You won’t read this. As soon as you see what it’s about, you will skip right to the next page, hoping to see an article about winter sports or movie reviews.
But the truth is that you should care about this. You should care that the Iraq War, which started before many of us were 8 years old, is coming to an end. However, with the conclusion of the war approaching, the reaction of Staples students remains as it always has: apathetic.
With over 4,000 American soldiers killed since the war started, you’d think that it would spawn some sort of emotion from the people that have so long lived in its atmosphere. We have experienced every day since the invasion began. We have grown up in almost nine years of wartime inIraq. And yet, students inWestportseem to care very little about its end, let alone know anything about it at all.
Isabel Gasway ’13 said that her peers are hardly interested in the war.
“I’ve never heard of kids protesting anything, especially anything political. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard students talking about politics by choice if they’re not in a class,” she says.
I do not spend hours hunting for current news online, voraciously reading The New York Times, or staying up late to watch debates and speeches. But I try. And I am part of the minority.
Unfortunately, the majority of students would consider a newly updated relationship status on Facebook as “breaking news.”
Why do we, as mature, almost-adults, seem to strike such a sharp contrast to the passionate, young protestors of the Vietnam War? Whereas students in 1965 wore black armbands to mourn the dead soldiers, we squander time designing bright pink senior girl hats.
“I think it’s criminal that people aren’t aware and that students aren’t taught more about what’s going on in those areas,” said Cathy Dancz, a social studies teacher at Staples. “But we’re so concerned with kids passing AP tests and SATs and doing all that kind of stuff, there’s hardly room in the curriculum.”
It’s important, however, to understand that you can’t rely on others to be an active citizens. Soon enough, we’ll be old enough to vote and participate in our government and believe it or not, to do that you actually have to care about issues.
“You guys want to know stuff, but you have to be empowered,” said Dancz. The Iraq War may be ending, but guaranteed there will be more governmental issues within the next few years— if not months—that affect the student body.
We live in a generation where the topic of conversation is the new iPhone 4S, and the most important controversy in our lives is whether Brangelina is finally going to tie the knot (hint: it’s never going to happen). However, for us to be a genuinely educated student body, we need to be effective participants in the country’s issues.
If you can’t trust the media to give you unbiased explanations and you can’t trust your school to give you an adequate education of theMiddle Eastcrises, you need to take initiative. It’s your country, too.
