In recent years, especially after the Parkland shootings, a new generation of students has come about that push for change. I remember when there was a walkout at my middle school for the Parkland shooting and so many kids participated, including me. I’ve always been super passionate about gun control especially when it comes to schools, so when I participated I knew that my intentions were for the cause, but I couldn’t help but notice that there were so many kids who openly admitted to only participating because they wanted to get out of class.
Since then, walkouts have been used by students in order to cause a higher power (school administration, the government) to pay attention to an issue that is important to us, whether it’s climate change or gun control. However, now, I can’t help but notice the same pattern of kids using them to get out of class or simply abusing them (i.e, using them for minor and unimportant issues). The “first” walkouts that my generation have seen and participated in have brought attention to an issue and showed that students can band together and bring about change, but I think it’s time for us to find another form of protest.
Honestly, I don’t really think that every issue needs a walkout. As with any form of protest, using any one method too often can make them become overused and won’t be treated seriously. Even when the Parkland walkout happened, people didn’t take the walkout seriously and used it as a way to get out of class. An even more likely case is that most issues we have with our school administration or local government don’t call for a protest—if many of us decide to bring up our concerns and issues, they will do something about it. I can understand the mistrust in our administration but they do so much more behind the scenes than we will ever know, and they all genuinely work for the students’ best interests. If we trust them and allow them to do their job, we will probably get the results we want.
The Parkland shooting was not the first (or last) fatal school shooting we’ve seen in our country. At that point, so many kids of all ages had passed away at school because of a shooter and I truly believe that it was time for a bigger form of protest so that everyone paid attention to us and took our concerns seriously. I don’t believe much has changed since then, but the March for our Lives movement was a huge turning point in the fight for stricter gun control and gave a space for victims of school shootings to discuss possible solutions.
Protests (specifically walkouts) are a very powerful way of bringing awareness to an issue. However, as students, when we see an issue in our community and want to bring about change, I feel as though we need to carefully decide what to do and how we deal with an issue (like talking to administrators or adults) before going straight to a walkout or another form of organized demonstration. These walkouts we organize could risk being unproductive and serve no purpose, allowing the situation to worsen and the issue to stay relevant.
In the future, I think that in order for us, as students, to use our voices and make a difference, we can turn to setting up drives, fundraisers or a way for people to educate themselves (ex: a self-defense class). That way, people who are involved are learning and by setting this up, we are ensuring that other people aren’t abusing the protest. It may take a little more work than organizing a walkout, but standing up to an issue shouldn’t be easy.
