On a whim I decided to look up my my local high school's student newspaper, and fortunately The Oarsman of Venice High School is online. Let's take a brief look at the three opinion pieces. (Update: My purpose isn't to pick on the kids, but to try to get a sense of what they're thinking. In hindsight, I may have come across a little mean, which wasn't what I intended.)
"Teens Turn To Suicide Too Often". Apparently there are some legitimate reasons for teenagers to kill themselves, but it's getting a bit excessive. "Do you think suicide doesn’t happen all too often? Think again!"
"Michael Jackson's Crime Through the Eyes of Student Alicia Henry". Basically, Miss Henry's perspective is that Michael Jackson is a sick pedophile, which is probably correct. What's odd is her final paragraph:
His own son Blanket wasn’t even created naturally; he’s a product of artificial insemination. Jackson couldn’t even bear to be with a woman long enough to make a baby. What makes anyone think that he has a normal view on life, anyway? He doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong because he’s all messed up in the head. I say let him deal with reality and the people he’s hurt.Lots of people these days use medical procedures to help them have kids, and I don't think this is a proper criticism.
However, I'm glad to see our youth are willing to hold people accountable for their actions, even people who are "messed up in the head". Nonetheless, this article is full of libelous assertions, such as "I also think that it’s just as much the parents’ fault as it is Jackson’s; they put their child in jeopardy by allowing them to spend the night with a 43-year-old man with a history of child molestation." Good semi-colon use, though!
"Editor's Take: Latinos Take A Stand Against Injustices with Boycott". Editor-in-chief Jaime Aviles expresses his support for the Latino "boycott" that was held on December 12th, 2003, in which more than 1,200 students illegally ditched school. According to this article (also by Mr. Aviles), the ditchers cost the school more than $40,000 in public funds and did little to persuade Governor Arnold to allow illegal immigrants access to drivers licenses.
Rather than shred his editorial line by line, how about just his second paragraph? With regards to the repeal of the law granting licenses to illegals,
The repeal of that law is only one of the many injustices that immigrants undergo in this country. Few people recognize their economic contributions and take everything they do for granted.It's ironic to complain that illegal aliens are suffering injustices, since an execution of justice would require them to return to their countries of origin. As for their economic contributions, do you think they even begin to cover the cost of educating illegal immigrant children? Doubtful. And what exactly are we taking for granted? That 95% of outstanding homicide warrants in Los Angeles target illegal immigrants?
In contrast, look at the opinion section for the University High School Wildcat, another local school. The pieces there are well thought out and easy to read. I know a good number of students at Venice High School, and there's no reason its paper shouldn't be of equally high quality.
I once worked for this excuse of a paper. This paper sucks because all of the competant writers and thinkers at Venice High despise the mediocre paper and refuse to be associated with it. Please don't think that because our editor in chief is a complete moron with no grip on reality and many of our students only read the sports section, that there are no "smart" kids at Venice. We are there, it's just hard to find us. OH, and mike, don't be afraid to rip our paper and be mean, it bites......real bad!
My memory fails me more often than not, but I seem to recall that when I was at Venice, several of the official, school-sponsored projects like the newspaper required students to enroll in specific elective courses. Even if they didn't despise "The Oarsman," the college-bound students were taking such heavy course loads that they didn't have the flexibility in their schedules to dedicate an entire class period to it. If participation in such activities had been completely (or even partially, for that matter) extra-curricular, kids who were interested in writing for the paper AND in taking Advanced Placement courses (i.e. getting into college) would have been able to do both. As it was, though, the institutional and academic incentive structures were hostile to it.
There was also a cultural factor involved while I was there. The vast minority of relatively advanced students took exclusive courses and interacted mainly among themselves, participating only indirectly in the more general culture of the school. The paper, as a product of the more general culture, simply was not relevant to kids who walked in a somewhat removed social sphere.