Gen Z, which makes up the majority of high school and college students right now, brings about 41 million eligible voters to the upcoming election. With all this potential political power, ideally Gen Z voters would put a lot of thought into their increasingly important role in our democracy. But somehow at Parker, a school offering some of the most thoughtful civic engagement opportunities, this isn’t the case.
The Parker handbook states: “We pursue educational excellence by cultivating creative problem-solving through vigorous effort so all can experience joy in learning and come to understand how individual and collective labor can improve society.” It’s literally written into our values that civic engagement is important and that we need to put effort into learning how to improve society.
It’s not necessarily your fault if you’re not educated on the system. If you’re too young to vote, or don’t have anyone in your family who can vote, or are a product of an underfunded educational system, it’s understandable to have gaps in your knowledge. But for 17 and 18-year-old students going to a school like Parker, where it’s baked into our values to further democracy and be good global citizens, political awareness should be ubiquitous.
Yet Parker upper schoolers have demonstrated time and again that they do not understand how politics work. During the MX hosted by the Elections Class, a high schooler, in all seriousness, asked how voting works. Furthermore, in a statistics class containing only seniors, the teacher had to explain what the electoral college is. Another of the countless examples is in a senior history class, when the teacher had to explain why it’s not good for the two parties to be polarized. If observed closely enough, Parker students constantly display their lack of knowledge of the system.
Having Democratic values is an undeniable part of Parker culture, and students have disclosed that they feel uncomfortable sharing centrist or Republican ideas within the school. When the Parker Republicans club was created, many students were angry and thought it was a joke. But despite the school’s dominant Democratic narrative, many students can’t name important Democratic political figures or specific Democratic policies that they support.
It is important to note that Progressive does not equal Democratic. It is fine to believe in progressive values, but being a Democrat requires an understanding of politics and policy. As Parker students come of voting age, they should do their own research on candidates and policies instead of relying on Parker’s Democratic culture to inform their vote.
Of course, there are plenty of students who do know how the system works and who will be informed voters. There are even students who volunteered at the DNC, who interned at government offices, who took advantage of other opportunities in our city. Those students who know the fundamentals aren’t the ones to worry about.
Students who don’t possess an understanding of American politics are, at best, a hassle for teachers. At worst, they are harming the democratic process. Allowing obviously uninformed voters out into the political world means allowing people to participate in a system which they fundamentally don’t understand. Just as you can’t get your license if you don’t know the rules of the road, it’s strange to encourage people to vote who don’t even know what voting is. That is to say, we should still be encouraging everyone to vote. It’s just that we should encourage them to understand what they’re doing first.
With all the resources Parker offers, from free subscriptions to news sites to access to teachers with degrees in history and political science, there’s no excuse not to know the process you’re participating in. If you want to vote, it is the only responsible thing to do to educate yourself on how to do so.
