Freshmen are the ones with the class: AP HUG as mentioned so I will start with them. Freshmen are the youngest and arguably most malleable by their parents and role models. I believe this will make Freshmen democratic leaning. Is that true? I interviewed Charles Clark and Tyson Forrest. Every person that I interviewed was asked the same questions: Should we capture dictators, should we kill terrorists, and which is more important: more or less government? Charles and Tyson said that we should stay out of others’ dictatorships but said if they deserve it then it’s ok. They agreed that they shouldn’t kill terrorists unless they kill people. Finally, they agreed about having less government.
Sophomores are next, with WEX class seemingly a more complex version of AP HUG. They have more information about the world and so does this make them change answers compared to the freshmen? I interviewed Bria Venhaus and Cayla Bailey. About capturing dictators, Cayla said we shouldn’t capture them, Bria said that it depends on what they are doing. Cayla said no to killing terrorists and Bria said only if they affect the US. They were opposed on the size of government however, with Cayla stating more and Bria wanting less. There was some change between grades but responses are similar.
Now with the upperclassmen. They are more mature, decided, and wiser than underclassmen. They have more world experience. Does that change the outcome? For the juniors, Simon and Cole were interviewed. They both agreed that context is key when deciding to capture a dictator and killing terrorists. They disagreed about the size of government with Simon wanting less and Cole saying more, but both said it depends on the part of government. Overall, juniors think farther into their answers and I believe this is because of their maturity and ability to decide.
Seniors finish off the grades, being the pinnacle of wisdom and maturity as students go. As seen with the juniors, they thought deeper into their statements. I had the chance to interview seniors Laceika and Varity. They disagreed with the size of government with Laceika wanting less due to the US’s poor government and Varity believes we need more government due to issues in healthcare and lack of proper workers in different factions of our government. Both say strongly that we should not capture dictators from other countries in any circumstance. Neither should we kill terrorists from other countries. Of all grades these two representatives gave the most insight and explanation for their opinions.
To simplify the data, As grades increase, the number of people who believe in capturing dictators and killing terrorists decreases. However, when it came to the size of the government, there was no correlation. For sophomores through seniors, one said more, one said less. This is a very interesting result as it shows that government size is very divided.
Overall, grades do impact political views and as students at LHS get older they seem to choose one side very vividly. Underclassmen were undecided or were unsure what they believed. Overclassmen knew to ask for context and easily chose a side.