On March 14, in agreement with the now nationally acclaimed March For Our Lives movement, scores of students across Tucson became politically active by protesting in concert against gun violence and mass school shootings, as well as advocating for reformed gun control policies.
This planned demonstration, by where students walked out of class and gathered in a centralized location in their schools in an act of remembrance and solidarity, came on the heels of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 students dead one month ago.
All in all, these Tucson school demonstrations were overwhelmingly peaceful, marginally disruptive, and quite frankly, an effective exercise in American civility that should have taught students how to better engage with their world around them.
Considering the fact that voter turnout among 18 to 29-year-olds is the lowest among all age groups — with only 46 percent during this last presidential election cycle — it is vital that scholastic institutions do a better job inculcating values in regard to American politics.
With that in mind, what transpired with these student-led rallies across the nation however was, in fact, another animated demonstration of passions with no serious awareness of current public policy, nor understanding of Broward County’s government malfeasance. I would venture a conjecture, and say that the majority of these politically energized students who decided to rally, became socialized on the issue through the use of social media and other digital news media outlets without scrutinizing the issue in its entirety. Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat are some of these examples.
According to Pew Research Center, only 27 percent of people ages 18-29 in 2016 watched TV to get their news, and only 5 percent of them read the newspaper. Fifty percent said they used the internet to get their news. One could conclude that teenagers are even less likely to consume news through TV and newspapers, where news stories are more elucidated, and instead opt for online content that is predominately opinionated and chiefly driven by algorithms that market towards particular interests.
As a general rule then, it is difficult to give credence to a congregation of teenage students who not only lack political interest, but who also believe that over the course of one month have all of a sudden become enlightened on the issue of gun control policy.
Could some students be fully educated on the issue? Absolutely. But as an aggregate, our adolescent citizenry has not yet acquired the requisite knowledge to make a fully informed opinion on the matter. They may have showed fervor during their walkout, but this youthful population still consistently exercises a great deal of apathy towards American politics.
Does this mean that they can’t express judgments on the matter? Of course not. Students should be involved in the political process as much as possible. But this notion conjured by members of the media that the nations’ children will lead us towards paradise is sheer absurdity. The only people who can lead such movements are those who have become learned on the issues, and who have the capacity to articulate arguments on behalf of those issues.
It is wholly true that today’s children will become tomorrows’ electorate, but it is still incumbent on that electorate to be a critically thinking bloc with rudimentary mastery over basic political concepts.
Teenagers, unfortunately, have not yet accumulated these essential skills. Nor have they had enough time to even engender a liking for these skills. If people truly believe in this notion, then they ought to start by advising children that they first necessitate rigorous intellectual examples before they can become tomorrows’ great political arbiters.
