""38 killed and 123 wounded as American troops..."" ""and North Vietnamese refugees clash near the border."" ""In some of the most..."" ""...brutal fighting"" " Do you believe that..." " $1.19 for a pound of bacon?" "Just last week it was 99 cents." " There's hardly any lean meat on there." " Norma, where are my brown socks?" " They're in the dryer." " Wayne!" "Why don't you have a little toast with your jelly?" " That is so gross." " Kevin eat your eggs." " Mom, the yokes are runny." "I can't eat them... if the yokes are runny." "In nineteen-sixty-nine, we had the Vietnam war for... breakfast, lunch and dinner." "I guess it was inevitable that we stopped paying attention." ""A seemingly endless procession of refugees..."" ""has flooded Saigon in the last 24 hours."" ""And the food, shelter and medical services..."" ""are already in short supply..."" "You had to stop paying attention." ""Get involved in government."" ""Remember, it's your student council, people."" "Alright, class." "You heard Mr. Diperna." "Let's have nominations for our home room representative." "Home room elections." "As a scholastic highlight, it ranked right up there with "safety week"." "Alright, then, who wants to be our representative?" "Any volunteers?" "Surely there is someone in this room... with enough respect for democracy... to volunteer to be..." "Our representative to the student-council." " Kevin?" " Can I go to the bathroom?" "Is your home room having elections?" "Yeah." "It's Pretty lame though, nobody's even running." "Yeah." "It's kinda cool to be president or something... but home room rep is for weenies." "Yeah." "Alright..." "We have one vote for Mr. Ed..." " Very funny..." "And we have four votes for Ringo Starr." "And we have 26 votes, for our new home room representative..." " Who's the weenie?" " Kevin..." "Arnold." "Well, some men pursue greatness... and some men have greatness thrust upon them, while they're in the bathroom." " Paul!" "Kevin, what are you doing here?" "They made me home room representative." " Can ya believe it?" " Yeah, me too." " How'd you get stuck with it?" " I dunno." "It was either the balloons..." "or the pencils." "About an hour into the meeting, I began to see... the true nature of student-council." "It was basically organized whining." "How come we only have ice-cream sandwiches... in our ice-cream machine?" "I mean at Madison, they have three choices." "I think we should have push-ups." " Drumsticks!" " Pop-sickles!" "Alright." "Alright." "The proposal is to offer pushups in the ice cream machine." "But when it came to the issues that really mattered..." "Party lines were crosses, and everyone rallied their support." "I think we should have a jukebox in the cafeteria." "Order, order, order..." "That's better." "Now, do I have a second?" "Well, obviously, you're all in favor." " Well, if there are no more proposals, we can..." "Yes, Mark?" "What is it?" "Yeah..." "I propose we honor the national moratorium next Friday by organizing a walk out to protest the immoral imperialistic, colonialist repression of the Peoples Republic of Vietnam, ...by the running dog lackeys of the Fascist US Government." "Any seconds?" " Sorry, Mark..." " It's a chance to make... a real statement against the war." "There'll be marches all over the country." "We'll be walking out during class." "Alright, hold on." "Listen, hey!" "Now, I don't know if the student council can vote to do something like this." "Mr. Tyler?" "Mr. Tyler." "He was faculty advisor to the student council, ...but more than that he was our cool teacher." "You know the type." "Rides a motorcycle... lets you have class outside on nice days..." "Lacks respect for authority..." "Everybody waited to see, what Mr. Tyler would say." "Like Mr. Diperna says..." "this is your student council." "All in favor?" "Don't forget to sign up for a committee." "Meeting is adjourned." " We have to join a committee?" " Yeah, come on!" "There's school spirit, social, ice-cream, jukebox, or walk out." "So what do you say, jukebox?" "No, the line's too long for jukebox." "Well, I'd say social, but Nancy Cardian's the chairman for that, and Mrs. Gambino's the advisor." "And I can't stand either one of those, so..." "I don't know, maybe ice-cream..." " Well, which one is Mr. Tyler advisor for?" "I don't know." "Looks like he's doing walk out." "Let's do walk out." "OK, pick a card,any card." "Alright, now look at it Don't tell me what it is." "Put it back." " Hi." "What's your name?" " Kevin." "Kevin, cut the cards." "Good." "Is that your card?" "No." "No?" "Well, wait a minute." "Is that it?" "No." "Well..." "Is that it?" "How'd you do that?" "We did card tricks for about twenty minutes..." "And then switched to 5-card stud." "I couldn't believe it I'd never known a teacher like this." "Mr. Tyler was so cool..." "You