This year, we split the Baldwin Prize into two divisions, one for freshmen and sophomores and another for juniors and seniors. One winner was selected from each division. Rachel Fink took the freshman/sophomore prize. Her winning essay is below.
The theme was empowerment. All students responded to the following prompt:
Describe a moment when you felt empowered. This could have arisen from a single event or an ongoing activity. It could be in any setting--social, professional, academic. Why did you feel empowered? What did you do with that power? Did you use it responsibly?
For a kid in a world full of adults, who use their power over you to feel strong, empowerment is rare. Any attempt at self-expression or empowerment is futile against the condescension and belittlement that will be thrown at you due to the ageism that marks your opinion as less than. Not to mention that if you work up the nerve and confidence to challenge this, you will generally be written off as a teenager acting out. This demeaning attitude toward children is what caused a very empowering moment in my life: standing up to someone who thought my pants were more important than my education.
Throughout my educational career, dress code has been law. If those overpriced, unattractive khakis don’t reach well beneath your fingertips, you shouldn’t be surprised when you are pulled out of class. In fact, I missed my very first high school class due to the fact that my shorts were a whole three inches above my knee caps. Several days later I found out that my friend was held in our assistant principal’s office for the entire day because her pants were ripped on the knees and neither of her parents could leave work to bring her new ones. Yes, she was held for seven hours in an office and was forced to miss every single class because there were rips in her pants. Needless to say, I have many issues with this story and the thousands like it throughout schools.
First, I wanted to explore why these rules exist. Of course I’ve heard the opinion that uniforms prevent the bullying of a student who does not have access to fashionable or expensive clothes. While this is a valid concern, there is little to no evidence in bullying literature to prove that uniforms fix these problems. I have actually seen a kid be made fun of because people could see from his ripped uniform that he only had one, while a kid from a more affluent family would have several pairs. Aside from this view, I’ve hear the idea that a young girl must be dressed appropriately as to not distract her male counterparts. This argument entirely clarified for me that a boy’s ability to focus on his education, no longer distracted by my knees, is seen by many educators as being more important than my access to an education.
Now having an understanding of this gender-based injustice, I was not happy about being pulled out of a particularly interesting seventh-grade algebra class to see the dean of students looking me up and down as if i should be ashamed.
“Do you really think this is appropriate for school?” he asked, tilting his head in order to look at the back of my pants.
I can say with absolute certainty that the majority of students in Baltimore City Public Schools have experienced this condescending and demeaning tone from an authority figure who really needs you to know that they are above you. And although I should have no reason to prove the decency of my outfit, I feel that it is helpful to note that I was wearing shorts that, although shorter than dress-code-length, were paired with ankle-length black leggings.
“You can’t even see my legs,” I replied.
“Why don’t we see where you fingertips go,” he said with a smirk that showed just how proud he was to attempt to humiliate a twelve-year-old.
Upon straightening my arms, the shorts went to roughly the bottom of my thumb.
“Well let’s go to my office and find some pants for you to change into.”
“Can’t I just go back to class?”
“Not out of uniform!” he retorted, looking at me as if I had made some outrageous suggestion.
No longer wanting to normalize the idea of an “educator” denying a kid her class time, I decided to explain to him his incredibly flawed position. I began by asking how he could possibly call himself an educator when all I had ever really seen him accomplish was diminish the education of female students. I proceeded to ask what made him lose track of his educational intentions to the point that this was all he had accomplished. This, followed by the threats of my intentions to explain to my family and the rest of the school how he’d sexualized and objectified the body of a preteen lead to my triumphant release back to class.
This experience had a big impact on my understanding of empowerment. The two of us, while both empowered, used this power in different ways. While he used his authority to try to push me down both in my studies and in my confidence, I stood up for myself. In this instance we demonstrate the ways in which power is not in and of itself great but is great in the ways with which it is used.
The theme was empowerment. All students responded to the following prompt:
Describe a moment when you felt empowered. This could have arisen from a single event or an ongoing activity. It could be in any setting--social, professional, academic. Why did you feel empowered? What did you do with that power? Did you use it responsibly?
For a kid in a world full of adults, who use their power over you to feel strong, empowerment is rare. Any attempt at self-expression or empowerment is futile against the condescension and belittlement that will be thrown at you due to the ageism that marks your opinion as less than. Not to mention that if you work up the nerve and confidence to challenge this, you will generally be written off as a teenager acting out. This demeaning attitude toward children is what caused a very empowering moment in my life: standing up to someone who thought my pants were more important than my education.
Throughout my educational career, dress code has been law. If those overpriced, unattractive khakis don’t reach well beneath your fingertips, you shouldn’t be surprised when you are pulled out of class. In fact, I missed my very first high school class due to the fact that my shorts were a whole three inches above my knee caps. Several days later I found out that my friend was held in our assistant principal’s office for the entire day because her pants were ripped on the knees and neither of her parents could leave work to bring her new ones. Yes, she was held for seven hours in an office and was forced to miss every single class because there were rips in her pants. Needless to say, I have many issues with this story and the thousands like it throughout schools.
First, I wanted to explore why these rules exist. Of course I’ve heard the opinion that uniforms prevent the bullying of a student who does not have access to fashionable or expensive clothes. While this is a valid concern, there is little to no evidence in bullying literature to prove that uniforms fix these problems. I have actually seen a kid be made fun of because people could see from his ripped uniform that he only had one, while a kid from a more affluent family would have several pairs. Aside from this view, I’ve hear the idea that a young girl must be dressed appropriately as to not distract her male counterparts. This argument entirely clarified for me that a boy’s ability to focus on his education, no longer distracted by my knees, is seen by many educators as being more important than my access to an education.
Now having an understanding of this gender-based injustice, I was not happy about being pulled out of a particularly interesting seventh-grade algebra class to see the dean of students looking me up and down as if i should be ashamed.
“Do you really think this is appropriate for school?” he asked, tilting his head in order to look at the back of my pants.
I can say with absolute certainty that the majority of students in Baltimore City Public Schools have experienced this condescending and demeaning tone from an authority figure who really needs you to know that they are above you. And although I should have no reason to prove the decency of my outfit, I feel that it is helpful to note that I was wearing shorts that, although shorter than dress-code-length, were paired with ankle-length black leggings.
“You can’t even see my legs,” I replied.
“Why don’t we see where you fingertips go,” he said with a smirk that showed just how proud he was to attempt to humiliate a twelve-year-old.
Upon straightening my arms, the shorts went to roughly the bottom of my thumb.
“Well let’s go to my office and find some pants for you to change into.”
“Can’t I just go back to class?”
“Not out of uniform!” he retorted, looking at me as if I had made some outrageous suggestion.
No longer wanting to normalize the idea of an “educator” denying a kid her class time, I decided to explain to him his incredibly flawed position. I began by asking how he could possibly call himself an educator when all I had ever really seen him accomplish was diminish the education of female students. I proceeded to ask what made him lose track of his educational intentions to the point that this was all he had accomplished. This, followed by the threats of my intentions to explain to my family and the rest of the school how he’d sexualized and objectified the body of a preteen lead to my triumphant release back to class.
This experience had a big impact on my understanding of empowerment. The two of us, while both empowered, used this power in different ways. While he used his authority to try to push me down both in my studies and in my confidence, I stood up for myself. In this instance we demonstrate the ways in which power is not in and of itself great but is great in the ways with which it is used.
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