"I love Bush!"
"I hate Bush, how could you like him?"
"I just do. Why do you hate him?"
"Because I know where he stands with the issues. Do you?"
"No, but my mom says she likes Bush, so I like him too."
In many high schools this type of conversation is heard all the time. Students are taught math, language, science, and history, but politics and government is something that students rarely learn inside the walls of high school.
You think for all the pushing for us to vote as newly 18 year olds, they would make politics and government a required class or something taught in US History. But it rarely is, at least from the two high schools I've been to.
But who is to blame? The school district? Or maybe the parents who didn't bring it up at the board meetings? Or maybe the students who decide they don't even care.
Whatever the reason, shouldn't it change?
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Half a year of government is required in order to graduate at my old high school, but it was very theoretical and mostly didn't deal with current events. I think that it is a serious problem that most people (not just kids) don't really understand politics. The problem with teaching it in school is probably that parents are worried that teachers will take sides in debates and that they won't be able to help presenting a slanted view. Personally, I think that it would be a very simple to get around this, but I don't think it's likely to happen anytime soon.
We were required to take Civics in 9th grade. I also got exposed to a lot of politics in some of my other classes, especially AP Euro bc the teacher liked to talk current events as well as history.
Hug a musician, they never get to dance.
We had to take Civics our freshman year, but most of it was old. The last President covered in the class was Nixon. Doesn't give you much about the current political climate or what it all means.
"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." Isaac Asimov
"Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth." Charles Dana
Well in my school AP Euro and some other government classes are offered, and of course AP Euro is filled, but the government classes might have like 15 people at best...so you get 30 a year if it's a semester class. Out of 1500 hundred kids in my high school...that leaves out a lot of students still not knowing about American politics.
Jared Munson
Auburn, Washington
So many people don't realize how influenced they are by their parents. Teens need to be taught that they are ALLOWED to have a mind of their own. They need to be taught about what else is out there besides what their parents believe.
At my school we were required a semester of government to graduate, and we, luckily, had a great teacher. He's also the history teacher and talked a lot about politics in that class, as well.
You know...I beleive I was part of a conversation very much like that one you have at the beginning. I think the girl I was talking to has developed a better sense of herself, individuality, and her own oppinions since then...it's still sad that that's how most young people view politics - "what do my parents think about this or that?"
Peace
Tahni
-------
"Tell me - if no one ever hears what you say, then why don't you shout it?" -- Floater
I agree with the writer about his despair for not being able to learn politics in HS. Well, as a senior, I also experienced the same fate. I didn't learn much about government either. In my government class last semester, we just read Metro newspapers, talking about celebrities, other issues etc. Although we were supposed to learn some initiatives about how to be a good citizen in the country, we ended up learning the same old thing about the 3 branches of the government which was already learned in US history last year.
So, I guess, the writer is not the only one to have been denied the opportunity to be a good citizen in a democratic nation.