did you know there's a foolproof method to get out of class? to get everyone out of class? whenever you want? you did, you just don't think about it that way. that's because you're not a berkeley high student.

i refer, of course, to pulling the fire alarm. against which there are rules when nothing is not currently on fire. but what are "rules," really? things adults tell you not to do? what happens if you ignore them? if you can ignore them without consequence, are they really rules?

these are the questions we were pondering by the second day of back-to-back-to-back-to-back fire alarms at berkeley high. see, the classic trope of "pulling the fire alarm to get out of a test you didn't study for" fails to capture that right after order is restored and some hilarious protagonist either successfully avoids or suffers a consequence someone else can just immediately pull the alarm again. ad infinitum. it's not like the adults can do anything to interfere with the fire alarm system itself (although they wanted to); all they can do is punish perpetrators after the fact. and when campus is spread out over an acre, and the school district's fiscal priorities do not emphasize putting security cameras everywhere, the threat of post-facto punishment is just a bluff. one which, for one hilarious week at berkeley high, the students decided to call. teachers started bringing portable whiteboards and preparing lessons that could be performed in the park across the street, because none of us were spending any appreciable length of time in classrooms. as soon as we filed back into the buildings after each fire alarm's all-clear, another one would immediately go off.

why'd the students do it? i don't know any particular instigators, so i can't say for certain, but i'm guessing it started as reflexive rebellion that evolved into yet another expression of student power. you literally cannot make us go to class. there is a higher power that you answer to, and we are perfectly capable of invoking it. it may be that a crack team of investigators hunted down the ring of notorious fire alarm bandits that were so cruelly depriving their peers of an education, but i'm guessing that students just got bored of the joke. fine, you can educate us i guess, but only because we can't think of anything else we'd rather be doing.

but if the students had had any particular demands, i can't think of a better way to negotiate. the adults were lucky that all we wanted was to prove that we could exasperate them.