A presidential election has almost no significance to the average mind of a seventh grader. If one takes the time to express interest on the subject, they will hear the persuasive babble and opinions their parents or people around them have formed. Not everyone always hears other views. Yet, oblivious to anything else, students try to understand the news, and usually their parents’ opinions. They will come to school and other places preaching their story for all they are worth should the topic arise. If the child only talks to one or more people, they have minimal sources and minimal information. So how are they going to form their own well-rounded opinion?

How often do you hear an adult politician, a candidate, say, “You know, there is more than one side to this issue?” We are often deprived of the whole story. No matter who says it, there is a very, very high chance there will be some biased comments or body language persuading the recipient of information, in the case I am talking about, the young naive mind of a child.

The average seventh grader has next to no clue what the war in Iraq is about. Why it’s happening, why we’re there. Again, we hear our parents and those surrounding us and vague fragments of news reports. Some teachers will say, “Look at the bigger picture, when you guys get older and become adults, our country’s debt, the war, presidential elections, will all be left on your shoulders. Without education there isn’t much you can do.” But we don’t really understand. Upon entering “the big picture,” we are clueless except for, once again, our parents’ opinions, vague views, very much less the whole story, “the bigger picture.”

In a way, it’s almost preventing individuality in youth in political subjects and world events. Instead of making clones of the people who have already lived their lives, had their opinions, why don’t we open what’s really going on to youth. Hearing the different views are great and not everyone will go into something having to do with government, but government affects all of us. It also isn’t mandatory for us to completely understand all of this right now, but getting older, it is definitely something to think about; especially when you consider what you want to be when you grow up. It’s so overwhelmingly bigger than all of us, there is so much to say. But then again sometimes there can be nothing… nothing pure and honest and covering the whole story. If anyone gets deep into anything it can start your head spinning at a million miles an hour because it is so big. In a way, that makes me, and everyone else who talks about government, war, elections, money, seem stupid, like a know-it-all, because the majority of us don’t know for real. We haven’t talked to Hillary, Obama, so how do we know for sure? How do we affect change especially when the whole system is so much bigger than all of us? You have to assemble a massive group of people with the same general intentions and beliefs to affect real change.

So what is the war? What’s the difference who our president is and what is each candidate claiming to do? Is anyone truly being honest? What is the bigger picture? We’re looking at the bigger picture we don’t really see. Does anyone really see it?