Election season is right around the corner, and people are wondering: what is going to happen to our country? Most high schoolers can’t vote right now, but it’s not that far away. And even if you can’t vote, you can still participate in government and still have a voice.
Generally speaking, knowledge can make your surroundings more understandable in most situations. This creates the same situation in politics. If you know how to dissect and interact with politics now, as a teenager, you will be able to do it in the future to more effectively participate in democracy as an adult. Learning how politics work and understanding moral responsibility is getting ready for the real world outside of highschool.
School politics are also present in our lives as teenagers. Unwanted policies and actions can be passed by a principal or school district, but with basic knowledge of politics, you can have the power to fight back. People of all ages are able to make petitions and create political arguments even if they can’t vote. If you have something that you feel passionate about, and that needs to be changed, then speak out. You can and will have the power to change the world around you to a certain extent, so exercise it.
When you are participating in politics in the future, you can use your previous knowledge to inform your adult decisions. Think about the politics 300 years ago, during the American Revolution. Think about politics now. Now, think about how politics might be 30 years in the future, when you are an adult. These are long term effects to current politics, how could they affect our lives?
You might be thinking, “What’s the point?” And on a national level that is a very reasonable question. National politics are important! However, local politics, think school district and town council, will affect you more. A national policy may be important, but if local taxes are raised, your life will change more directly than that policy. You might be more inclined to care about your local issues because of how much more they affect you, so it is important to focus on your local issues that might be less focused on. When you focus on local politics you can better understand what is happening in your town. Once you know what’s going on in your town, then you can understand what is going on on a national level.
Getting started in politics now, as teens, sets the rest of our lives up for success. At the beginning of school, we struggle to read a picture book, but if we push through then by the time we graduate high school, we can read entire stories with no issue. So think about how good you can get at understanding and engaging with politics as an adult if you just start now.