could feel yourself becoming cooler in his presence." " Alright, Paul, your deal." " Mr. Tyler?" "When are we gonna talk about the walk out?" "Leave it to Mark Hooper to spoil a good thing." "Well, it's about time." "Hey, it's not my meeting." "OK, well..." "I think we should talk about the walk out." " I think we need a strategy." " OK" " OK, so what do we do first?" "Well, maybe you should start by," "Figuring out how you're gonna mobilize 800 students..." " ...all at the same time." " Right, right." "How do we do that?" "Well, that's why we have all these minds here." "What do you think, Rusty?" "Good luck!" "It's not that Rusty Drotman was stupid..." "It's just that he sort of drifted through life in a purple haze." "Wow." "Well, we could just..." "Well, we could just..." "Like, you know," "I mean,you know, wow." "Think, Rusty, think." " Think!" " OK, wait!" "OK!" "So..." "OK, I got it!" "We all split up, and..." " OK, you can do it." "Come on." "And knock on all the homeroom doors to give 'em the signal." "OK, OK, good!" "So, so at nine o'clock..." "We go to all the homerooms, we mobilize the whole school, and then we march out on the football field." " Then what?" " "Then what?"" "Well, I mean, what is the point of this walk out?" "How is standing around in a football field..." "Going to end the war?" "Who's gonna know the difference?" " Kevin?" " I-I don't know, unless..." "Unless we can get on TV, or something." "Or, or in the papers!" "Yeah, wait, wait!" "That's good, that's good!" "We could use..." "we could use the media." " We could..." "We could write a letter to Channel 5 and tell them..." "We could get other schools to do it too... like Madison and Whitman..." "Yeah!" "And we could organize this whole big thing..." "Where all the kids from all the schools..." "Mr Tyler, could I speak to you for a moment?" "About this walk out..." " It's gotta be stopped..." "OK, there is something Mr. Diperna here would like to say to you." "Thank you." "Mr. Tyler." "I'm afraid that Kennedy junior high school cannot tolerate... a student-council committee that encourages students... to violate school rules." "Any student participating in a walk out during school hours..." "Will be subject to immediate suspension, and, it will go on your permanent record." "Do I make myself clear?" "Your permanent record." "After the initial shock of Mr. Diperna's announcement, we did what any teenager would do when his deepest... convictions are challenged." "It's not fair." "We whined." " Are we going to do it?" " Well, what do you think?" "I don't know." "I don't want to get suspended from school..." " Sounds pretty smart to me." " I think we should fight 'em." " Why?" "Because we should protest the war." "Are you guys really serious about that?" "Of course we are." "Why do you want to protest the war?" "Because it's an Imperialist act by..." "Mr. Tyler?" "I'm sorry, Mark." "It's funny, the moment I hear the word..." ""Imperialist", I go into a coma." "Can't you just tell me in your own words?" "What about you, Kevin?" "Why do you want to protest the war?" " I don't know..." " So, you're just..." " ...going along with the crowd." " No." "Seems to me if you don't know why you're doin' somethin', it can't be worth much." "Mr. Tyler was right." "I felt like an idiot." "What did I really know about the Vietnam war?" "I wasn't even sure if "Vietnam" was one word or two." "Is it that you think all wars are wrong?" "Well yeah!" "So, you think, nothing's worth fighting for?" " Well, no I mean" " Well, then, how can you sure... we should end this war?" "Well, it's like, a lot of people are getting killed." "You know, like, little kids, and their whole families and stuff." "And people from over here who are fighting, don't always even want to fight." "They don't have any choice or they have to go to jail, and..." "And, yeah, the thing is, you know, nobody even knows what there really over there for." "As we all talked, we began to realize that maybe we knew more than we thought we did." "Sure, we didn't really know Ho Chi Min... from Captain Kangaroo, but we knew that a lot of people were getting hurt." "And we knew that it didn't seem to be doing anybody any good." "I" " I just think it's wrong, that's all." "OK." "So?" "What do you want to do?" "We need a strategy." "What's our strategy?" "Well, a few people are aware of this, but" "I have know for a fact that Paul Pfeiffer here is a great political strategist." " I am?" " Come on Paul, you are among friends you don't need to... keep up the cover." "Lets show that mind works" "Ok." "I think I got it." "How about..." "If we start a petition-drive?" "A petition-drive?" "Well, yeah!" "You know, if we could collect... enough signatures, then we could force Diperna to take us seriously!" "It's over four-hundred signatures." "Yes, indeed." "I