My son had his first foray into civil disobedience this fall.
He's hooked.
The corporation that owns my son's school dismissed the principal on a Wednesday. No reason was given and no one even officially told the students the principal was gone. The frustrated students were in planning mode before the last bell of the day rang.
Using text messages, cell phones, MySpace and Facebook, these tech-savvy kids cobbled together some semblance of a sit-down strike. They made signs and alerted the media. Students who'd never talked to each other were now drawn together in their fight for information.
Meanwhile, the parents were trying to pull together a meeting of their own, using much more conventional means.
About the only input my husband and I gave our son was a suggestion that he focus his outrage and keep things specific to that focus.
"Are you protesting that the principal is gone?" we asked. "Or are you mad no one has told you anything?"
We also tried to gauge his commitment: "Are you willing to get in trouble for this?"
My son's eyes lit up at that one. "Do you think I'll get arrested?"
"Um, no," we said. "But you might get an unexcused absence."
In the end, my son went to class -- "under protest and because I like to learn" -- but not until after he chanted and waved signs on the schoolhouse steps for an hour, sent several e-mails to the media and helped infuse the rest of the students with some righteous indignation.
Happily, the teachers were supportive, even when my son's cell phone rang and he excused himself from a lesson to give an interview. Several classes were moved outdoors and spontaneous discussions revolved around previous acts of civil disobedience, whether in Shakespeare's plays or at Kent State University.
At the meeting that night, I was surprised to hear a couple parents express disgust that the kids had stayed out of class to protest.
"I send my kids to school to get an education," one mother said. "And they're not getting educated if they're sitting outside."
I beg to differ. Those kids got a hefty dose of education that day.
The principal was quickly reinstated -- on an "interim basis."
I didn't realize the students would organize that fast or that resolution would be that swift and I was late to the party. I was still working on compiling a playlist of protest songs. I envisioned the kids linking arms and singing "We Shall Overcome."
"As if we know the words," my son said.
They've still got a lot to learn.
And one of the toughest lessons came more than a week after the protest, when the principal quit after all. Students got a letter as they walked out of school on Friday afternoon, possibly timed so there wouldn't be a chance to organize again.
Even though the final results were frustrating and heartbreaking, those kids can be proud. No one will ever say they lost.
Jodee Taylor can be contacted at jtaylor@record-eagle.com.
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