Children's voices matter.

Children's voices matter.
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You know that phrase: “Kids say the darndest things.” I think we mostly turn to this phrase when young children in the early stages of learning our language, unaware of the power of their word choice, use it with shocking precision. One of my favorite poems, "One Boy Told Me," by Naomi Shihab-Nye, is a poem of collected statements her son said over the years, and a particular line that I love is: “Just think! No one has ever seen inside this peanut before!” Likewise, my daughter, two years old at the time, saw a flag flapping on top of a building and exclaimed, “Mama, the flag is dancing!” And then there’s the video that’s gone viral of the little girl, sitting on a staircase, talking to her mother about what she notices about her parents’ arguments: “If I can be nice, I think all of us can be nice, too.” Small revelations that speak to truths of our world and kids’ place in it: discoverers, observers, poets, mentors. As adults listening to these kinds of statements, we chuckle or say something about the kids being “cute” because the children seem unaware of how right they are, how poetic their phrasing, how spot on their observation. We shake our heads, we laugh, share it with friends over a meal. “Listen to what my kid said the other day…” and we move on.

But why shouldn’t children be aware? And why should we think they aren’t? When do we stop chuckling at the things kids say? Because kids don’t say the "darndest" things. They say the truth. And we need to listen, especially at a time when there is so much hate around us.

The Love Rally on April 10 was designed to fight radical hate with radical love. Part of radical love, I propose, is listening to children and young adults. Listening seriously, listening with intention; not the patronizing kind of listening that inspires adults to say that kids are “cute” afterwards. Not the superficial kind of listening that inspires adults to smile and then move on. But the kind of listening we do when we are asking for help, when we subjugate our egos and knowledge to someone else’s wisdom.

I saw this play out in my own classroom two weeks ago when, as the adult in the room, I was trying to organize a service learning project and orient the kids' next steps toward our common goal: there were many moving parts, lots of questions, lots of discussion. The kids were angry because it was taking so long and I was frustrated because we didn't have the plan all laid out; we appeared to be at odds with one another. We were stuck. Suddenly, one 7th grade boy said, "We just need to start." And while I was about to argue back at him that we can't just start without having a plan, I fell silent and just listened to him and to the others who concurred with him. Their voices stayed with me through the afternoon. "We just need to start." Maybe they were right. And so, inspired by their words, I took a first tentative step and started. And just like that, our project took flight.

Knowing how powerful the result can be when children speak up and out, I asked my 7th graders who wanted to participate in the Love Rally these questions: “What do you demand from the adults who will be in the audience? As a young person, what do you know about our world that adults need to hear from you?” And by and large, their answer was: “We see what’s happening. We know there are problems. We matter. Our ideas matter. Our solutions are viable. Listen to us.”

In their own words:

  • “I am asking that you listen to me today.”
  • “You look at us and what you see is: ‘innocent,’ ‘young,’ ‘not ready to see the dangers of the world,’ ‘not ready to know such hate.’ We sense it; we sense the hate and discord. We see the big red flashing signs on the T.V before you switch it off, and hear the people talking, before you shush them. The signs, the tension we see it all.”
  • “There is no thinking person who can stand unmarked today and watch the world around us stray downward to decay.”
  • “Connection doesn’t have boundaries.”
  • “We have a duty to our people to love and not to hate. It’s time we fulfilled our duty.”

The thing is, these kids weren't wondering why our world has become the way it is. They weren't crying for explanations. They didn't ask for our reasons or our scholarship to help them understand the radical hate they see everywhere. Instead, these young voices were insisting adults listen to them. They were challenging assumptions, calling out institutions that "pull the words from [their] throats." They weren't being "cute." They were speaking the truth. They explained to us that we need to learn love, to lead with love. What if we trusted the voices of our children? "It's time," they said. We just need to start.

At the Love Rally, a mother stood on stage with her young daughter. “I am here today because of my daughter,” she said. “We have to do things differently.” So here’s what I propose to do differently: Look to young people and really listen. We just need to start.

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