Leadership

As those who know me may have noticed, I tend to be somewhat anti-establishment on the whole. This is largely due to the fact that very often, leaders of an establishment do not act like the leaders they should be. This phenomenon, 'Idol-feveritis' as I term it, spreads far and wide, and reaches down to all levels of society. Yes, including our omgz0r dearly beloved student councils in JC.
(Before the odd people who have friends in SC reading my blog go 'OMGZ I KNOES DIS GUY IN SC AND HES WAAAY COOLER THAN J00R NUB ASS!!!!!11oneoneone' , I would like to emphasize that this post is NOT in any way an attempt to flame Student Councilors, but merely a critique of the flaws of the system.)

For starters, I shall define what I feel the main purpose of a student council is, the underlying principles of the system and how it aims to achieve its purpose in theory. Note that this is purely opinion based. Basically, the main objective of the student council is to unify the college/school. Basing the system on the principle that popularity equates to leadership and vice versa, the college in theory is unified by a scenario as follows:

1.) Roughly every class has one or more popular people (leaders).
2.) These people have wide social circles.
3.) Because they are leaders, they are in the student council.
4.) With their wide social circles, and the fact that they are all in student council, they unify the college by connecting their classmates and friends to people of other classes and etc., utilizing their leadership skills to do so.

(Due to my reduced language skills from months of not writing proper essays etc., I may not have expressed this as well as I might wish to. Feel free to ask me for any clarification though. =P)

Sadly, this entire system is undone by one big flaw. Quite simply, popularity does not equate to leadership, as some might wish. I believe this doesn't need much elaboration, so I'll just say that a good leader is not one that is popular, but one that does what needs to be done. For most part, the startling reality is that most student councilors aren't remotely popular in the first place. The reason why they seem popular however, is that they and the people in their circle of friends tend to be the outspoken few of the college. The needs and wants and aims of the college therefore are not really the real needs/wants/aims of the majority but the needs/wants/aims of the SC and those within their cliques. The real majority of unknown people however, go unnoticed.

Bearing this in mind, I would say that student councils fall appallingly short of achieving their purposes since they are hardly governed by true leaders. I noticed that most councilors were happy to stay in their cliques, happy to voice the opinions of these very cliques and no one else. The result? A division between the student councilors and their cliques and the rest of the college, which go woefully unrepresented. The reason why I notice all this is quite simply because I am one of these unknowns. On many occasions, councilors who know the unknowns, or at least know of their existence, treat them as if they do not even exist. And I have observed all too many of such scenarios. It's not just sad; Hell, it's a fucking tragedy. I'm not saying that all student councilors are like that; I cannot deny that there are always some who truly deserve to be councilors, those who make the effort to engage with the lower profile people of the school, but there are enough who don't to turn the student council into nothing more than a "high profile people" club - a farce.

I have always wondered how many student councilors would dare to speak up against teachers or authority if they had to. Being my cynical, anti-establishment self, I often view them as people eager to please the superiors, and without the balls to stand up for what is right for fear of losing their position perhaps. Expected I suppose, since "the bigger they are, the harder they fall."

However, I will not rule out the possibility that all my observations are simply a result of me being myself. It is possible that I have observed what I observed as a result of my being anti-social and for most part a dao-kia. After all, I too enjoy my own zone of comfort and stick with my own cliques. Everyone is after all human.

People might accuse me of simply criticizing and not offering any solution and I guess it is true to some extent. But the sad reality is that the current means of selecting leaders is the most practical method. Discovering and cultivating true leaders would simply take far too long, and given the fact that JC only lasts for 1.5 years, time isn't a luxury that the college has. The ideal, after all, is impossible. So lets' all be content with what we have...

I leave you with 2 erm, wonderful masterpieces which were crafted out of boredom. Note that they are purely satirical in nature, and do not (or may not (: ) reflect the real truth. No offence intended...