After giving a thoroughly successful lecture in my Advanced Placement U.S. History class and much debate inside my head, I decided to step outside and support a cause—the state-wide student walkout on April 27, 2010, to protest the Governor's cuts to education funding.

What I discovered was a logistical nightmare with no clear goal, no clear understanding of what was being protesting, a disturbing lack of enthusiasm in certain places, and a disturbing amount of it misdirected in the wrong direction.

This was my day at the side of the street.

Upon my arrival outside, I was elated to see the numbers of the protest (more than I expected, but still not enough ideally). But soon enough I found myself, sign in hand, screaming at the side of the street about Governor Chris Chirstie's cuts in education funding and his egregiously hostile (yet admittedly correct in some instances) attacks on teachers. But after a while, I began to realize that I was watching a train wreck in slow motion. People were screaming their heads off about "democracy" and egging on cars to honk their horns to support the cause (of which I'm probably more guilty than the next guy).

What were we accomplishing? What were we showing the world?

A number of things were happening at once. There were the screamers by the side of the road (a rough 10-20% of those assembled at any given time), the loungers on the field (the other 80-90%) and the poor interviewers from CCN (Columbia Cable Network, the in-school, student-run news station), who could not find a single person who was informed about what he or she was actually protesting. Many of the loungers were there simply because they believed they could use the walkout as a "get out of jail free card" from school as they thought the administration would not deal out the cuts (which they did).

I could not help but feel contempt for the loungers as us screamers let all the world know what we stand for, but at the same time doubted my position as a screamer. The protest had devolved from the mass and organization visible on the Maplewood Patch video, and had become something much more crude and uncontrollable. Occasional marches about the premises broke out and served to rouse the rabble and piss off whoever was teaching Project Adventure at the time. Mr. Healy and Dean Rynar repeatedly told us to clear the sidewalk in front of the school, orders that were seldom heeded. In short, controlled chaos was all that I saw.

"Controlled" is a very loose term in this situation. As the day wore on, I became much less active, my resolution to not sit down and become a lounger, my friend's scorn for my actions and my late lunch all being factors. But I had also begun to doubt the merit of my participation in the protest, which clearly had lost much of its merit by that point. I certainly believe in the cause, but was this the proper method? Were we simply making asses of ourselves?

The answers are yes and yes. A walkout was a brilliant idea, especially on a statewide level.

But the walkout at CHS was not organized whatsoever, and very few of those who participated actually were well informed about what Christie had implemented. And in the end we looked like exactly what we were: a bunch of tried, angsty kids who didn't know what we were doing.

To all who still believe in the cause, I say to you this; don't stop fighting. Inform those who are not informed, and take the fight to the Governor in Trenton. We are the future.

Nicolas Stellini is a sophmore at Columbia High School. He is a member of the fencing team and an AP student.