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This is America: Amid surge in student activism, we need to respect the voices of young people

Students in cities across the country staged walkouts last week to demand a seat at the table in the fraught debate over in-person and remote learning.

For a story on these walkouts, I spoke with several student activists who said they felt sidelined in conversations about COVID-19 precautions in schools, even though they stand in the middle of the tense debate. As students mobilize around issues from COVID-19 precautions to climate change, racial justice to gun policies, many of them are telling us they feel ignored and not seen as active agents in their own futures.

My name is Christine Fernando, and I'm a News Now reporter at USA TODAY, where I report breaking and trending news, as well as stories focusing on race and communities of color. I’d like to welcome you to this week’s "This Is America."

Since I spoke with some of these students about their efforts, I’ve gotten more emails than I can count of hateful, sometimes racist comments about these students, many of whom are students of color. People called these students “entitled pricks,” “princesses” and “cry babies.” One of them asserted that “To be blunt, what a minor wants doesn’t matter,” and many claimed these students are just looking for a way to get out of class.

These emails represent a reductive understanding of student activism that blindly dismisses their perspectives instead of taking time to listen, and show just how much adults continue minimizing student voices.

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Students have always been strong activists. It's time we truly listen to what they are saying.

I’ve checked in with many of the students I interviewed about their feelings since the story was published. Many told me they felt dismissed once again, but they weren’t surprised.

“Young people should be told that their voices are important, but we’re being sent a message that our voices don’t matter,” said Kayla Quinlan, a 16-year-old student activist at Boston Day and Evening Academy. “I don’t know if people realize how damaging that is to students, for them to be told their voices and thoughts and experiences don’t matter and shouldn’t be listened to."

The ongoing debate between in-person and remote learning is complex with many shades of gray. But regardless of where you stand on this issue, we need to allow students a voice, despite how hard it may be for adults to see younger people as equal partners in decision-making.

Joseph Kahne, a professor of education policy at University of California, Riverside, told me the walkouts last week are part of a surge in high school activism he hasn’t seen since the 1960s and '70s. He said high schoolers are beginning to see themselves as part of a larger community beyond their family unit, adding that this type of civic engagement is “developmentally appropriate” for students at this age.

“Young people are accessing a tradition of political expression that really does create opportunities for educators to make sure that it is a learning experience as well,” Kahne said.

Many influential movements in the past were led in part by young people, including the Civil Rights movement and protests against the Vietnam War. More recently, student organizing around climate change and gun policy through the March for Our Lives movement also has had significant ripple effects, showing us how student organizers are an integral part of our participatory democracy.

As I watched students in Chicago, where I live, participate in walkouts, it reminded me of Freedom Day in 1963, when over 200,000 students boycotted school to protest against segregated schools and inadequate resources offered to Black students. According to the Zinn Education Project, while many schools with students of color were overcrowded and underfunded, the Chicago Board of Education refused to allow Black students to transfer to other schools.

The Board of Education responded by increasing the number of Black students who could transfer to white schools, and the fight continued with another boycott in 1965 with 100,000 students.

Decades later, I sat in on a public organizing meeting as students discussed walking out of class. They opened the meeting by catching up on their school days and showing off their outfits as one leader asserted that “This isn’t an adult space,” and people shouldn’t be shy because “we do things differently here.” The students checked in with and held space for one another. I noticed they used similar language around solidarity and building people power that adult community organizers I've interviewed in the past have used.

We can't ignore student activists anymore

Whether you agree or disagree with their position, these students are legitimate community organizers, and they understand how to organize their own communities. They deserve the same level of attention.

As adults, we have privileges that our youth do not in terms of avenues to affect change. I believe we have a responsibility to listen to and amplify student voices, and to help them see their own power.

Journalists also have a role in this. Equitable sourcing is one of the most important and most difficult journalistic skills, and it requires a reexamining of who newsrooms consider to be experts. It’s easier to look only to historians, researchers or scholars who study communities’ needs, but we also have to understand that community voices are also experts of the communities they live in. Students, therefore, are experts in their own experiences and their own student communities, and we need to acknowledge that expertise by taking time to consider their perspectives.

This is a crucial moment in the history of student organizing, and it’s challenging us all to rethink how we view student voices and knowledge. Whether we agree with them or not, we should be listening to the visions they have for their own futures and uphold the critical value of their voices.

Contact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Student activism surges; respect student voices