Educating the youth about politics and good governance

Josephine A. Tolentino

IN the recently held election, there is an uncontrolled clamor happening on social media protesting the initial results of the polls. Through social media, young minds can be easily expose to fake news, ideologies and beliefs that can influence their outlook about politics in the near future.

As educators, part of our duty is to nurture the youth’s mind to become a good citizen of this country. Society encourages us to be tolerant, but how can we achieve political tolerance if teachers are not presenting the bigger picture of political ideologies to their students? It could be argued that these schools are unconsciously raising a radically left-wing generation, who may be left-wing without choi ce.

Millennials have and are continuing to develop their political understanding through social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. The issue with this is that millennials are only seeing a limited snapshot of political affairs, such as ‘trending’news. These trends do not necessarily convey truth, and in our post-truth world saturated with fake news where anyone can publish online, how are we to teach young people to analyze and question multiple sources of political information before they form an opinion? In other subjects such as history, literature, and science – this questioning begins in the classroom. Why not with Politics?

By teaching our students about politics and good governance, we come to understand our role and responsibility as active citizens. This will empower youth to become well-informed, active citizens and equips youth with knowledge about our democracy and our Constitution.

The younger generation’s fresh ideas can help overcome authoritarian practices. Since the youth would better understand other young people, the best way to improve this newer generation would be through politics, which is a tool used to take action for development.

It takes a step forward for us educators start them young in the classroom by engaging them early they become potential agents of change — as part of the solution, not a problem to be resolved by others. How we shape the youth today will affect their decisions for the country in the future. As educators, we have to keep in mind that our students may become leaders in the near future because at the end of the day, a good leadership starts from good citizenship.

The author is Teacher II at Dolores National High School,

Dolores, Magalang, Pampanga