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Whoever thinks high school students and people of young ages are apathetic when it comes to politics, did not see what I saw on Saturday, the 20th of September when I attended Wellstone Action's High School Camp Wellstone with students itching to learn about voting and the political process.
Around 9:30 am, approximately 60 students began to trickle in, several hailing from different high schools, as close as St. Paul Central, and as far as Fergus Falls. Camp Wellstone trainers, Mattie Weiss, Brian Lozensky, Danny Silva-Alvarez, and Maria Schirmer, who provided everyone with a breakfast of bagels with cream cheese and orange juice, welcomed them with a couple of introductory games to get the ball rolling. Once everyone had a comfortable feel for each other, the activities began.
Mattie kicked things off with every high school student's nightmare - a pop-quiz. This quiz challenged the student's pre-existing knowledge of government and politics, teaching them how to be, as she termed it, a political smarty-pants. I was particularly impressed with what transpired in this activity, not only because of several of the student's eagerness to learn the right answers to the questions asked, but because many of them already knew the answers and shared theses valuable insights with the rest of the group. I was quite amazed with much of the information shared that I certainly did not know during my years in high school.
As a Communications major at my school I know that learning how to interact with people on an interpersonal level and impart information is crucial to getting your message across. In the next exercise, the students were split up into three large groups and taught about Class Raps, in which they were instructed how to speak to a large group of potential young voters, perhaps at their own schools, and tell them how they could make their voices heard and have their concerns met. Each group was required to perform a short skit, in which they acted as if they were making a political announcement to a classroom. The energy and willingness to speak out, not to mention the creativity displayed, was indeed very enjoyable to watch.
After the students wrapped up their raps, they sat down to lunch. This gave me a chance to speak with several of them, as I asked them what issues they believed were most pressing or most important in this upcoming election, or just in general. I received a myriad of answers ranging from the conflict in the Middle East and the Iraq War, to rising gas prices here at home. Lunch was concluded by a reading of a truly moving poem written and read by student, Iris Andrews:
So many things going on in the world today
So many things going wrong in the world today
All of these tests and trials
I've yet today to see somebody smile
Trouble only seems to increase
With half of the world infected with disease
I wanna make it better, Lord knows I try
No tears in my eyes, I just wanna make the poem cry
So many young mothers and the babies they abort
No chance at all because life was cut short
So many of your young men are out selling drugs
Why? Because parents need to provide more hugs
So many of our people are living in poverty
But there's that one Christian praying on his knees
I wanna make it better, Lord knows I try
No tears in my eyes, I just wanna make the poem cry
So many women are constantly hurt and misused
But they're accustomed to it by growing up being abused
So many of our children remain parentless
Because we keep electing presidents without any sense
Elections are coming around, but no one is devoted
But the same people who complained never even voted
I wanna make it better, Lord knows I tried
No tears in my eyes, they've completely died
If you asked me I couldn't tell you why
I guess I just gotta make the poem cry.
Wellstone Action is known for getting the word out to people and educating them on the inner workings of government and politics, and they did just that with their next exercise: Door-knocking practice, teaching and discussing potential strategies on how to go about walking through residential neighborhoods, going door-to-door talking with strangers about voting. One person would be the knocker, the other person would be the resident. Essentially, this practice is very important because it connects with potential voters on the issues they care about on a personal level and helps them to choose a candidate.
As if on cue, a couple of volunteers from Minnesota Powershift, a local political activism group, came in and spoke with the students about potential volunteer opportunities that would further assist them in getting the word out and more importantly, the vote. Now, with their creative juices really flowing, the students were given a chance to express themselves by drawing on one side of a piece of paper, something they were concerned about for post-election results, and something they were hopeful about for the post-election aftermath. Not only were the illustrations impressive, the reasoning and discussions behind them were as well.
With their drawings complete, and their minds a-fire with topical issues, everyone sat down in a large circle, spanning the circumference of the room, and began to discuss their personal concerns. This was an extremely meaningful and powerful discussion not only because of the healthy and quite frankly justified fears expressed, but also because of the messages of hope that so many of them carry with them; hope that they will grow up to see a world that is without poverty, violence or ignorance. Having shared their thoughts, it was time to share their feelings. All hands were joined and each and every person present shared that moment in time with their neighbor and their neighbor's neighbor...the energy shared on that circle could be felt in every corner of the room.
The most inspiring thing about the day was that a majority of the students present would not be able to vote in the coming election, yet still they all came out from different corners of the state, some even new Americans, because they all had at least one thing in common: the desire to live in a world where their voices could be heard.
Who says young people are apathetic?
Check out video taken of the High School Camp:
Class Raps: short skits on voting
Group Discussion (Part I) (Part II)
Check out pictures taken from the Camp
Oh, yes
What do young voters really think about Obama?
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