Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
Truthfully, of course teachers influence their students. It’s pretty basic human psychology, and impossible that they wouldn’t. It’s nothing intentional and nothing nefarious (necessarily), but maybe they spend a little more time on some issues or frame them a little bit differently because of their personal thoughts and feelings. Maybe they teach about part of the issues with a little more disdain than the other. People pick up on that and it influences their opinion on matters. To suggest that somehow teachers are impervious from passing along their thoughts is just laughable to me. Some try to be impartial and of course some make no attempt.
Personally, I just think that’s unavoidable. It’s not a factor in whether kids should vote though. Seeing adults engaged in the process and acting in the process is good for future voters.
And earlier calf was saying that 18 is arbitrary as the age of majority and he’s right, I think. But of course we’re going to have an arbitrary age somewhere. I don’t know how you draw that line.
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One benefit of ensuring most people will have one election in high school that they would be eligible to vote on would be learning how to vote, learning about how to evaluate information, learning to debate honestly as part of curriculum and then having it end with actual voting. I think my kids social classes since about Grade 4 have had this during every election. Why the actual voting is important is it creates an behaviourial outcome after doing the work.
I think by having kids vote you create more good future voters.
As for age what criteria should we use? I think the capability of understanding the issues at play would be my threshold. (Note capability to understand and understanding are two different thresholds) I think 14 would be reasonable. Kids can reasonably articulate how they feel about policies and taxation and why they fee that way. Certainly no worse than average. At 16 you already trust them to do the most dangerous activity we do regularly.
If we want to go Brain Development we should be about 24-60 or so for voting age.