Welcome to my podcast. This is actually my second time recording this because I messed up the first one, but anyway, let’s continue.
Today I want to talk about something almost every school has: student council. Student council is not necessarily bad, but I feel like it often sounds better in theory than it works in real life. Sometimes students get elected, people make plans, and then not that much actually happens. It is not a disaster, but sometimes it also does not feel very effective.
At my school, we are choosing student representatives, and everyone gets to vote for two people. The interesting problem is that there are more girls than boys, and the girls seem much more organized. The boys are not organized at all.
That matters because a lot of the boys want a boy to be elected as one of the representatives. But if every boy votes for a different person, then all of our votes get split. Meanwhile, if the girls agree on a few candidates and vote together, they have a much stronger chance of getting those candidates elected.
We have actually talked about this and even tried to do the math. If all the boys supported one person, we might have a real chance. The problem is that we are almost definitely not going to do that.
The second someone says, “Okay guys, let’s organize and vote for one person,” someone else immediately says, “No, don’t vote for him. He just wants everyone’s votes for himself.” Then another person says that he should be the representative instead. So instead of organizing, we start arguing about who deserves it more.
That is the funny part. The girls seem able to say, “Okay, who should we support?” and actually make a plan. The boys mostly seem to tell each other why the other person should not win.
I asked one of the girls why she would not vote for someone like me, and she said that some of the boys are obnoxious. I cannot even completely disagree with that. Sometimes we probably are.
Still, I want to be a student representative. I think I could do a good job, and yes, I am probably going to vote for myself. Apparently you are allowed to do that, so why not?
But this whole election has made me realize something. Winning an election is not just about whether you think you are a good candidate. It is also about numbers, organization, cooperation, and whether people actually trust you enough to vote for you.
The boys might want representation, but wanting it is not enough. If everyone wants to be the representative and nobody is willing to support anyone else, then we are probably going to lose.
And honestly, that might be exactly what happens.
So I guess we will find out soon who actually gets elected. I will let you know what happens next time.
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