For young people only

The following editorial is rated not NC-17 but NP-18: No parents or adults age 18 or older allowed.

Worldwide, young people have proved themselves to be true leaders, helping protect our environment when grownups have failed.

Consider Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen nominated for a Nobel for her role as an activist against climate change.

Here in Marion County, you may not win a Nobel, but if you attend school in Marion, Hillsboro, or Peabody or at Centre you can create a welcome stir by engaging in a simple, non-violent demonstration when classes resume this week.

While your parents continue to rant and rail about whether government has the right to order school kids to wear masks to protect others from coronavirus, you can demonstrate the wisdom of youth by sneaking a mask out of your house and wearing it in all your classes.

Like Greta, you’d be helping save our little corner of the planet — the health and well-being of a community that can’t afford another shutdown. You’d also help ensure that you aren’t tossed back into remote learning that has proved as unpopular as it has been ineffective.

You also can show that while Goessel, which is requiring mask, may have smart leaders, Marion, Hillsboro, Peabody, and Centre have smart students who know what to do when a pandemic strikes.

Your teachers might not like it, but you even can make a bit of a fashion statement with unusual colors or designs, or maybe wear a mask supporting your favorite team, cause, or saying.

What better way to show the world that young people often are a lot smarter than supposed grown-ups and understand that a painless sacrifice, like recycling a can or wearing a mask, is the responsible thing to do in the 21st century and that all this claptrap about infringing on individual rights belongs in the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries.

If you do the right thing and show up masked this week, send us some selfies. We’ll try to print them next week.

— ERIC MEYER