in child development, that [‘because I said so’] isn’t an effective way to help children.”
This is a valuable observation coming from Ms. Roberts. It’s clear that adults are aware of how students can feel left in the dark when it comes to changes in their education. She continues:
“I think letting you guys in and seeing behind the curtain helps you develop as adults too, and like, trust your environment and feel like you have some control because I think one of the most frustrating things about being a teenager, being in high school, is being so close to adulthood but not actually getting any real opportunities to practice being an adult. And then you get out into the real world where you have no choice but to make those decisions for yourself, and I think that can be really jarring.”
It appears that the notion about communication is agreed upon between staff and students, so the priority then is actually executing this communication. Whether that means teachers taking it into their own hands to contextualize rules for students, students asking more questions, or administrators making more of an effort to make context a given whenever rules are created, communication has to improve. Students on the cusp of graduation deserve transparency and honesty, no matter how “complicated” the rules may be. Ms. Roberts is right: if teachers want us to be better fitted for the “real world” we’re about to enter, being transparent about just what goes on in that world is a good start.
By no means am I advocating against Golden’s Code of Conduct. In the school’s defense, Golden’s off-campus policies, or lack thereof, and hallway rules are fair, and many schools have it stricter. But is that a good thing to be focusing on? How strict Golden is compared to others? Or should the priority be more about what students want for their school? After all, the students are the ones these rules apply to; all the staff has to do is administer them.
This is not a conversation about removing rules; it’s one about executing and accurately communicating them. There will never be a perfect way to make rules, and no matter what, those rules will be broken. But a good first step would be considering the input of those the rules are actually about, giving students a ‘why’ behind school decisions.
Leave a Reply