Kids help stub out Pearland smoking…Science lesson turns into reality: Public ban passes
PEARLAND ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ Junior high students cheered and gobbled pizza Tuesday night as they learned a smoking ban ordinance drive they started last spring cruised to victory…. “I’m going to go home and put my head in my pillow and just scream,” said 12-year-old Savannah Owen. “It’s amazing that kids like us can start something like this and people will listen to us.”…. The ordinance, which captured nearly 80 percent of the vote, bans smoking in restaurants, auditoriums, stadiums and most other public places in this fast-growing Brazoria County town.
I may not be the world’s biggest fan of children (which probably accounts for why I’ve never had any of my own), but every now and then the little urchins do something that absolutely floors me. In this case, Pearland, TX, has now overwhelmingly banned smoking in most public places…and the power behind this victory was provided by children who won’t even be able to vote for at least another 5-6 years.
These children, most of whom are 12-13 years old, decided that they wanted to make a difference, so they went about doing exactly that- and in a way most adults couldn’t be bothered to do. THIS is what participatory democracy is all about…and yes, it can be a lot of work. In this case, though, all that work yield some very tangible rewards- and the children learned a valuable lessons about democracy.
The campaign began last spring when the students were all in the same sixth-grade science class at Sablatura Middle School.
A police officer’s presentation about substance abuse grew into a class discussion and investigation of the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. The students voted 21-1 in favor of Pearland getting a smoking ban.
Teacher David Bean said some students wanted to picket City Hall, but he suggested there might be a more constructive way to get what they wanted.
Councilman Kevin Cole spoke to the class and was peppered with questions on how to get such an issue on the ballot.
Students drew up a proposed ordinance, went to a local YMCA and door to door and gathered 418 certified signatures — more than enough to put the issue on the ballot.
They made their presentation to the council, getting a standing ovation and posing for pictures snapped by proud parents as they held up a huge banner bearing the names of 247 Texas cities — including Houston — that have similar bans.
Indeed. And a child shall lead them….
The amazing thing is that the smoking ban passed with such an overwhelming majority in Pearland, a city whose population generally views Democrats and government regulation with the same high regard they hold for child molesters and sexual predators. Yet somehow these children convinced more than 3 of every 4 voters to vote for the smoking ban. Talk about grassroots democracy, eh?
If children such as these can put in the hard work to effect change like a public smoking ban, perhaps there just might be hope for our democracy. Of course, this new-found optimism of mine will last until some uneducated nimrod crawls out of their trailer and opines as to how it’s a good thing that Saddam Hussein was hanged, seeing as how he was responsible for 9.11 and all….
