I was in high school when I sat in front of the TV with my parents watching John F. Kennedy be inaugurated as president. The experience shaped the adult I would become in ways I never imagined. In JFK’s words, I heard the call to take an active role in my country. Today I am still moved by how this handsome, young president challenged me to take action, and helped to shape my future.
Earlier this month, as part of the centennial commemoration of President Kennedy’s birth, I spent a day at the Massachusetts State House, serving as a judge for a high school Civics Day put on by Generation Citizen, a national nonprofit that prepares young people to participate in our democracy. Some 30 teams from Greater Boston were there to show 100 judges the projects they had completed during the semester.
They are a new generation of Americans, known as Centennials, or Generation Z, and we are already seeing in them an ability to apply critical thinking skills, analyze systemic causes and collaborate as a team to solve problems.
At Civics Day, a group from Malden High School identified teen drug use as a problem to tackle. They came up with a creative education campaign aimed at their peers, and engaged public leaders to help execute it. Another group of Malden students highlighted the challenge of college affordability, then identified as a policy goal changing the tax system to apply more funding for higher education. Another group, from Lowell, tackled gun safety by persuading the local police to conduct a gun buy-back day.
Students from Brighton High School, concerned about their ranking in the category of the lowest achieving schools in the commonwealth, sought to create an improved state funding formula that better supports schools like Brighton, which serves a high percentage of high-need students.
One BHS student remarked, “Sadly, students at Brighton are experts on segregation and inequity because we live it every day. This is why we have to continue to reach out to our public officials and advocate.”
These are tomorrow’s leaders, shaping opinion and seeking new solutions to stubborn problems. They are not sitting back and asking what their country can do for them. They are prepared to ask what they can do for their country.
If the students taking part in Civics Day are any indication, this generation is showing it has the mettle to tackle the challenges of this century. But they will need guidance along the way. That’s where people of my generation — those born in the middle of the last century, must step in and volunteer to share our knowledge, experience and compassion with young people.
By making an investment in a future we will never see, we will be fulfilling President Kennedy’s vision and keeping his legacy alive.
Phyllis Segal is the strategic partnerships director for Generation to Generation, an initiative of Encore.org, and a trustee for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation. “As You Were Saying” is a regular Herald feature. We invite readers to submit guest columns of no more than 600 words. Email to oped@bostonherald.com. Columns subject to editing and become Herald property.