BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Annapolis High School students learned a little lesson about social awareness. They were taught that we, adults, want children to care about world issues — as long as they don’t rock any boats along the way.

Brothers Will and Sam Sharkey and their friend Kit Whitacre were arrested at Annapolis High two weeks ago — and initially suspended for 10 days — after staging a brief sit-in to protest the war in Iraq. Their 15-minute display of civil disobedience didn’t sit well in an era when any school disruption ignites concerns over safety.

Eventually the boys’ suspensions were reduced to three days, criminal charges were dismissed and the boys gained 15 minutes of fame for the reaction — or overreaction — of school officials.

But what this episode demonstrated is a shift in how young people are expected to be involved in world affairs.

At Annapolis, Will and Kit are enrolled in the prestigious International Baccalaureate program. “It’s supposed to be for the smartest students the county has,” said the Sharkey’s attorney, Richard Duden, of Annapolis. “As part of a well-rounded education, the curriculum encourages free expression of ideas. In this instance, as soon as the administration of Annapolis High School got a whiff that there was an independent expression of ideas, they stomped it out.”

Duden said the boys are fine, even though Will Sharkey, 18, initially faced charges as an adult. “He spent 12 hours in a cell.”

Will, Sam, 17, and Kit, 16, have drawn support from friends and strangers who have been saluting their expression in letters, e-mails and blogs.

The boys’ protest is mild compared to those of the 1960s and early ’70s, when young people burned U.S. flags and shut down universities to protest the Vietnam War. Parents of current teenagers were a little young to participate in those protests of the ’60s. But we were old enough to admire their spirit — while still being wary of their radical approach.

So we grew up determined that our children must be globally responsible but they must do it in safe, structured ways.   

It’s acceptable for today’s children to go on mission trips — working vacations for which we pay. It is fine for them to spoon up soup at homeless shelters. But apparently it is not fine for kids to criticize authority and select their own means of peaceful protest.

The state education department is committed to producing well-rounded adults with social consciences. Maryland public schools require service learning for students, beginning with five hours in fifth grade and 10 hours each year from sixth through 11th grades. All these requirements are completed through academic courses, not independently. They are controlled by the school system and monitored by teachers.

Additional requirements exist for specific clubs, such as national honor societies, and follow organized, adult-approved activities. In Anne Arundel, for example, some children receive honor society credit for each can brought in for a food drive, and others compile hours dressing up as Frosty at a holiday breakfast at the Maryland Zoo.

Annapolis High administrators lost out on a great educational opportunity when they called the police on their young protesters, Duden said. They could have enlisted the boys to organize an assembly for a discussion of the war or directed them to a letter-writing campaign.   

Instead, the message we are sending kids is it is good to become philanthropists — to raise money for important causes, mail care packages to soldiers or go on eco-vacations. Basically, we encourage structured involvement and fundraising versus “taking it to the man.”

Are we raising a generation to address social problems or have we created steps to fulfill an academic requirement? Social responsibility should not be just one more check-off in overstructured lives.