High School Representative Elections

Today, our high school held our annual elections for school leaders, including president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer, and the process is incredibly dumb. I'm sure that others know what I'm talking about; what do you think about class elections? Ours started in advance, with posters and general campaign material being posted around the school about a month beforehand, and it all culminated today with an assembly with candidates giving speeches about why they should be elected and whatnot.

I'm not saying that it's bad to have these sorts of positions in a school, but the procedures in electing people is such bullshit. Virtually anyone, no matter what social stature they have, can walk up and apply for a position like this, and then moves forward in putting up useless posters asking for ones' vote. How are we, as the student body, supposed to vote for people like this, without knowing many of them? It is especially difficult for freshmen, like me, because little, if any freshmen run, and usually, we don't know upperclassmen very well. When election day finally comes, the entire school gathers in the gym for an assembly, and unless you are a total prep, the chances of you knowing even one or two of the candidates is very slim. So, there you are, sitting on the uncomfortable bleachers, wasting class time, while hearing very uninspiring, uninformative speeches. It's not fun. At all.

Saying this, almost everybody who votes in these elections will vote solely off of peoples' speeches, without taking into account the actual personality of these people. Inevitably, this often brings in very pathetic people to these positions, because kids are entertained by their speeches, which are meant to be humorous in the way they address school issues. This is just lame. It seems that most, if not all of the people who run for these positions are preppy dumbasses with no character. Okay, maybe that's not entirely true, but the stupidity of high school elections makes it seem this way. It'd be nice if we had candidates who actually take this somewhat seriously, rather than the average high school student, who doesn't. Perhaps we need some more thorough campaigns; I don't know.

 

I ditched class the day we had to vote for our reps. Honestly, I couldn't really careless.
Of course, I didn't vote so I can't complain.

 

ive never ran, voted, or even knew who won,or any of the disesions they made...

 

You are absolutely right, Chris, it's bullshit. It's not about how well someone can do the job, it's about how popular you are and how well you kiss people's asses. This is why the only people elected are either the ass-kissing AP honors elite, lugheaded jocks, or bimbo cheerleaders - never anyone who can think for themselves. It's all a class thing. So many of the social aspects of high school are just nonsense. Just don't fall into their train of thinking, which is the mindset that is too often subconsciously embedded into people's brains through such institutions.

 

it seems more like a popularity contest than anything, that's what i don't like about it. at my school they make you get a petition signed by 25 people saying that you should be on the executive board, they have a board for each class. then the board votes on the officers. this year i was voted as the senior class secretary which really surprised me bc the girl i ran againt is so competitive and never loses anything. we don't have to make posters or anything like that, just say we'd like to run and leave the votes up to the board. i didn't try to persuade anyone, i'm not like that. i knew if they thought i'd do a good job they'd vote for me and hopefully they wouldn't make it into a popularity contest, which they didn't. that really sucks how they do things at your school though, maybe you should talk to someone about getting it changed.

 

I do agree with you Matt, although I don't think that everyone who runs is necessarily a conformist idiot. Correct me if I'm wrong, the social climates of high schools probably differentiates from place to place, but there were some people on our ballot who didn't seem too bad. However, this isn't really saying much, because the more interesting people running weren't that great in themselves; just better than the more popular people running, who would definitely do a poor job in "running the school", if you can even call it that.

Like I said, I think one huge element of it is that the voters barely know what the people are like who are running, unless they know them personally, or are preppy snobs. I think that if high school elections were treated more seriously, instead of being something that we have hardly any knowledge of, they might not be nearly as bad. It's a good thing that our school newspaper came out today with some information about each of the people running, or else I would've voted for someone without actually wanting them in that position. This is due to the fact that if you don't know some of the people running (which you most likely don't), the only basis you can vote upon are the candidates speeches, which are almost always dumb, or their assumed social stature. For this reason, the popular assholes get picked, rather than the other candidates, who are usually far from great, but not nearly as idiotic as the people who are elected.

But then again, why would one even want to run for these positions? Now that I think of it, people most likely want to be in these positions to be popular, or more popular than they were before, rather than to help contribute to the school. I'm sure this isn't always the case; there are probably some students out there that run because they actually care about the school's well-being; but at this age in life, many kids will surely see these elections as a chance to gain esteem in a quick, relatively easy way. Most kids don't truly care about their schools anyway. I sure as hell wouldn't run for any of these positions myself; I would rather gain attention for being unique and true to myself, rather than contributing to the corruption that is high school leadership.

 

Psycho Killer, qu'est ce que c'est?

 

Yes.

"Fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa better,
Run run run run run run run away...

I think that the Talking Heads are too great to be expressed in words, but let's get back to the topic on hand.

 

I know that not everyone who runs is a conformist idiot. Sorry, I tend to exaggerate sometimes. I realize that not everyone is like that, but many people are, unfortunately. Like you said, most people run for reasons other than their care of their school or student body. They do it for themselves and their egos. It's no different from politicians, if you think about it.

And yes, I agree that high school climates vary, depending on the school and where it's located, taking into consideration overall socio-economic status and such. But really, people are pretty much the same no matter where you go. They have the same motives for the most part - the same desires. Again, I am speaking in general terms. I am not trying to classify all as one.

All I know is that I was never into that kind of stuff when I was in high school. I never even voted, because I find the whole concept pointless to begin with.

 

David Byrne got those "fa-fa-fa" lyrics from Otis Redding's 'Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song),' but sung in a different timing.

Just a little bit o' trivia.

 

perhaps this is because there isnt much of a job to be done.

 

No, there isn't. That's why I referred to it as pointless.

 

Oh yeah? That's cool. That doesn't really surprise me, Byrne was heavily influenced by funk, R&B, and soul music; you can hear it in the Talking Heads' sound, and it is validated by interviews that Byrne has given. In the liner notes to a compilation album from the Heads, Popular Favorites 1978-1992: Sand in the Vaseline, Byrne quotes, "The Jackson Fives' Get it Together LP rates in my mind with Sgt. Pepper" and he later goes on to say that the Heads were greatly influenced by the P. Funk crew.

Damn, I'm really going off on a tangent. Oh well...

 

never got student council.... usually just a bunch of nerds who aren't involved in any other team but need to feel accepted.