I Love the Things My Students Say

Last night one of the readings that we had for my upper level class was about the pros and cons of lowering the voting age to 16.  It wasn't a well written article as the pros and cons were very vague and not the greatest, but that was neither here nor there as the students' responses when I asked them if they would like the voting age lowered was priceless.  I wish their response would be the mindset of the majority of voters, but alas we can only hope to take it where we get it.

Me : How many of y'all would like the voting age lowered to 16 so you'd be able to vote in a few years?

There was a definite lack of hands at this point, in fact no student raised their hand.

Me : Why?

Student A : We're too busy with school and academies.

Student B {cuts off Student A} : Yeah... We don't and wouldn't have time to study the candidates or the issues.

I was awestruck.  Imagine what are electoral process would be like if this was the mindset of Americans?  Just something I thought about after hearing their responses.