First Political Workshop Lesson – An introduction

First Political Workshop Lesson – An introduction

In our first political workshop lesson we began by discussing what we think this term’s political work will entail.

Ø  Political topics, local, national and global,

Ø  Expressing opinions and respecting others, balancing debates to learn new points and explain your own without offending anyone,

Ø  Being open minded, testing your own theories and others to find out why you believe something or struggle with that idea and for what reason,

Ø  The difference between politicians (Big P) and things which aren’t but are still political (small p),

Ø  How large is the impact of politics on today’s society?,

Ø  What we can do to change/protest against politics, and what kinds protests are effective and why?,

Ø  Exploring controversial issues with care and an intellectual opinion to support your thinking, including very current topics and lesser known ones.

We also, to begin developing our own political opinions and explain them, were told statements as a class which we had to individually decide to what extent we “agree” or “disagree” with them. We showed this by where we stood in the room, representing a scale. One such statement was “Young people are not at all interested in politics”.

Agree or Disagree? 

I nearly fully disagreed with this as although I do not want to have a job in Government or become a politician, I still hold an interest in politics as it greatly shapes how I and many others of all ages around me live. I think the majority of young people do take an interest in politics without necessarily realising it is “politics” as many things are arguably political in some way or another, so although today's younger population may not strike the older generation as at all interested politics this is incorrect. I feel that attending protests and supporting a specific party are not the only ways one can act if they are interested in politics. As politics is such a diverse topic there are many other ways people can take an interest in politics even if it is not actively expressed and is simply having an opinion. Some young people are aware of which political party they support and participate in protests but I don’t feel that this “defines” whether or not youg people are interested in politics. As a young person I have observed many young people, including myself, discussing politics despite the fact that they are not actively involved in marches, protests and voting. I think the media can portray youths as “not at all interested in politics” but this is widely inaccurate.

4/11/13