Criticism against Media’s Dunk Tank Was Wrong
By Kim Mejia, Jack Mejia, Jazmin Garcia, and Fernanda Lopez

When Katy Murphy posted a photograph depicting Media Academy’s principal, Benjamin Schmookler, getting ready to be dunked into water for the school’s CST party, no one could have predicted that responses to the photo would lead to a conversation about Brave New World and OJ Simpson. There have been many misunderstandings about the friendly CST celebration held by Media Academy on Oct. 30 due to Murphy’s cutline, which didn’t explain the event thoroughly.
From our perspective, most arguments were illogical and misinformed. Commentators were making a big deal about nothing and blowing the photo out of proportion.
Our arguments are that students are deprived of social events at school, events like this motivate kids to do well on tests and the commentators were misinformed and were making false assumptions.

For a school that doesn’t have any social events like dances and very few pep rallies, it’s really hard for students to feel connected to the school. The event Media Academy held brought the school together. Social events like these create a safe and comfortable environment for students; it makes them feel that the school staff really does care about them and how they perform. It’s unfair that they’re attacking us when we actually have a social event and by doing that they are discouraging the staff from holding more events like this. It’s wrong for them to assume that we do this all the time because that is simply untrue.

The CST celebration recognized the students who scored high on their CSTs by giving them a free shot at the dunk. This year’s freshmen will be motivated to do well on their tests and keep up their grades so that they can have another event like this. There’s nothing wrong with rewarding kids for doing a good job and giving them a break. They say that this doesn’t happen in the real world, but it does. Everyone who has had something major happen in their lives will celebrate in their own way, and dunking the principal in cold water was just one of the creative activities they had at the event. Unlike the commentators would like to argue, the dunking was not the only event that Media offered. We also had soccer, double-dutch, tug-of-war, kickball and relay races.

It doesn’t make sense for the commentators to say that we have irresponsible children that don’t care about school if we had the highest API score in Fremont Federation. A celebration including a dunk tank is not a sign of disrespect or immaturity. Only because the principal was friendly with the students and held a party for them does not mean he is not an authority figure and not strict. His participation in the dunk tank didn’t change the fact that he is the principal and that he is in charge. He’s not a drill sergeant; he’s not going to rule by fear, like someone else in the comments had said. Those who believe that the principal was not being treated as an authority figure have the idea that people in charge should be intimidating and cold. No one would like a principal like that.

In conclusion, schools should hold more events like this because they motivate students to take school seriously and rewards them for their hard work.

The funny thing about your constant holier-than-thou attitude is that I’m at school pushing, pushing, and pushing young people through challenging academic work every day to the best of my God/nature-given ability and all you’re doing is sniping relentlessly at me and every other Oakland teacher as some stereotypical party-all-the-time white liberal “educrat” that you apparently read about in a series of conservative talking-points books which believe the Summer of Love and Woodstock were the beginning of the end of America Dream.

Here are a few of the things that come chronologically earlier than the 1960s and the demise of American formality so bemoaned by you and the Fox set:
Witch hunts, genocide, slavery, detention camps, lynchings, class war, civil war, segregation, rural starvation, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, two world wars and hundreds of imperialistic invasions, massive political corruption, etc. etc.

Was the cause of all that as simple as not calling people “Dude” or not letting a superior be humorously dunked by an inferior?

We get it, you like the military model for life: Discipline and conformity. So why don’t you put your time where your mouth is and spend your retirement as a part-time teacher? You can do JROTC, if you’re a vet.

By the way, you know who else likes discipline and conformity? Mafias, gangs and teenage girl cliques.

ANYONE WHO DOESNT LIKE IT LEAVE GOSH>

== PEACE,
I am 5 years old

The dunking tunnel was fun all right.

We speak here of the importance of maintaining formality (and social barriers) and why in dealing with the schoolkids. Sometimes we can never let ourselves be as much “fun” as we’d like to. At least not with the students. At least not before some future class reunion.

Educrats are in the business of spooning out “fun” to their often black and brown charges. I know why they do it. I just don’t agree with the concept. Their parents can take them to Disneyland for fun. If they have parents. They can have “fun” with their friends. I don’t enroll a child in school to have “fun”. Granted it was a school party. They can enjoy the party without dunking the Principal.

School Principals are not friends, they are Principals. That status doesn’t go with what we have here. But these schools are run in a way that pleases certain people, not me. Fine. After all, exactly who are these schools in business to please?

Brave New World.

This is not a paddling tunnel, a rotten fruit-tossing humiliation or a tar-and-feathering. He is not partying with the students or being in any way a “peer” or otherwise inappropriate.

Get a life.