North Shore senior gets practice in Washington politics

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When James Vizza, 17, attended an assembly at North Shore High School earlier this year, he wasn’t found scrolling aimlessly on his phone or chatting loudly with his peers. Instead, he was listening intently, as a representative from Glen Head American Legion Post 336 talked about Boys State, one of the most selective educational programs in government instruction.

Over 800 boys were chosen to attend Boys State this year, which was held at SUNY Morrisville from June 21-28, including James. After his admittance, James decided to take his political schooling a step further and interview for Boys Nation, an intensive eight-day program that invites 98 high school students from across the nation to Washington D.C. Here, the young men are granted an opportunity to experience the function of the federal government first-hand.

James was one of only two students selected to represent New York at Boys Nation last month.

“James is the first one that we’ve had that went to Boys Nation,” said the legion’s Chaplain Ralph Casey, who heads the Boys State committee at the Glen Head post. “This is a big accomplishment for him.”

“Boys Nation is a week that shapes a lifetime,” said Dale Barnett, the program’s director of activities. “James had a once in a lifetime experience [from] writing bills, debating issues impacting the youth of today, and exposure to unique speakers and political leaders.”

During Boys Nation, the students, dubbed as “senators” learn the ins and outs of the U.S. Senate. Participants are divided into two political parties, each of which conducts a convention, sets a platform and nominates members for elected positions. Each senator writes, introduces and debates a bill of his choosing before an appropriate Senate committee, and, if successful, the legislation is then voted on by the Senate, and later signed or vetoed by the Boys Nation president.

“We spent a lot of time debating and really conversing about our bills, and it was a kind of conversation that you don’t really have very often in this country, especially in our high schools,” James said. “What we had was the most productive and respectful political debate I’ve ever had, but all of us, despite the level of achievement that we had gotten, were from a different background by definition.”

Within the halls of the Hart Senate Office Building, and underneath the imperial domed ceiling of Capitol Hill, James found common ground with young men from the cornfields of Ohio, the suburbs of New Jersey, the hills of North Carolina and the middle parts of Maryland, most of whom, he admitted, were unlike what he would’ve expected.

“It was a very interesting and great group to work with, and when you actually went to debate, these kids had great arguments,” James said.

It was an experience, he said, that many “unscrupulous lawmakers” could benefit from. “We live in an era where it’s all sound bites and sound clips and snippets of what somebody said that were the real zinger of a speech, and the rest of the speech was just nonsense,” he said. “You have to make a clear and put together opinion.”

Clubs like mock trial and Model U.N. represent a push in academia to provide up and coming citizens with the know-how in civil discourse. An important takeaway from these clubs, as well as programs like Boys Nation, is their ability to teach young people how to learn from one another.

“In the context of having a generation that’s able to take on the responsibility of a 300-year-old republic, it’s kind of important,” he said. “What you should be able to do is get young people to be able to converse with one another, take each other’s ideas, and either modify that for what you think is better for your own experience, or reject it and be able to debate it and say, ‘this is why this is wrong.’”

Lisa Vizza, James’ mother, said that she trusts the process. “The overwhelming impression I got through James,” she said, “is that these kids really enjoyed the process of civil political dialogue.”

James, who is currently interning with Rep. Tom Suozzi, said he hopes to apply his politico skills to a future in elected office. “Being involved in shaping history and then teaching about the course of history is something I’m interested in,” he said. “I’ve never thought that anything else would do.”