Teens’ Voices Get Heard
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rom picket signs to phone calls, teens are taking responsibility in politics. It’s never too soon to take action. In politics, the right to vote isn’t necessary to make a difference. When everything is a political decision, teen voices must be heard.
“Every decision in our life is a political decision. Everything that is made for us — whether it’s attending school, following attendance policies, up to student loans, borrowing student loans, to paying your water bill, to driving on roads, to wearing seatbelts —” Melissa Feilmeier-Marzen, a social studies teacher at 16
Kennedy High School, said. Teens’ lives are shaped by political decisions, but what ideas are teens debating? Black Lives Matter was a movement championed by Democrats. While teens are often stereotyped as Democrats, Marzen has seen other results. “I see all ideologies and perspectives on government. One of my favorite activities that we did [in Government Class]... I had people first identify ‘Are you a Republican, are you a Democrat or are you an independent, what do you think you are?’ Then when you get a survey that was a little more nuanced and we realized that we’re not necessarily just a Republican, we’re not necessarily just a Democrat, and so it was actually really interesting and it was weird how the pie chart was almost equally distributed,” Marzen said. Political discovery doesn’t have to happen by chance. Marzen has activities where she encourages her students to express their political opinions. “In the classroom, I do believe that everyone has the right to express their thinking, and so we either do that through civil conversation or one of the activities we do in government is a po-
