Double Take: Students smart to jump into new youth advocacy program

To Dr. Wes and Ben: I am a Lawrence High School senior and part of the Kansas Consortium for Youth Voice, a youth advocacy group promoting youth and student influence in government and community decisions. We support education reform, dropout prevention, volunteer service and post-schooling integration into the community. The KCYV currently has corporate funding and sponsorship from local, county and state government officials. Our organization also seeks to fight apathy among Lawrence youth by giving them a reason to care about their futures and their community. As a new organization, our growth has been slow. Could you give us a plug to help us gain recognition from the community? Interested youth can find us on Facebook.

Wes: I’m careful not to endorse organizations, but I can endorse your effort at political action and support your goals. Longtime readers know Double Take encourages teens to get involved in policy, because the future belongs to you. Now would be a great time to get serious about it, especially with so many looming problems. So I hope parents will stick this column up on the fridge and encourage their kids to read about your work and join.

The only defense against ignorance is information and young people would do well to: a) find reliable sources about political issues important to teens such as college financial aid; job creation for young adults; and access to health care, and b) learn how to consume data sensibly. Never has so much information been instantly available, yet a great deal of it is meaningless. I urge your organization to add as a goal the promotion of critical data consumption and thinking skills so teens can make informed choices.

Good luck on your project.

Ben: I came out of homeschooling into public education in 2004. I was raised in a conservative household in a liberal town. You can imagine the culture shock. At school, I was told that Bush was an oil-guzzling, war-mongering moron; at home, Kerry was equally as popular. As I’ve grown up, I’ve seen good friends both demonize and idolize parties and politicians. Why? For what purpose? I don’t know. I suspect many of them don’t either.

That is my great concern with politics. I don’t fear apathetic youth so much as youth that are passionate about something they know nothing about or only one side of. I encourage you to go through the decision-making process, to be informed, to discern and to conclude. If I could wish any one thing for this generation, it would be a discontentment with shortcut politics.