Every year, nearly four million Americans turn 18 and become eligible to vote. With so much ahead of them, what makes politics interesting or important to someone entering adulthood? Perhaps 17 dead kids in Parkland and seeing high school students chanting “BS” and “throw them out” is that moment.

Twenty-five years ago, a series of pop culture controversies created Rock The Vote, a student movement to protect the first amendment and the "the right to vote." At Rock The Vote, we did our work registering voters at Lollapalooza, via MTV, on college campuses, and during the 1992 presidential primaries. We made a difference by contributing to an increase in young voter turnout in 1992 (52.0%), the second highest level of participation since 18-year olds became eligible to vote in 1972 and not seen again until 2008. This movement culminated in the signing of the Motor Voter Act in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton.

I treasure the memories I share with my friends Steve Barr, Michael F. Dolan, Joel Shulkin, Steve Caplan, David Paul Burke, and countless volunteers who made Rock the Vote a driving force at the ballot box in 1992. I often wonder if we will ever see a youth movement build a coalition like one that produced the Motor Voter Bill ever again.

Today, rather than MTV PSAs with Madonna wrapped in a flag, we see images of flowers and crosses hanging from a schoolyard fence. Too often we find ourselves turning off the cable news so our little kids don’t see a parade of coffins filled with teenagers whose lives ended tragically like those at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last Wednesday.

Thomas Jefferson saw public schools as vital to our democracy. We know education is vital to social and economic mobility. We know our educational system is imperfect. Yet, schools are more than just a place of learning for many. They are a place of curiosity, exploration, and comfort.

There is a passage in T.H. White’s Once and Future King that kept me in school against many odds in my formative years. Merlin told Wart (the young King Arthur),

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

Schools have always been the safe harbor for every generation looking to make sense of the world. We cannot let fear of gun violence diminish its role in our country. When my kids ask me who I think is a hero, I always mention Nelson Mandela, Anita Hill, Michael Stipe, Tank Man from Tiananmen Square just to name a few.

Today, I’m adding a new name to the list: Emma Gonzalez. She and her fellow students are calling BS on all of us when it comes to gun violence, AR-15s and the pressures teens face today. She wants to learn and live safely, and rightly expects us to do our part – lead, follow or get out of the way.