You’re done reading about Senior Month? That’s too bad, because I’m not done writing about it. To be completely honest, I was a little hesitant at first to jump on the “Seniors Hate Senior Month” Train when it started picking up speed, and then the multiple Student Government plenaries and the ceaseless talks with Mr. Brandon (which should have been helpful, if not for the entitled students who felt like it was their right to take themselves off mute and fill the air time) that really persuaded me that no matter how I felt, a decision had been made for me and that I should avoid the train all together. When Senior Month was pitched last year, doing a passion project with whoever I wanted on whatever subject sounded super fun! I was all for it. Then it became an internship, and that word automatically brings me to a sweaty young person bringing the wrong coffee to a big business person who then yells at them. Naturally, I (and my total lack of knowledge on what an internship ACTUALLY entails) was against spending the May of my Senior year doing that. Then, while grumbling in my chair during another seemingly endless Plenary session, I got to hear some of the more opinionated students tell Mr. Brandon (who, by being there was doing what I believe is called ‘extending an olive branch’ — a gesture normally treated with respect) how they really felt in a manner that I would consider almost disrespectful. Expressing your opinion is an American right, sure, but there is a point (not staying muted and yelling for literally no reason, because its Zoom and volume is controlled by buttons now) where expressing your opinion comes a little too close to Student Governments amped down version of Civil Unrest. 

So this leads me to my question (and I promise my answers will be shorter than the last paragraph): Should the Student Body even have a say on weather Senior Month is happening or not? 

Silly Spencer, OF COURSE we should have a say in it! It is happening to us right? That fact alone should mean that we have SOME sort of say in the process. At Parker, we claim to be an embryonic democracy. What sort of true democracy doesn’t give a select portion of its population a vote when making a big decision. Seeing as this is a big decision that’ll define how the rest of the year goes for Seniors, we should be able to speak our minds and have at least a little bit of sway on the matter, right? 

Well, maybe not. The title of student implies that we are still learning, no? And when most of the qualified adults who we’ve agreed to learn from say somethings a good idea, I tend to want to listen to them. Besides — the class of 2021 have been Seniors once, and the people in charge have not only been Seniors but have watched countless numbers of second semester Seniors fall prey to the feared senioritis that we hear so much about. As a wise voice in plenary pointed out, Parker students often seem OVERLY resistant to change. All we (the student body) can do is complain, and then when there’s a solution that changes things up a little, we resist it? This sounds like we’re stuck in a bit of a loop. Maybe we should give some change a try. What’s the worst that can happen — it epically fails? Well at least we failed so that others didn’t have to. 

Maybe all of this seemed a little intense. Well, it’s a fairly intense subject seeing as it’s all the rage when it comes to the “things to complain about” part of any given conversation. You know it’s a hot topic when it’s up there with Covid and the Government. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed hearing my take on this issue, and stay tuned for my next article which will be on whether or not the coronavirus is actually real.