Today, I made a visit to the Misled Youth website. It's been awhile. They've been around for a long time and have gone through a lot of changes over there. I wish them the best of luck with what they're doing, but I don't see participating there much, partly because of how they are going about their business. Now it sounds like I'm talking about them doing something wrong, but I'm not. They are doing something incredibly right. They are accompanying their online work with local community involvement. They conduct workshops, promote all ages music venues and art shows, and, being based in NYC, make a lot of their stuff very NYC-oriented. More here: http://www.misled-youth.org

Here, where I live, in Georgia, I see this happening mostly with music. We have a all-ages club here called Sector 7G. I go there for the punk shows. In Atlanta (one of its suburbs, at least) is a all-ages club called The Treehouse. I'm going to be going to film a punk festival there in February. Seven bands, seven bucks. http://www.myspace.com/ratlantapunkfest

In each of the cases I'm talking about, young people are using web-based communities (Misled Youth, MySpace, etc.) to support locally-based efforts. They supplement their online communication with locally-based cultural efforts. I think this is significant, and have begun to wonder to what extent that School Survival, a broad-based, more transnational coalition of students and allies, can support locally-based cultural production and youth activism.

At the same time, a lot of the stuff I'm talking about is enabled by the existence of a large city or at least a decent sized suburb. In rural or otherwise more remote areas, this would obviously be harder. Nonetheless, how could SS manifest itself in the material world, culturally, politically, or otherwise?

Any thoughts on this?

I guess we'd first need more members who live nearby to each other. Or we could approach it sort of like how NYRA does, with regional chapters and such. I don't know much about what they do though...

I was in a beginning NYRA chapter for a while, but eventually they just stopped contacting me about meetings.

I'm not sure if the chapter failed or if they just didn't like me.

Anyways, the plan was to write letters to local office-holders and maybe organize a few rallies. Nothing of the sort ever happened because we only had about 5 members, and none of us took action.

I've been thinking about this for a while.

One thing I pointed out while on IRC one day is that SS is very disconnected from the world. There are all sorts of organizations and people that have similar interests to ours but know nothing of this site. I've also suggested that RATS be reincarnated and spun off into a separate site so there can be a repository of these resources.

I've also suggested that as a small starting step into the real world, we could help fund the building of a school in China or Africa through UNICEF or another organization. It might seem paradoxical that we do that but from what I've seen, School Survival is pro-education. We think schools in the West are only one path for education with unschooling being another (of course they are not mutually exclusive, there can be a combination of both.) In areas of extreme poverty, they are technically unschooled but the quality of education is far worse than here. We have libraries, the Internet, and spare time with which to learn. In the areas where those schools are being built, they have nothing of the sort. But it's only my personal opinion that School Survival should be focused on education as a whole as well as student rights so I won't force that on others.

Meeting each other is a big step. We have yet to figure out what's happening in 2009, but I may be seeing a couple members this year. Chapters are a good idea but we need more people first of all. The real members are very spread out. By real members I mean the 15-30 (guesstimate) people that are involved here on a regular basis and are expected to be involved here. (I come and go with various moods but I'm not abandoning SS.)

The other side of the coin is that people who come across some site, and then realize it's just there to support some local or regional thing... and they live nowhere nearby, well, they tend to feel kinda left out. I'm not saying we shouldn't do this, just that we shouldn't let it take over from the site in any way.

As for the raising money idea... we could have some sort of simple game (like http://www.freerice.com) where we raise money to send to whichever cause we pick. It probably won't raise a whole lot though.

Quote:Chapters are a good idea but we need more people first of all.

Chapters can also be a way to get more people 'cause it gives people an excuse to talk about it


Edit:
I've also been thinking about stuff like t-shirts... stuff people can wear that also has a side effect of spreading the message a bit. If anyone ever feels like opening an anti-school shirts store on a corner somewhere... let me know
Imagine that. An actual store with anti-school stuff in it. That'd get attacked by angry mobs for sure

I'd be somewhat interested in developing a graphic for a cafepress account, possibly. Mostly I'd just love to wear a shirt that says "F*** YOU ALL" on the last day of school.. with a graphic on the back "www.school-survival.net" lol.

Afterthought: I wonder if there's like a youth libeartion WebRing or something like that. Get us more ppl at least and encourage ppl here to broaden their horizons

The way I look at it, localisim can only be interpreted in the literal sense. And the tragic flaw of this issue is that most of our members are not allowed or able to attend any sort of convention-like meeting. So yea....hate to say it, but until we all "grow up" or get a rather wealthy sponsor, we can't simply throw ourselves into the cultural movement Doc suggests.

Quote:I'd be somewhat interested in developing a graphic for a cafepress account, possibly. Mostly I'd just love to wear a shirt that says "F*** YOU ALL" on the last day of school.. with a graphic on the back "www.school-survival.net" lol.

Well, we do have a cafepress account... though I don't think it gets used a whole lot. I'd like to change that though... and everything that's available there will be available to download as well, for people who can print their own shirts.

Quote:Afterthought: I wonder if there's like a youth libeartion WebRing or something like that. Get us more ppl at least and encourage ppl here to broaden their horizons

Hmm. There are a lot of webrings, and SS is a member of so many I don't even know what they all are anymore... webrings don't tend to bring many people here though.

Vatman Wrote:The way I look at it, localisim can only be interpreted in the literal sense. And the tragic flaw of this issue is that most of our members are not allowed or able to attend any sort of convention-like meeting. So yea....hate to say it, but until we all "grow up" or get a rather wealthy sponsor, we can't simply throw ourselves into the cultural movement Doc suggests.

I'm not really saying that it needs to be a part of a larger effort. What are people doing in their own communities with like-minded individuals is more what I meant.

Well I pretty much just got shut down all around.

Vatman Wrote:The way I look at it, localisim can only be interpreted in the literal sense. And the tragic flaw of this issue is that most of our members are not allowed or able to attend any sort of convention-like meeting.

The school buildings themselves can be used to give us places to meet on a local scale, there are always empty rooms and it would help people get the "parasite" mentality. The schools like having clubs and a lot of the time they don't check up on them... It's easy enough to start a fake "Help in Math Club" They'll give the club some room access and you might even get a few walk-ins...

I actually had a talk with my school's principal recently about starting a club (politics--except I decided I was way too busy). He basically said he obviously can't prevent ppl from grouping, but you have to fill out all this paperwork if you want a certified, school-sponsored club that a teacher supervises and works with and stuff. If we just want to meet un-certified in some classroom there has to be a teacher at least keeping an eye on us, but on their own "time". I'd assume it's generally the same in most places. But good luck getting a teacher to help you out!

Where I live, various shady "churches" are able to use the schools when they are not in session. This annoys me to no end. I hope they charge them some serious rent and don't just subsidize religion with my tax dollars. That being the case, there should not be any obstacle to using the school. I suppose it would have to be a bit more low-key than meeting in someone's basement, and should not involve significant destruction of property.

VIVA LA REZISTANCE!