Shareen Basyari

Before to entering room N234 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, my initial thought was this: For the next few seconds, I’ll be stuck in one place with highly opinionated strangers spitting irrelevant facts and ultimately getting nowhere. But I was proved wrong once I realized that I was actually surrounded by leaders who were willing to understand each other and come up with reasonable solutions, not bicker.

The topics that stirred the most debate in our group were the following:

• Is it appropriate for adolescents to be sentenced to life without parole?

• Due to school violence, should teachers and/or other staff members be permitted to carry concealed weapons on high school campuses?

• What are your fears/anxieties about becoming an adult?

In discussing life without parole, our discussion centered on justice vs. morals. The students who sided with justice believed that, depending on the weight of a culprit’s offense, punishments should vary. However, those who believed in morality said adolescents deserve a second chance, regardless of the offense.

We debated on how punishments should be measured, but one question stood out: Who should be considered an adolescent? We concluded that an adolescent should be someone below the age of 18.

Moving on to whether to allow teachers to carry concealed weapons on campus, one student said, “I don’t trust teachers in carrying weapons around school because that’s just putting my life in the hands of another person.”

Another argued, “But we trust police officers; how is that different from trusting a teacher?” The girl next to me said, “[Allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons] is an accident waiting to happen,” while a boy across from me said, “Throwing more guns into the situation adds more to the problem.”

After hearing everyone’s opinions, I said, “I feel like hysteria plays a big role in this gun situation.” With racial profiling and hate crimes, one misunderstanding can put a teacher in defense mode and a mistake could be made if a gun is put into their hands. I also added that it’s already difficult to find enough teachers in the district; making them go through training for gun certification will sound complicated to them, and filling positions will be harder than it already is.

Regarding our fear of becoming adults, the statement that started the discussion was, “Schools tell you about the importance of college, but what’s beyond that?”

One student said, “I can’t picture my life without my parents,” and another supported that by adding, “I rely on my parents for nearly everything.” Someone else said, “I want to stay true to who I am, but I’m afraid that my ambitions will change.”

Although this conversation was generally short and didn’t stir as much debate as other questions, it lingered until the end of our second session. From the relationships we have with our parents to social media’s influence on suicide, our fears followed us the entire way.

The thoughts and opinions of students are often looked down upon in the hierarchy of age. This has set me on a mission to use my power as a student journalist to write about the topics we discussed and apply them in my future stories. This way, all of our voices can be heard and I won’t be alone in this battle of righteousness.

Shareen Basyari is a junior at Southwest Career and Technical Academy.