So, wait, who's in charge?

In the first week of HMLC, we asked the learners to join committees to set up our school procedures and rules. They came up with their own committee topics - a dress code committee, a device committee, a stuff-from-home committee, a gum committee, and a student government committee. Each committee met and created a proposal to present to the entire student body for debate and discussion.

This made me slightly nervous, of course, mostly because my daughter joined the dress code committee and I knew what she was aiming for - the goal of wearing a crop top to school. If we, as adults, were going to oppose anything presented, we were going to need to have a good reason. We were asking the students to bring their clearly reasoned arguments - we needed to do the same thing. “Just because I said so” was not going to work with this group.

The committees worked hard and took their tasks diligently. When some students overheard what was happening on the government committee they asked to form an “anti-government committee” where they could explore another option beyond having a student government. We were nervous about the tension, but it is their school so ultimately we let them form their committee. After all, a committee is just creating a proposal - it isn’t about making the final decisions.

When it came time for the committees to present their proposals we first talked a lot about what it meant to be a respectful audience member. Everyone was going to have to sit quietly and listen to their peers talk about something they have BIG opinions on - we spent time walking through what it would look like to listen respectfully, not interrupt, and most importantly - how to respond appropriately.

Each committee stood up and passionately presented their reasoning behind their proposal. The “Stuff from home” committee shared excellent reasons why they should be able to bring in things from home (mostly stuffies) and also shared the restrictions around this. They emphasized the importance of making sure everyone respected everyone else’s toys, but also that if you bring something from home you are responsible for it.

The gum committee faced some slight opposition and sparked debate over what it means to be fair - if a few kids cannot chew gum because of their braces, is it fair to let other students in the class chew gum? This is a tricky question for children developmentally - what does it mean to be fair? We don’t intentionally exclude anyone and we share with everyone - so would it be mean to leave some kids out? The committee heard additional voices on how chewing gum helps students concentrate and keeps them from eating their pencils, and gum chewing was voted as an accepted practice - with restrictions around only having one piece a day and making sure the gum wrappers and gum itself end up in the trash can. Our students took each of these proposals seriously and spent a lot of time discussing the pros and cons of each proposal. If only Congress could listen so respectfully to one another.

The most controversial, however, was the question about the government. This debate needed to happen over the course of multiple days so that we could break whenever big feelings rose up. One group felt strongly that there should be an organized student government, while the other group worried that a student government would create division between the students, giving some students power and taking power away from others.

Each of these groups looked at different forms of government and weighed the pros and cons of each - anarchy? What would that look like? A democracy? A republic? A monarch where yours truly is in charge? (voted down FYI). Finally, they fell into a decision around not having an organized government with an organized leader, but instead continuing the committee and discussion process around each decision.

Like everything this year, we may revisit this as the year goes on and see if feelings have changed. Yet right now, everyone seems happy with the “no government government” organization. Instead, they started a newspaper where they could publicly air their grievances about the school, which is another sort of power altogether. More on that soon…