Salon
By GAIL CORNWALL
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 19, 2021 7:30PM (EDT)
Face masks. Critical race theory. Bathrooms. Remote learning. Schools and schooling have become a flashpoint for America’s culture war — for adults. But in actually talking to adolescents across the country, I discovered that grown-up fears and fury are disconnected from students’ most pressing concerns.
Ariana Lemus, a 16-year-old from San Mateo, California, said she feels like a pawn: “Most of the problems that adults are talking about,” she said, “it’s a lot less important to us right now. They’re saying, ‘This is for the kids,’ but they’re not really listening to us kids.”