While a majority of high school students may see the institution at which they spend their mornings and afternoons on weekdays more as a monotonous chore than anything else, I think they would benefit from looking at high school more as a grounds to learn and grow. Historically, this has been the purpose of high school: to act as a place for students to learn the basic knowledge needed in everyday life and to develop various life skills like communication and teamwork.

Since the publishing of this New York Times article in 1928 about high schools’ responsibility to inculcate pupils with a sense of civic duty, much has changed in terms of American policy, values, and popular culture. However, I think that the fundamental purpose of high school has not.

The author of the article emphasizes the duty of teachers to educate students to be aware of American politics and values and how important it is for these future decision-makers to know the “spirit of the Constitution” rather than only its letters. He also highlighted how important it was for students to be participating in extracurricular activities in which they worked together, which he said would habituate students to things like self-restraint and teach them about American ideals.

While today’s high schools have evolved in function slightly, they are still crucial for teaching students how to function in society. Modern day high schools may not be as traditional or nationalistic, but the basic ideal of teaching students how to be responsible citizens is still present. However, teachers nowadays are arguably less concerned with making sure that their students are model citizens and more concerned with their students’ personal well-being. This change in attitude reflects a general shift toward focus on the self over everything else that I believe has become more and more prevalent since that time.

I do believe that educational institutions, especially high schools, are responsible for teaching students about civic duty. At home, parents may not prioritize this aspect of citizenship or simply don’t have time to address it. However, it is crucial to the maintenance of a cohesive society. That is why high school is a perfect medium for teaching students in a standard way the basics of why being an active, thoughtful citizen matters, especially in today’s world, where thoughtfulness and duty seem less significant than ever.

This responsibility of high schools can manifest in many ways. Perhaps mandating a course on American government/policy would better allow students to understand their role as citizens of a democracy. Monthly seminars that provoke students to think about current issues could also be conducive to instilling a sense of civic duty.

In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on diversity in cast members of T.V. shows and of people in the media. More specifically, there has been an emphasis on including cast members of certain groups that were previously not as widely seen such as people of non-White Caucasian race/ethnicity, people of more robust body shapes, and people with physical disabilities.

A idea that has been gaining popularity in recent years is that television show casts should propagate ideals of inclusion and equality by hiring diverse casts. This notion is taken one step further with the idea that casts of mostly White-Caucasian males are somehow inherently racist because of their lack of diversity.

These ideas are built on the assumed value that television show programmers are responsible for displaying politically correct ideals in their selection of characters and show content.

I disagree with this notion. Television programmers are not responsible for displaying diversity casts for two main reasons:

1. It trivializes the ideals behind diversity
2. It limits the creativity of producers, and thus the integrity of television

To me, casts should be selected based on suitability of an actor/actress for the role and his/her ability to execute the role well. No actor/actress should not be considered for a role solely based on physical traits.

Deliberately diversifying a cast often happens in today’s world for fiscal reasons: according to an article by USA Today, for many television executives the reason for cast diversification is commonly because diverse casts gain more viewers, and thus makes them more money. In a quote from the article, one producer says it this way:

“People have begun to recognize how much money they can make by targeting underserved audiences,” says Courtney A. Kemp, the creator and executive producer of Power, a popular Starz series about a black nightclub owner. “The color that’s relevant here is green.  It’s not about any kind of altruism, or a sea change in how people are feeling about diversity.”

Furthermore, deliberately diversified casts often reinforce pre-existing stereotypes and detracts from the merits of the actors/actresses cast for the sake of diversity, while also giving some undue credit for nothing but happenstance.

Television show producers are pressured to portray the characters played by diverse characters in a way that either a) deliberately is non-stereotypical as to send a message about how stereotypes are not true or b) displays that character in a positive light. Either way, the writer is manipulating the show for the sake of an outside factor which mitigates authenticity of the content and undermines the legitimacy of the production.

An article on MTV news praises diversification in television shows for “telling stories we haven’t or have only rarely seen before.” Choosing to focus on unheard stories is in itself a type of bias: who’s to say what kind of “uncommon” story is more worth telling? A television show producer’s job is to create a show, not to promulgate politically correct ideas–the latter is the job of activists. If creating a successful show means catering to politically correct ideas, that’s fine and dandy. But it was never their responsibility to influence viewers’ mindsets in any way besides what they themselves intended.

Prompts:

Should television show programmers value artistic freedom over economic success?

Can television shows with diversified casts truly establish less biased views of a certain group of people?

Allkpop.com is a news site dedicated to all things related to Korean pop music, or K-Pop, and I’ll admit that it is a guilty pleasure of mine to surf that website whenever I have a minute or two of down time. I call it a “guilty pleasure” because it can barely be considered a news source with the kind of unprofessional reporting that make up most articles. The writing oftentimes doesn’t even make sense and lacks professional standards or editing, and the bias is thick (think DailyMail). But it gets me my K-Pop news and does so quickly, and it covers interesting topics compared to other K-Pop news sources.

One feature Allkpop is rather known for are its lively comment sections, which tend to be filled with rabid fangirls and random Internet trolls, but which can occasionally hold some interesting discussion about controversies in K-Pop news.

An example of one of these comment sections can be found here. This is the comment section of an article about boy group BTS and their view toward a common explanation of their success, which has continuously grown since their debut in 2013, but recently exploded exponentially. Because BTS’s level of success is unprecedented in K-Pop, many have tried to pinpoint exactly what the key was to their international stardom.

The comment section of the article is full of readers debating the true reason for BTS’s success and whether their rise was due mostly to social media or whether it only played a small part. There are many debates that quickly devolved into petty personal attacks and name-calling, but here’s an example of a discussion with substance:

I think this particular exchange comes pretty close to deliberation. One commenter relayed his or her viewpoints, and another read them and took the time to come up with a response to the first person to enhance the other’s argument while sharing new thoughts, resulting in a civil discussion about BTS’s merits and success without either side seeking to “win” the conversation or bring the other side down.

Furthermore, it enhanced my own perspective on the subject by causing me to think about it from new viewpoints that they brought up. Both sides clearly showed a degree of respect for the other’s views while also bringing up points of contention. Their arguments were based mostly on personal experience and observation, however, so both sides’ arguments could have been enhanced with some solid evidence as support (in fact, Rose_Blue’s second comment says that girl groups are more popular than boy groups in Korea, which is blatantly incorrect based on overall sales in all aspects).

This exchange goes to show that even in a largely spiteful comment section such as the one under this Allkpop article, there are still pockets of interesting ideas and almost-deliberation from which readers can glean new understandings and a broadened view of the subject.