A Platform to Raise Their Voices
“Finding common ground couldn’t have been achieved without hearing each other out first.”
“People are too soft these days.”
We have noticed that comments like these come from an older audience rather than a younger one. I would often see comments like these on social media platforms, like TikTok, Instagram and even Facebook.
There’s always two sides of a story, but when it comes to social media, one side always gets shunned while the other side is considered non-negotiable, something you can’t argue with.
Influencers often avoid discussing controversial topics to prevent themselves from losing followers. Why is that? It’s simple really, if society disagrees with the influencer, the influencer would be cancelled for having opinions of their own, and will soon be forgotten, and probably would have to receive and endure multiple hate comments for some time.
Most people avoid talking about controversial topics to spare themselves from getting hated on. We couldn’t help but wonder where this shift came from?
Take this for example, it’s like a mango tree growing in a field full of grapes, it looks different compared to the rest of the field so the farmer cuts the tree down before it has time to grow.
In most cases people can find common ground, but when they don’t, it leads to conflict.
So how well can students at Comp Sci high handle controversial topics when confronted with them? Will they cut each other off like the mango tree, or will they allow each other to grow?
We decided to do a seminar with 6 well-known students, 3 freshmen and 3 seniors: Fatoumata, Sawuda, Brandon, Shanique, Sebastian, and Analyz.
Before we continue on, we would like to inform the audience that we are not endorsing any opinions of our own. Our goal is to provide students a platform to voice their opinions.
We asked them a series of questions.
Has online learning education proven to be as effective as traditional in person learning?
Half the students stated learning in person was more effective for them, when asked why, most students replied that the willpower to learn just wasn’t there.
“When you’re in person, the teacher is actually there to push you to do better, rather than the teacher just talking to you from behind a screen,” said Shanique, a 9th grader.
“I was really just opening my laptop and going to sleep,” one said.
“I would wake up and do my work just to get out my way, so my grades were pretty good overall,” another said.
One final comment was: “Most of the time, there’s a lot of pointless stuff that is talked about in school or stuff I already know, so in those moments I could zone out or focus on more important stuff.”
Brandon argued that in a college environment learning by yourself is an essential part of discipline. While other people focused more on temporary fun. Brandon argued that looking at the bigger picture it would be beneficial to gain better habits.
“In person compared to online, socializing is completely different,” he said.
Although they all had different opinions and even different reasoning, they all agreed on one thing, the common ground they were able to stand on was the socializing aspect of online schooling can and did shape the way a student interacts with others.
Others opposed that thought since the temptation to cheat was always lingering in their minds.
“When it came to online learning, I would literally just google the answers and paste it onto my work, I wasn’t thinking for myself.”
The opposing opinions were that online learning was better when it came to having more time for yourself and focusing specifically on what you want to do with your time, but not beneficial when it came to the social development of it: “being online really gives students more of a chance to get accustomed to self learning and self education.”
Should people be given second chances no matter what they did?
All students were dumbfounded, unsure of what to say, since they too had made plenty of mistakes and were forgiven. They had to reflect on past experiences or things they’ve seen.
Shanique was the first to speak up, firmly believing that people should be given a second chance.
“Yes, people should be given a second chance, no matter what they do because from the other question, everyone, it's everyone's first time being alive and experiencing the world for the first time. Mistakes happen and people need to be forgiven.”
Brandon countered that by saying, “Would you? Let’s say, someone had done something very violent, but felt super sorry afterwards, blaming it on the drinks he had or saying that he wasn’t in his right mind? Would you still accept his apology? And let him walk around free knowing he did that to your brother?”
She replied: “So, I definitely do think that I would need time to heal everyone in that situation would need time to heal, learn from their mistakes, learn and get away from the situation, just to grow into a better person from that time and from that situation. I would forgive him, but I would not forget that the person had done that because if they're really sorry, they wouldn't do it again.”
As tension started trickling inside the room, Sebastian spoke up.
“Honestly, I disagree with you Shanique about giving second chances. A lot of people do a lot of bad things, what about past leaders? Authoritarian ones who just control people and kill people off when they feel like it? You would give them a second chance if they ask for it? You can’t just ignore what they’ve done in the past. They shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
Analyz spoke up. “I also want to disagree with you Shanique, when the person made the mistake, they were not thinking about you or how you would feel after that. I feel like a second chance shouldn't be given because at the end of the day you knew what you were doing when you did that. You say that you can forgive, but you won't forget but if I can't do both, I'm not gonna do either.”
Fatoumata agreed with Analyz and Sebastian.
“Yeah I agree with Analyz. Trigger warning, let’s say if somebody committed a violent act upon a woman, and chose to do it. You're making these conscious decisions to do things without regard to another person and how it would make them feel. I don't think a second chance should be given. It just shows how little care you have for other people in your vicinity and it shows that. That makes you a bad person. And yeah, you can go through rehabilitation and attempt to become a better person, but don’t expect forgiveness from that person because no one's in like required to forgive you.”
Sawada chimed in, looking at the question from both sides.
“Yeah I'm in between. You shouldn't judge a person based on their past, because at the end of the day, everybody does something that they will soon regret in the past. But I feel like second chances are important because at the end of the day, each and every one of us here has had a second chance, whether it was academically, financially, whatever it is. Without those second chances, a lot of us would be screwed.”
Should schools teach about LGBTQ+ issues as part of the standard curriculum?`
To start off the discussion of this topic one student stated, “I feel like, until a certain age, like things are kind of like sunshine and rainbows and you don't really need to consider those types of things, like your sexuality or like your gender identity at a certain age. Though I've seen instances where there are kids that feel, I don't want to dress up as a boy. I feel like I'm a girl. Like if they feel like that, then that's fine. but I don't think that should be taught in schools at such a young age.”
They continued by saying, “But at a certain age, like I would say like midway through middle school, like, you're going to be interacting with people from that come from all different types of backgrounds and hold all different types of gender identities and sexual orientations.”
Another student added, “The way I was raised, I do not think it's a standard thing that should be taught because, well, it wasn't really normalized in my country.”
One student further said, “Growing up, like I just was living, right? I wasn't considering the fact that I'm a black person, considering all these societal issues that I face and all these systematic barriers to my identity as a black woman. Now that I'm older, I understand that and I can think about ways to approach that and how that would affect my future. But if had I thought about that when I was like younger, I feel like that would make me self-conscious, that's why I feel if they were teaching that, you would see more like rates of like depression or like suicide in younger kids because that's such a controversial topic.”
When we were finished we expected awkward looks all around but instead the atmosphere was filled with a sense of relief. Or at least that’s what we believe. There were moments when students had the chance to express their thoughts. Although those questions weren't the ones they hoped for. They at least got something off their chest.
From the start everyone entered the socratic seminar with the understanding that everyone has different perspectives which were shaped by their own experiences and backgrounds. As the conversation progressed there were certain moments that were so silent that you were able to hear a pin drop, yet despite the silence, they all respected each other's perspectives and even resonated with one another. Finding common ground couldn’t have been achieved without hearing each other out first.
We thanked everyone for taking time out of their day to be in this seminar.
If you have any questions or want to be interviewed for our next issue, please fill out our form!