Some years ago, while talking to my students in an introductory politics class, I discovered that many of the students were shy about expressing their political opinion. There was resounding agreement among the students that they had been dissuaded from discussing "religion and politics" in polite company and that "politics did not really interest their friends."
As you can imagine, the political scientist in me bristled and I thought, "How could it be possible that someone is not interested in politics!"
Of course, in my heart I knew what parents were warning against. Whenever we go to a party and my husband tells people he is a biologist who studies fungi they either politely change the subject or ask about which wild mushrooms are best to eat. When I say that I am a political scientist, the rule about discussing politics goes out the window and I am often subject to a bit of an inquisition meant to reveal my political stripe. For some reason, people want to find out what I believe. Alas, my approach is to carefully "sit on the fence" and to try to calmly discuss both sides of the issue. I suspect I am not always successful as I do have opinions but I don't wear my politics on my sleeve. Likewise my decision to play the objective observer in my classroom is deliberate.
Actually, I am convinced that we should encourage our children to discuss politics. I have had some very engaging discussions about politics and government with very young children. I often wonder what happens between the time that they are young and open to learning and understanding politics to the time when they become young adults who resist participating in the political process. I suspect that they have been warned off expressing their opinion. From my point of view, the best thing we can do as parents and educators is to, at the very least, teach children about the political system.
I recently explained to a group of young children how the Electoral College works because they had expressed an interest in understanding U.S. politics. We played a bit of a game with some maps and some beads and within about 50 minutes they were asking complex questions and wanted to know how the Canadian system worked in comparison. My observation was that the children did not find the process complicated or difficult to understand. They accepted that that was simply the way it worked.
Now, of course, process is a long way from the fractious issues of political life but surprisingly I find that frank and honest discussions about important political questions resonate with young children. Sometimes what appear to be complex issues in the grown-up world are just larger versions of the complexity of playground politics. The stakes are very high in both places and children want to know the answer to "how we should live together" as much as do adults. The difficulty with teaching our children about politics and government is to remain neutral in our opinion so that they may develop their own opinions. Young adults who enter university with some understanding of the issues that impact their world are also much better prepared to deal with the scholarship that they will be introduced to in their classes.
I have to thank my daughter for the idea for today's column. When I asked her about what I should write she said, "Write about the way that television and technology have changed politics." "What made you think of that?" I asked. "That cool story you told about those politicians who debated and they were heard on both the radio and television." She was referring to the Nixon / Kennedy debate. It was revealed that those who listened to the debate on radio thought that Nixon won and those who watched it on television thought that Kennedy had won.
Of course, as you can see, this article is not about technology and politics but about children and their willingness to engage in interesting political discussion. I figure that we are all raising the next generation of citizens and so we have a responsibility to talk about politics. I think we have the obligation to discuss religion, too, but I will leave that discussion for another time.
