Open Book: Don’t Forget Us

This Is What Young People Want: Solutions For The Homeless And Teachers – Not High Horses And One-Trick Ponies

By Anya Nitczynski

For the GPHN

As another election season is upon us, politics flows naturally into conversations between my peers.

Mainly, politics are treated by many of us as a platform to pretend to be more intellectual than they really are. I don’t think this is a phenomenon restricted to young people, though. The topic is one not taken as seriously as people at dinner parties (I assume these people go to dinner parties) pretend to take it. Politics is an excuse to throw out the name of a candidate into conversation to put yourself onto one very high horse.

Regardless, there are a select number of people who really take care to understand the issues they are passionate about. Often, the high horse phenomenon occurs not because of lack of care for this nation or state, but because of an abundance of care misdirected to the perception of one’s peers.

So what do the people who direct their care focus on? The most prevalent local issue I’ve discussed with my friends is homelessness. I have many strong opinions about how Denver should treat our homeless population, because I “have a passion for that sort of thing,” as a teacher of mine described it last year. My peers and I are frustrated with both how homeless people are treated, as well as the systems in place that allow such a high rate of homelessness to occur in the first place. We want politicians who care about every individual within and outside of their jurisdiction.

Another issue that has a large impact on young people and therefore becomes relevant to our political conversations is the general treatment of workers and teachers. Students see firsthand how understaffed our schools became over the pandemic. We see teachers sacrificing their lesson-planning time to substitute teaching.

Last year, we watched the requirements to be a substitute in the Denver Public Schools district get more and more lenient. We watched as teachers left halfway through the year. And we don’t blame them. Students don’t know how to be students. Many of us are emotionally stunted due to the pandemic. If you weren’t getting paid enough, getting disrespected daily, and went to work in a cesspool of potential sickness everyday at 7:40 a.m., I doubt you would stay at your job. Neither would we. We want our teachers, our mentors, to be heard by politicians and district officials.

It is true that we entertain politics to feel like we have more intellect than our peers. The rise of social media often makes it seem like the most trivial things are the most important. So when do we truly care? When we witness real solutions that impact real people.

Anya Nitczynski is a sophomore at Denver School of the Arts. Her column appears monthly in these pages.