LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Don’t dismiss the views of youth...

Children never cease to surprise us. Whether they have an interesting insight at the age of four or their opinion on a topic doesn’t line up with what we expected given where they were raised and who raised them.  

I’ve seen a lot of conversations over the last several months regarding high school and college students protesting. In many instances, there were insinuations of indoctrination by school staff into a crazy left-wing ideology. In others, there were comments simply dismissing the young protesters because of their age and lack of real-world experience.  

Frankly, both are kind of a load of excrement, in my experience. Usually, the folks making those comments, whether on social media or over a cup of coffee at the local cafe, hadn’t bothered to read the articles that prompted the conversations.  

From an editor’s point of view, that’s just a personal pet peeve that will never cease to be annoying. There is no way for us to put an entire story and all related context into a headline. Believe me, I’ve tried.  

From another point of view, both statements are simply inaccurate.  

Given our area, the students who attend our local high schools throughout Grant and Adams counties are most likely being educated by teachers with conservative views. That’s simply the population we have here. Yep, there are a few liberals in the mix. However, one or two chives in the bowl of potatoes does not indoctrination make. 

No one is indoctrinating children in the classrooms. The notion, if you really think about it, is just ludicrous. The culture here just doesn’t allow for it.  

The other point is that these children don’t know enough and are simply just finding an excuse to skip class. One person even said he figured the young men were just participating in the protests to impress girls – it was cruder than that, but I won’t go into detail.  

When my reporters spoke with the young protesters, they found that the case was exactly the opposite. The students were able to express their concerns in very specific ways. They felt Immigration and Customs Enforcement were overreaching their authority in specific ways. They felt last year’s DOGE activities undermined democracy in specific ways. Whether anyone agrees with them or not, they understood why they were protesting and had points to make that they felt were warranted.  

Many people said the students shouldn’t be protesting during school hours. I understand their frustration. These young men and women should be taking advantage of every moment of classroom learning they can get ahold of.  

However, that act of civil disobedience – protesting during school hours – was precisely the point. Given how ready many adults in the community were to dismiss anything they had to say, would the students have gotten half the attention they wanted their voices to get if they’d had a rally on the weekend?  

No. People would have driven by, shaken their heads, and muttered something along the lines of, “Dumb kids.”  

We need to consider the fact that these young people have been raised in our conservative communities. Despite that environment, they have dissenting opinions. That’s fine. A variety of opinions is good for democracy.  

Those opinions don’t just happen overnight. Our young people read the news online. They follow politicians on social media and think about what those elected officials have to say. They see what’s happening, perhaps more readily than any generation before them.  

I think it’s unfair and inappropriate to dismiss them. I think that, instead, we should have thoughtful conversations with them to make sure they’re looking at things from all angles and making sound choices.  

Those conversations can happen at the dinner table, driving down the road after sports practice, or in a quiet moment aside from the protest the student is participating in.  

If we want them to be the leaders of tomorrow, we need to listen to them and teach them to analyze things fully, admit when they were in error, and let them know they’re respected. 

The adults in our communities need to put our thinking caps on and take those same steps toward ourselves and one another.  

With appreciation, 

R. Hans “Rob” Miller
Managing Editor
Columbia Basin Herald
Basin Business Journal