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as an american I have certain unalienable rights... but what do those rights really mean for a teenager in high-school

1st amendment rights should let me express myself within lawful reason
4th amendment rights let me keep my privacy and right to not be searched or seized without reason or warning/warrant

(and there are others I've missed but these are what I'd liked discussed to start with, later what I haven't mentioned should be discussed...)

I haven't had a problem with these but once or twice, but others have, and there are other places that have more problems with these issues than where I am....

so I'd just like to hear whatever you have to say about any of this, I see it from both sides... but who cares what I think? I want to hear you!

I want to hear ALL sides and thoughts on the issues of student rights and school rules~ I can't argue with myself... and just one p[person is boring >.<

I've never thought of or realized this before. Schools do have special rights don't they?

Well I think that school should have the right to "violate" these rights within reason...it really depends on how you define and look at this.

I need to go, but I'll address the rest later:

Students are told what they're agreeing to, they just never read. If you ever read the contract you have to sign or the school's guidebook, then everything is right there.

and I can agree with that, but there is the other side to consider which is, at least at my school, and the one across the street rules are tightening and changing absurdly fast and to strong a hold over the students will cause them to act out for the worse which doesn't help the situation... really its rather like a self fulfilling prophecy...

what happens when the teenage population becomes imune to the force of the school rules?
or worse...

what would happen if it all went according to plan... what if they all became exactly what was expected and desired?

I know those are kinda rediculous situations but its all for the sake of argument...

and... now that I think about it, I ask this of you

my highschool is right next to the middle school, and often high schoolers will park at the middle school because our parking lot is too small and you don't need the permit over there does the middle school have right to search the high schoolers car? if the highschool wants to search the high schoolers car and for whatever reason that I can't imagine the middle school said no it wasn't a good idea its unreasonable or something can the high school do it anyway?

like I said, those situations are a bit out there, but thats all they are, what ifs for the sake of discussion... but its not much of a discussion with how theres no one else here... ;-;

and its not that you sound like a pretensious p***k, its that you are speaking in the way I would expect from someone whos already been molded into the form the system made for them, which might be why you can't guess what would happen... but... what comes to mind is for me is.... something akin to what America is supposedly not about.

don't get upset at how you might sound... just try to look at it from the other side, I'm not wanting to convince you or anyone else of anything I just want people to think, preferable a little bit away from the box, but not absurdly so- rules are needed, but at what cost?

I was hoping thered be more diffrent opinions.... I don't want any groupthink (I think thats the right term) going on... thats no fun for anyone~

if we'd get some rules haters in here I'd like to argue with them too-( I have a debate comming up and I like to be able to argue both sides that way I know whats comming and what to do about it)

I live in Australia so my experiences will be a bit different from people who attend American schools. Australia's constitution does not have a bill of rights, so nobody has any "amendments" that they can conveniently trot out whenever they feel hard done by.

However, my school sets out its own "rights" and "responsibilities" in our school diary, and this is the approach taken by all schools I know of in NSW, usually in the form of a code of conduct.

Fittingly, they are focussed on the actual purpose of school - which is to teach you stuff. To be taught stuff you need to be prepared in every sense to learn. Being prepared is easier if you feel generally happy and secure and the environment is, you know, 'conducive' to education.

So, my school diary lists four rights and four responsibilities for its students, all of them designed to create that positive environment and ensure we behave towards each other in a way that keeps us overall happy enough to learn.

Additional sections on bullying, procedures, classroom requirements, expectations, study routine info and guidelines on uniform and public behaviour are there, too. These mostly serve the purpose of keeping a reasonable standard of behaviour inside and outside the school, one reason being that the fourth "right" we have is "You have the right to benefit from the good name of the School." As a well-known private school we're naturally asked to meet a standard of behaviour and to reflect the school's values (officially, integrity, wisdom, courage, compassion, faith) anytime we are in uniform or on school grounds.

Anyway, that's all background.

There is often tension between the philosophical belief that everyone should be able to express themselves freely, and the reality that many people (especially children) lack the maturity to judge what is appropriate.

There is also tension between the roles parents and schools are called to play when it comes to 'moral' guidance and upbringing.

While some people will maintain that it is the role of parents to instil moral beliefs and that schools should not 'interfere' with children beyond the curriculum, my point of view is that schools need to have rules which ensure a certain standard of behaviour is kept, so that a positive learning environment exists.

The Department of Education introduced a Values for Australian Schooling Kit in 2006, which encouraged schools to integrate values into their classroom lessons. It stipulated nine values for all Australian schools:

1. Care and compassion
   
2. Doing your best
   
3. Fair go
   
4. Freedom
   
5. Honesty and trustworthiness
   
6. Integrity
   
7. Respect
   
8. Responsibility
   
9. Understanding, tolerance and inclusion

| Poster (874kb PDF) |

Personally I prefer the approach of encouraging values to enforcing rights.

While as a country we don't have official rights such as self-expression or "the right not to be searched or seized without reason or warning/warrant," those are nonetheless things we can reasonably expect in our day-to-day lives.

However, if a child wants to shout out in class or call someone else names, and says they are just being "expressive," I think that's obnoxious and the school should be able to take the child out of the classroom without everyone else trying to work out how they can turn it around and make the school the bad guy. (Or, if I was more cynical, how they could get the most money from the school, through a lawsuit or something.) On some occasions I'm prepared to accept the child could be making a seemingly valid point, and some teachers may lack the maturity to deal with it appropriately. It's up to students not to be obnoxious in their expression, and it's up to teachers to respond effectively without being alarmist or heavy-handed. Every situation will be different, but the student will generally be wrong. Even if what the student is saying is right, there's a time and place and a way to express it. There is a class full of other students who undeniably have the right to be learning even as the interruption takes place, so however it is handled, the learning of the others should be the focus of the solution.

Similarly, with the right not to be searched without a warrant, any situation of suspected theft should be handled with respect towards promoting the best learning environment possible, which might include a sense of security that your belongings are safe and the school will try to help you find something if you lose it. Last term all our Year 12 classes were interrupted so that we could be marched down to our locker area for an inspection because one person's laptop was stolen. People hoped they would recover it (they didn't), people wondered who the theft was (don't know), but even the most disgruntled people were just impatient with the "waste of time" rather than how horrifically violated they felt. If anyone was talking about feeling violated, you could bet they'd have something in their locker they didn't want staff to see! In this practical situation, a "right" not to be searched would just get in the way, and stop the school trying to help this person out. On the other hand, we also have a rule that mobile phones, sports gear, etc. must be kept in our lockers all day, and our laptops are only insured for theft when they are stolen from a locked locker. We are strongly encouraged through a number of our listed "rights," "responsibilities" and other policies to take responsibility for our own things.

Overall the most important thing for a school is to make learning happen in a positive way. This necessitates rules on what kind of behaviour is acceptable, so that a positive environment and general attitude towards learning is maintained. Kids are particularly likely, as a generalisation, to break rules and, especially these days, be aware of 'bigger rules' (like laws) that supposedly justify and/or protect them. Experimenting with behaviour to test where the boundaries are is part of being young, and schools need to be able to deal with that legitimately in order to create the environment they need to fulfil their purpose.

if you have to sign a school policy, you lose many rights. several seniors at my school were suspended for posting a comment on facebook about the apologetics class

In our school we don't have the right to boycott (or anything of that sort,,,strikes...) which I find very funny. So the only thing we can do is,,, be all hailing-always agreeing-robots. GREAT crying .