Childish Behaviour: Affinities, Alliances, and Youth Liberation

Written by Emilia Meenakshi Emmrich
Edited by Noor Khan
Cover Image by Linda Xu

“Immature.” “Childlike.” “Grow up.” Of course, not everyone who uses these phrases has a deep-seated hatred for all people under the age of 18, but the way in which we speak about young people does reflect our general attitude toward and treatment of youth quite accurately. The movement of youth liberation specifically calls out words such as these as examples of the repression of young people, but are young people truly oppressed? Moreover, how does Havergal, a school that prides itself on its education of young people, factor into these structures of oppression? Most importantly, what exactly is it that we need to be liberated from?

At its core, the movement of youth liberation is based on the principle that our current adult-centric society fundamentally inhibits the liberties of young people. Children and youth may have less life experience, but surely life experience has nothing to do with one’s rights as a person. The myriad of ways in which young people are excluded from decision-making regarding their own lives continues to deprive children and youth of the dignity that all people are owed. 

For many youth advocates, the true liberation of young people is only possible through acknowledging the differences between young and old. Young people are often vulnerable, which is why we have an age of consent, as people who have experienced less time on Earth tend to be more vulnerable to exploitation and power dynamics. Youth liberation does not oppose the protection of children and youth, rather the denial of their rights and the stifling of their expression. Being abused is a threat to children’s safety, but having a say in the policies which affect them decidedly isn’t. 

Take, for example, schools. District school boards are run by adults, not students, which makes the fact that many students dislike school a lot less surprising. School controls a significant part of a child’s life, and yet on an institutional level, young people have virtually no say in how school works. After all, who gets a say in the budgets and curriculums for schools? Certainly not the people who inhabit them for seven hours a day. Many youth advocates highlight how capitalism targets young people in educational institutions through strict hierarchies, high-stakes exams, and pass-or-fail grading, all of which discourage creativity and risk-taking in young students. These policies are built on the assumption that young people automatically hate learning, and that we must therefore drill ideas into their useless adolescent brains. In contrast, youth liberation posits that children and youth, as independent people with complex thoughts and nuanced perspectives, have the need and the right to learn, think, and engage with the wider world on their own terms. According to youth activists, the stress-inducing climate of many schools and the powerlessness of students in the face of school administration are what cause a large portion of students to dislike learning in the first place. Thus, youth advocates propose that society moves away from the idea that school must be stressful and tedious in order to be effective, and towards a society where adults and youth are able to learn freely from each other.

Now, you may be thinking, what are we, as students who want to improve Havergal, meant to do with this information? It’s not as if burning our schools to the ground will solve anything. Well, it’s complicated. Youth liberation, like all liberation, will not be achieved tomorrow. Fundamentally, youth liberation requires us to rethink how we have been taught to think about age, learning, and work for the entirety of our lives, so it can seem overwhelming to jump straight to school abolition. However, there are places at Havergal where we can see a shift towards a greater liberation of young people. Affinities and alliances are student groups characterized by open discourse between members of the student body regarding social justice. While affinities, such as the Black Student Alliance and the Muslim Student Alliance, are specifically for members of a marginalized group to share their experiences, alliances like the Gender Sexuality Alliance and the Diversity Committee are open to all students. Without the constant pressure of judgement, both students and faculty are given the space to educate themselves and educate one another. Affinities and alliances also shed light on young people’s incredible ability to organize and make changes, both large and small. Throughout history, student collectives have been a force to be reckoned with. The success of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States was in large part contingent on the participation of young Black activists, while the one of the first ever Gay-Straight Alliances was formed by young high school students of colour in Manhattan. At Havergal, the Muslim Student Alliance has run food drives for local food banks in Ramadan, the Jewish Student Alliance has hosted Hanukkah parties, and the Gender and Sexuality Alliance has lead important conversations regarding uniform policies. By virtue of their existence, affinity groups and alliances prove that young people know how to take responsibility, learn from each other, and fight for justice within their communities.

On the whole, through the development and expansion of affinities and alliances, Havergal College has encouraged students to create spaces where constructive dialogue is possible. Moreover, Havergal recently hosted a Chomp Chat where students could share their perspectives on school life, allowing students increased opportunities to share their perspectives. Of course, there is always more that can be done. The divide between those who run the school and those who attend it can sometimes seem insurmountably large, and it is only by the greater involvement of groups such as affinities and alliances in the decisions made at Havergal that this can truly become our school. It is easy to believe that young people are so irresponsible that they could not possibly learn properly without the threat of a failing grade, but the success of affinities and alliances at Havergal College shows that this could not be further from the truth. When given the space to engage in thoughtful dialogue, youth are capable of great insight, and they are growing exhausted of being told to sit down and let the grown-ups talk. It is important to acknowledge that work doesn’t have to be draining in order to be worthwhile, learning doesn’t have to be gruelling for us to grow, and youth doesn’t have to be mercilessly controlled just because it makes adults feel better. People say that children are our future, but we ought to remember that children and youth are right here, right now, and when it comes to our liberation, it’s now or never.