I Promise To Honor My Pledge

You know that phenomenon of the public pledge? A well-meaning campaign with a cause (teen pregnancy or gun violence, for example) gets a goal in mind and then prods/invites kids to publicly, solemnly sign on to the agenda at hand. One of the most recent is the Student Pledge Against Gun Violence.

A 2006 study from Harvard found that most students who take abstinence pledges drop them within a year and three quarters of those who did denied having made the pledge in the first place.

We've all had enough experience with New Year's Resolutions to know that sticking to a pledge can be hard even when it's specific and intrinsically motivated. It's not entirely surprising that vague pledges written by someone else don't get taken that seriously by students. If they haven't come up with their own, personal reasons for getting on board with a cause it's just another school assignment.