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High School students protest smoking ban
18 September, 1999

This column may make me less popular with my younger peers. Still, in light of recent events, I feel the need to address the issue of student rights.

Young people deserve respect. They deserve the space to make their own decisions about their lives. Students should be taught to be responsible for themselves. Sometimes they have to learn just by suffering the consequences of their actions.

Also, young people need to be integrated into the society they will be inheriting. They should be taught about the privileges and restrictions of their culture. This is why I support the ban on High School smoking.

I approach this as a young person, and not as an elder wishing to discredit youth. But High School does not make one special. High School students are just people. In fact, High School students are generally minors, and the brutal (but fair) truth is that minors have fewer privileges than adults. Adulthood comes with rights and responsibilities that minors just don't have.

It is illegal for minors to purchase cigarettes. So why would schools owe student the right to consume what the law won't give them the right to have? High School teaches more than math, science, history, and art; it teaches socialization. Thus there is no justification for schools allowing students to be above the law. Minors cannot vote, enter bars, or buy pornography. Nor can they smoke.

High School students should be focussing on the rights and responsibilities of High School students—that is, studying, sports, arts, and (I know it's nerdy) other school functions. They should not be preoccupied with garnering themselves the rights of adults when they do not have the responsibilities of adults. (Anyway, smoking is childish and stupid to begin with. Don't get me started on its oral function.)

I was in High School once myself. It was a time of transition between youth and adulthood. Of preparation for life beyond high school. If one wants to act like they're an adult, they should not be living at home for free and enjoying a tax-subsidized education. Many students so value their freedom that they move out and drop out just to have it. But freedom comes in time. Youth is to be savoured, not resented and rushed through.

As valuable as the youth voice is in our culture, adults should still have authority. Young people deserve freedom, but the right to do anything anytime is just silly anarchy. Dress code is another matter entirely. There are no laws involved. Students are not getting paid to attend school, so they should not have to submit to someone else's fashion judgement. Part of being young is rejoicing in innocence (which is another reason smoking in High School is silly).

High School students don't have to work (although they can choose to, and then wear a uniform at work). They just have to study and get along. Uniforms hamper proper socialization of young people by teaching them that anyone who looks different is wrong. Everyone looks different. Do we want to teach our youth to be like Americans, expecting everyone to be like us?

Part of youth is finding yourself through self-expression. (Why do you think babies and toddlers babble so much gibberish?). Part of adulthood is taking responsibility for your own decisions. Youth and adults each enjoy different forms of freedom. Youth can get funky; adults can get cancer. Sorry to sound old-fashioned, but that's just how it is, and how it should be. So students: stop fussing about "rights" and enjoy your inexpensive education. The road gets a lot rougher ahead.

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