appreciate you showing these to me." "Now, there's something I'd like to show to you." "Section, 1, 7, 3, 9 point 5 of the State Education Code." "Kevin?" "Read that for us?" "All students shall remain in class... at all times during school hours, ...unless otherwise authorized by the administration." "And that, ladies and gentlemen is the law of the land." "We can either obey that law, or we can suffer the consequences." "Now, if you would like to write your State assemblymen, and try and get the law changed, more power to you." "But, as long as it's on the books..." "If I, or any other teacher, were to allow this..." "We'd be promoting truancy." "And an educator can't... advocate that." "Now can he?" "Now, I know you're disappointed, but think of this as a learning experience." "Did you learn something?" "Yeah." "I learned you're an even bigger butthead... than I thought you were." "I guess so." "Well, that's what school's all about, isn't it?" "Don't forget, for anyone who thinks that... he's above the law, that's immediate suspension..." "And it will go on your permanent record." "Your permanent... record." "And Mr. Tyler I'd like to speak with you." "Well it was a bit of a set-back." "But we were getting used to locking horns... with authority figures." "We reacted pretty maturely." " It's not fair!" " Diperna's a jerk." "We whined." " He can't get away with this." " What about our rights?" "What about the petition?" "Over four-hundred signatures!" "What's the use of having a student government, if you can't take any action?" "I mean, what is he?" "King?" "And it's a free country!" "He can't stop us, can he, Mr. Tyler?" "Boy, he was really goin' after the old chin." "I was afraid he was gonna rub it right off." "No, he can't stop ya." "You can do whatever you want to do." "But... you should give your actions serious consideration, because they may have serious consequences." "Are you telling us not to do it?" "Was he?" "Had Diperna gotten to him?" "No." "I'm not sayin' that." "In a way, you're lucky to have opposition." "That's the way life is." "It's easy to take a stand on something... if there's no risk involved." "It's easy to give a quarter too a poor man... if you keep a dolar for yourself." "It's easy to take a stand against the war..." "So long as nobody asks you to make a real sacrifice." "But..." "Not all of us are ready to sacrifice." "too high." "What do you think we should do?" "I can't tell you that." "Each of you has to make that decision for himself." ""Immediate suspension from school, and it will go on your permanent record" "Do I make myself clear?" "Your permanent record... record...record..."" ""And now, at last." "The heroic crew of... first manned space flight to Mars, led by Commander Kevin Arnold." "Wait a minute, wait a minute." "This just in." "We have just learned that Kevin Arnold left class during school hours, when he was in seventh grade." "I can't believe it, Jim." "The mission has been scrubbed."" "I don't remember when I finally made the decision." "I guess I didn't know what I was gonna do... until I found myself doing it." "We were gonna walk right up to Mr. Tyler, and show him what we we're made of." "I couldn't wait to see the look on his face when he saw what we'd decided." "He was gonna look so proud." "So happy." "So..." "Much like a woman." " Where's Mr. Tyler?" " He's out with the flu." " What?" " Sounded like... he had a bad case of this flu." "What?" "I didn't know what to think." "Was Mr. Tyler a coward?" "I mean, to believe in somebody like that, and to have it all turn out to be a lie." "I was a feeling in the pit of my stomach that was completely new." "I had to make a decision." "Everybody was watching me." "Buzzing about the walk out." "What was I gonna do?" "Was I gonna lead the walk out?" "Or was I gonna chicken out, too?" "And then I decided." "I'd just get up," "walk out that door, into the hallway... and into the bathroom." "I was gonna throw up." "There wasn't gonna be any walk out." " What's happening?" " It's the walk out." "Don't you know about the walk out?" "And that's how I started, the great Kennedy Junior High... peace walk out of 1969." "As I said, some men pursue greatness... and some men have greatness thrust upon them..." "While they're in the bathroom." ""All we are saying..."" ""Is give peace a chance."" ""All we are saying..."" ""Is give peace a chance."" ""All we are saying..."" "I'm not sure we really changed anything that day." "I suppose the war would have gone pretty much the same if we'd stayed in home room." "But one thing would be different." "We wouldn't have the memory to carry with us today, of eight-hundred children on a football field, singing." "And, it wouldn't all be on our permanent record." ""All we are saying..."" ""Is give peace a chance."" "Subtitle by Taurus Mind"