Our American society is built on the concept of Democracy yet we spend very little time allowing kids to practice the concept in their real lives. Kids are rarely asked to make intelligent choices for themselves. Instead, most of us, parents and teachers, make demands of them - eat your vegetables, they're good for you. Clean up your room. Do your homework. Read your book. Put away the computer games. If kids ask why, the response is often because I told you to. From a young age, kids learn that following directions makes for less trouble.
It certainly does make for less trouble for those in charge. And there are certainly times when kids, like soldiers, need to obey a command "just because." But I would argue that those times are rare and it is more often that we need kids (and soldiers) who can take a difficult situation, analyze the information, and then make the right choice. How often do kids practice that?
When I look back at my time in public school and remember those things that helped me become an informed voter here is what comes to mind:
Reading - obviously an informed voter needs to be able to read lots of information and to glean from it what is important and what isn't. Heaven forbid, today's voters even need to question the very information they are sent from their own Board of Elections. Even a good reader might follow the directions of the Ohio county Board of Elections and show up on November 8th to vote.
Analyzing - obviously the informed voter needs to be able to analyze information they are given. They need to be able to draw the important points out of all of the misinformation that is being thrown around. I don't think we tackled any kind of analysis until high school and then it was more in science class than anywhere else. And I never remember trying to separate fact from fiction. We spent more time trying to find the most important information out of an informative paragraph. What's a kid to do if all the information in the paragraph is wrong in the first place?
Honestly, I've learned a lot more about voting since leaving school. And, as with all other subject matters, I've learned a lot more as I have shared the learning with my children. One of the reasons I love homeschooling so much is that I expand my own mind and am able to build on that basic public school education for myself.
Here's what I think I teach my kids that kids don't learn in public school:
1. Question authority. Never assume that because someone is in charge that they know what they are talking about.
2. Get the facts from multiple sources. And make sure those sources are as unbiased as possible.
3. Make politics a part of your life. After all, politics determine if the street in front of your house is in good repair, if the local public school is well-funded and well-staffed, and if the garbage gets picked up. Politics is about the things that matter to my family - our food, our water, our home, and our education. Too many Americans just think politics is politics.
We started the process of teaching our kids how to make choices from a very young age. You know that rebellious stage that starts at about two years old? It's the perfect time to let kids start learning how to choose. That 2 year old is beginning to understand that he or she has autonomy. Most parents see it as a chance to teach the kid who is the boss. We saw it as an opportunity to be the boss while providing choices that would help nurture that growing autonomy. For example, a two year old has to eat breakfast but do they have to eat oatmeal? Or can they chose between oatmeal and pancakes? Of course, at this age, all choices are good ones. We want to make this easy, right?
As kids get older, the choices should become more complicated. Sometimes choices should include a "right" choice and a "wrong" choice that is age appropriate. Just make sure the wrong choice also has the appropriate consequence. For our kids, this was often a going out to dinner scenario:
"You can have water, milk, or soda to drink with your dinner. But understand that if you have soda, that's your sugar content for the day, so no dessert." What a choice!
"You mean, I can't have soda and dessert? Why not?"
That's a perfectly normal response from a kid, right. A perfect time to say, "Because I told you so." But we taught them to question authority and would use the opportunity to talk about the impact of sugar on their bodies. We tell them "Why not" all the time.
Children will encounter choices outside of the home and the more practice they have in the home, the better. And when they face those outside choices, we as parents often try to protect them from making the wrong choice. Sometimes we make mistakes in doing so. I would much rather my kid learn at 6 or 7 that a bad choice has consequences and to feel so very personally than to catch that mistake, correct them, and deny them the opportunity to learn. Humans learn as much, if not more, from making mistakes. Part of parenting is knowing when to step in to prevent those mistakes and when to let kids learn the hard way.
Today, I no longer have little kids in the house. Gone are the days when the choices were about food, and play, and chores. I have two teenagers and the choices are more difficult. But they still make choices, lots of them. The other day my oldest, now 17, was sitting at the breakfast table telling me he didn't want to go to school (he has community college Biology all day on Friday; it makes for a long day between lecture and lab). I looked at him and asked, "Would you feel better if you stayed home?" He replied, "Yes, I would but I'm going to go anyway." He made the tough choice. I gave him the out, on purpose. He still made the hard choice. But he's had practice making hard choices his whole life. He's prepared to make even harder choices as he grows up and reaches his majority.
Teaching our kids how to vote is about so much more... it's about teaching them to think outside the box, to be willing to question authority, to double check, triple check, and quadruple check the facts before making a choice. In the long run, it's not about voting a straight ticket for either party though right now I can understand why it's tempting to teach kids that's what they should do. It's about teaching them that real choices have consequences and that they are in control - of the vegetables, the computer games, yes, even the homework. If they make a poor choice, they get to deal with the consequences. That's the beginning of creating an intelligent voter.
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