I have pressed through my high school career taking challenging classes and attempting to educate myself on a wide variety of subjects. I believed that if I learned as much as I could about as many different topics as possible, I would one day be ready for anything. Towards the end of my junior year, however, I realized that I was missing something, and it was a problem to which my school offered no remedy. I lacked a political education.
After completing my state-required government course (which I found tedious and packed with things I already knew about, having been required to study American government more then once before), I still felt incompetent when it came to actually participating in an election. I will be eligible to participate in the next Presidential Election, and despite the fact that I have the standard state-required classes successfully completed, I still feel like I am missing vital skills. For this reason, I believe that states should require students not only to study the American system of government, but also American politics.
Students walk out of the average government class knowing the three branches of government, the system of checks and balances, the political parties, etc. Students do not, however, walk out of those classes knowing how to critically listen to political speeches, how to decide which issues are important, or how to choose which candidate to cast a vote for on Election Day. Considering the fact that America’s leaders shape America itself, should not students be well educated in how to responsibly choose those leaders? I believe so. States should provide a way for students to gain this education. In fact, states should add this particular course of study to the list of required classes for graduation.
Many people today do not vote in elections, or, if they do vote, they do not vote as well-informed citizens. If high schools provided a strong background in political knowledge to students, perhaps more of them would head to the poles after graduation. Today’s students are too often graduating without feeling secure in their competence during an election, and I believe that this is contributing to the problem of lack of voter participation. Young voters simply do not know how to filter the different messages being pressed upon them from various political parties and candidates, or how to choose the issues they will take a personal interest in. These kids have not been taught how to discern what a candidate means by a particular phrase in his or her speech, or how to decide whether or not they agree with a stand taken by a particular politician. Too often the political jargon is getting in the way, and students have not learned what it all means.
Some schools today offer courses in the realm of American politics, but that number is far too low. All fifty states should mandate students to receive a political education before graduation in order to produce students who are more likely to one day make intelligent, well-informed decisions about voting.