Sign the Smart Ones: Staffer urges students to find and share petitions that matter as a way to get involved in the community

While tapping through East students’ Snapchat stories, one after another features a Change.org petition calling for “less homework from our teachers.” 

Using petitions to get involved in the community and to make a change is an excellent way for students to voice their opinions. But excessively sharing a petition to attain fewer school assignments suggests this is the most important and relevant issue at hand in our community. And furthermore, these trivial sign-up links distract from more urgent issues and petitions that need to be seen. 

2020 has had such astronomical ups and downs that there’s bound to be something that you’re passionate about or find meaningful –– pick something that creates more social change to spend your time on. Online school is understandably stressful and the combined work from seven classes can build up, but a petition calling for a school workload decrease isn’t likely to influence teacher opinions. If you’re personally concerned about your grades, a more productive way to address an overgrown workload could be to talk to your individual teachers or counselor to find a solution.

Petitions don’t make any change unless they’re noticed by authority figures and decision-makers. A perfect example being the petition to have the school day after Halloween canceled that circulates through schools annually, which, every year, fails to result in any action from our district either because they didn’t see it or they’ve already decided they disagree. 

Signing and sharing these irrelevant petitions isn’t exactly harmful –– if you really believe  they’ll make a difference, no one is stopping you. But there are numerous movements and social issues that are still being fought for that aren’t getting the support they need from people signing and sharing because we’re focused on the wrong issues and petitions. 

If a petition to renew the Netflix Original “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” has over 200,000 signatures, why does a petition calling for the White House to declare a climate change emergency have under 70,000? We need to start concentrating on the problems that will make real differences.

According to Temple University professor Jason Del Gandio in a New York Times article, while petitions do little to directly solve an issue, they do raise public awareness. That being said, it would be much more substantial to share petitions about issues that are meaningful to our society and stimulate change among the members of our community like social justice and environmental activism –– which I find much more beneficial than repeated attempts to persuade SMSD’s school board to give us a day off when there’s a centimeter of snow outside.

“On the Change.org platform, you are deciding what issues are most important and how to shape a world where we can all survive and thrive,” Change.org representative Molly Dorozenski said in a Change.org email. “More than anything, we value putting that power in the hands of our communities.” 

But in truth, whether it’s a call to decrease homework quantities or decrease net fuel emissions, creating and signing petitions is only part of the process to make a change. If you’re really passionate about an issue, create a petition to raise awareness about the matter and get supporters, but then take some concrete action. Organize a protest, contact decision makers like board members or Congressmen and actively make the change you want to see. 

So much of our time is spent complaining about things we find unfair, like Spotify being blocked or not getting the day off after the Super Bowl. If you have an issue with something in your community and you don’t see a difference, get up and make the difference. 

We have so many role models to follow and to inspire us –– like Greta Thunburg, an environmental activist, and Malala Yousafzai, who fights for girls’ educational rights –– who take on worldwide issues and make substantial differences. 

I’m not saying you have to start a whole movement in your community, but we can actively create change if we start with spreading the word by sharing the most consequential petitions. 

There are plenty of petitions on Change.org that I think should be seen more by our community than petty objections about homework that don’t have any significant value. It’s been seven months since Breonna Taylor was murdered, and I didn’t come across the petition calling for the arrest of her killers until it was emailed to me by Change.org just weeks ago. Or petitions like Justice for Ryan Stokes, which is fighting for the Kansas City police officer who shot Stokes to be fired after he was granted immunity in February this year. 

This is the type of student awareness and participation we should see in the East community, not just those complaining about minor inconveniences in our lives. 

Post about more important issues on your Instagram stories, like delaying Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement or getting more funding for childhood cancer research. And, if there isn’t a petition for the cause you want to support, make one. The petitions we share the most are the issues our communities are most alerted to –– awareness is the first step towards change.