Too Cool For Rules

“Put your seatbelt on, the bus auntie is coming!” This is a normal phrase you hear while sitting on T2, a UWCSEA school bus. Generally all the older kids sit at the back of the bus and often think that they are too cool to wear their seat belts or that they are mature enough to make their own decisions. This reporter decided to see how things would turn out for a boy who just made the transition from primary school to middle school and the even bigger transition, from the front of the bus to the back.

The boy was just sitting quietly in his seat, obviously wearing his seatbelt. When the bus aunty started to walk to the back of the bus he stared at the commotion caused as the older kids scrambled around and quickly managed to pull their seat belts across the chest.

As the bus aunty turned around and walked back to the front of the bus, the older kids sighed with relief, laughed at the one kid who got caught and then continue to, what they would call talk, but the rest of the bus would call yell to their friends. The younger boy was frozen, his eyes fixed on the scene and how the routine seemed so normal for the older kids.

As they made it further down the bus ride, the older kids noticed the newcomer. He had now managed to get over his shock and was peering out of the window watching the trees pass by one at a time. One of the older kids leaned over to the younger boys seat and stretched his arm out, barely managing to press down on the seat belt buckle.

With a start, the seatbelt whizzed up across the younger boys chest, back to the side of his seat. Startled, the younger boy looked back to the snickering faces of the older kids and immediately pulled the seat belt back and shoved it into the buckle. “Hey,” one of the older kids called out “Don’t you know, its not cool to wear your seatbelt,” continued the older guy. Nervously the boy reached down to his buckle and released his seatbelt. “Now you're one of us,” the older kids congratulated him.

The next day the newcomer was sitting in the exact same seat but this time without his seatbelt. He was also part of the commotion this day when the bus aunty came to check on them. Later in the bus ride one of his fellow front seaters were aghast to see that his seatbelt wasn’t pulled tightly across his body. “What is wrong with you?” she called out to him. “Don't you know its not cool to wear your seatbelt,” the boy replied.

This reporter was dumbfound after hearing many other stories where students forgot their true principles to fit it. Why should students be allowed to cave into the fear of peer pressure? Why should students learn that if you want to be cool, you can’t follow rules?

Written by Aditi