Can You Handle the Pressure?
“How can we, as students, find the agency for change in our voices?”
As students, we spend about 19% of our time on campuses, where the air humidifies from the voices that march up and down the hallways, discussing aspects of their lives. Most of the voices are talking about shows they’ve watched, like Euphoria, or the new boba tea drinks they've been craving, and sometimes the desire for difference in their school. But only rarely is change actually fulfilled or even given any form of significance by their peers. How can we, as students, find the agency for change in our voices? Are we exercising our rights and executing the power we have, or are we all still living with the issue that we have been forsaken?
As a student here at Comp Sci High, I’ve been a witness to how my peers desire change and discuss change as a collective, but the one thing that always startles me is how the ambition for change tends to die down or extinguish, losing the confidence and support it once had. Now, why does this happen? This article will get to the bottom of and shed light on how students operate under the pressure that arrives when one desires change in this community.
Water fountains are one of the most important elements in school for a student’s health. They hydrate students after vigorous exercises in the gym, cool them down during a hot day, become a site for chilling and having conversations, and shield students from consuming contaminated water. Water fountains are always underappreciated by students for their benefits, both mentally and physically; they've always been described as only "water fountains." They were never viewed as significant to anyone until the very day they started to malfunction, when gathering water became a challenge for the students. This was the time when Comp Sci High lost the pressure it needed.
Now, you would assume that the sudden malfunction in the water fountain would cause many students to go into a frenzy or form alliances to tackle this issue together by attracting more prominence to this issue like a magnet, but you would only be somewhat correct. Though the hallways were still filled with the same voices marching up and down, they only spoke in whispers about the low pressure of the water fountain, which spread like wildfire for 548 days—a fire that was never extinguished because no one had the courage to put it out.
Why did the issue stay the same for almost two years? Here’s why: asking for change in school is like moving to a foreign crowd and attempting your best to convince them to join your coalition without being able to translate your language into theirs. It’s almost impossible to convince 250 people to agree with you. It’s a challenge that even the most successful public speaker deals with. This task requires a sincere amount of devotion—an amount of devotion that the average student doesn't have. So what better to do with the issue than talk about it with your peers and complain about it, hoping that someone or anyone will hear your voice and endure the pressure that you can’t handle? Let someone else deal with it.
A consistent pattern I’ve noticed among the people I’ve interviewed is that change is not consistently present among students, that it only occurs rarely. A person I’ve interviewed, Renee Belton, who is an aspiring dancer and a member of the illustrious Fearless Vision for over 3 years in Comp Sci High, says that “students don’t willingly make change in this school unless a teacher or staff finally notice the same issue and approach; then only the students add on and make change.” David Noah, the school’s executive director, similarly says, “[Change] occurs rarely, but when it does, it is by a student with enough devotion.”
From these quotes, it may seem that Comp Sci High doesn't enjoy change, but that is quite the opposite, as Iris Alder, the current principal of Comp Sci High, says in her definition of change: “For me, change isn’t negative. Change is beautiful; change is growth.” Many students agree with her, also describing change in a positive light rather than the dark light it is usually perceived in.
Now, I'm obviously aware that there are more issues in a high school to focus on, but as curious as you may be, I'm sure you’re asking yourself right now why I’m attracting attention only to a water fountain and not a popular issue in my school. This is because you can’t expect to make changes to big issues if you haven’t tried changing the small or “insignificant ones”. An issue that doesn't seem to affect you or the majority but only a small minority isn’t something we should simply neglect or glance over if we’re a community. As for when you attempt to make changes to an issue that does affect you or the majority, don’t expect support from that same minority, as you and the rest of the majority have chosen to forsake their issue. This will cause your argument to fall short or lose the devotion and fire it once had. It will collapse like a bridge without proper support.
Students fear that their issue won’t receive the attention or prominence they need from their peers since it occurred in the past, scaring them mentally and harming their confidence. Statistically, people would rather prefer death than to speak out in public. So rarely, when someone actually manages to muster up the courage and speak of an issue that harms them and see that nobody in their community is phased (especially their peers), it is as if they’re speaking a different language, as if their voice doesn’t matter in the community, no matter how hard they try. This extinguishes the flames for rectification and ends what may seem like a rare occasion of one student attempting to inflict change on their community.
The water fountain is supposed to define how much democracy or change is present in a community. It represents one's involvement in their community and whether they are willing to inflict change on something as minimal as a water fountain. To focus on the little things is an opportunity for a community to become more inclusive of others and strengthen their unity. It is the little things together that build the larger construct.
We tend to leave this small idea out of the box since we’re always looking for the largest issues and the bigger problems, unaware of how forsaking the “insignificant issues'” can later manifest together to actually become one of the big issues. It is this path that I’ve witnessed consistently throughout the world that causes a community to disband and for wars to become the only answer. If only they'd rectified the “insignificant issues” on time before they became the bigger problem, their path for resolution would become an answer, and the community could stay united and alive as inclusiveness was practiced.
In the wake of a calamity, the fire for rectification grows steadily within us, each fire burning differently. These fires are present all over a community and among different people. Even you, dear reader, have that same fire.
We all want to inflict change; we all want to use that fire in the community that we care about, but we hesitate in fear that our fire will be extinguished and that we won’t get the amount of support for what we want to change. Though this fear is understandable, it is not a justification for not trying. Change is strenuous; it requires a lot of devotion and backbone. We can’t just submit if we fall short of our dreams the first time; we must repeat and be consistent with our desire until that day it’s achieved. As for when one fire glows brightly in the precipice of change, another will become ignited, thus achieving the support and adding more fire wood to the blaze needed for that change to be instilled.