Students use music and video to share their views on Bill 115

“We made the song because Bill 115 attacks teachers and students,” Khan said. “I wrote a verse and there are three other guys who rap on the song. People listen to songs more often. So we wanted to get their attention through music.”

A group of students at a Ridgemont High School are protesting Bill 115, which freezes teacher’s wages, bans strikes for two years and prevents them from banking sick days.

Long gone are the days where the public protested on a picket line with signs. Today, the millennial generation is picking up their phones and computers and making videos instead.

Maybe it is just me, or the crowd I hung out, but we never protested, we never felt like we had a voice. With the introduction and wide-spread adoption of social media 10 years later, you don’t need to be famous or even popular, you just need a Twitter account and you can be heard.

I feel a shift in the next generation, a good one. Young people will begin to have a voice. And let’s face it, it is always nice to have a young person full of hope, passion and ambition give his or her opinion about the world, your product, brand, etc. Seasoned professionals tend to sometimes get jaded and pessimistic about the world and their business.

I do not have an opinion in regards to Bill 115, but kudos to this group of students for making their voice heard.

4 Replies to “Students use music and video to share their views on Bill 115”

  1. I think it’s really neat that young people actually take the time to put together these things. It means they want to be heard. And the fact that YouTube videos frequently make it to the News, or to shows like Ellen, encourages people to use this outlet even more! Social medias are really changing the “traditional voice”!
    However I do think we have to be careful because some people will go too far with the humour or the non-related 😉

  2. Thanks Natalie for the comment!

    I feel like it doesn’t matter what the tool is, there is always a bad apple that will take something too far.

    Your comment that young people are “taking the time” to put these videos together also reminded me of another very important point about this issue. The fact that young people are educating themselves and learning about policy. Again, maybe it is just me, but when I was in high school, policy was the last thing I was would learn about on my free time. And even if I did understand some policies or legislations, I would have never openly debated it.

    It is nice to see these young people learning about the policy enough to form an opinion AND debate it.

  3. Hi B Bowering!

    Thanks for pointing that out. I have fixed the mistake. Do you have an opinion on the story though?

    What do you think of young students gaining a louder voice with the use of social media? Kudos to them for learning about policy or recipe for disaster?

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