Election

While everyone has been talking about this years presidential election I was really impressed with how it was handled in our school. The 7th grade Civics teachers really did a lot to make this a very memorable learning experience. They put on convention, held a debate and then had the entire school vote. Not everyone could vote. You had to register first. The students played a role in the entire process. They worked on voter registration. They researched the candidates and their stances on certain issues. They were the ones debating in front of the entire 7th grade while it was broadcasting throughout the entire school with the help of the media management system. They worked the polling stations on Monday. Talk about authentic. The election was held on Monday with Senator McCain winning with a 53% vote to Senator Obama's 47%. In all, there were over 590 votes cast from faculty and students. To hear the students talk about the election and to see them working all of the different aspects of the electoral process was very exciting. It made me wonder why more teachers don't do activities like this. I know the answer already. There are two that I hear the most. SOL's and time. It was a lot of time on the teachers part. Planning, setting up, working out all the logistics were a nightmare. Fortunately for the students, this did not stop them. The second reason being SOL's. They taught all the required SOL's and I have the feeling that when tested on these our students will do very well. These are the types of things that we should be doing with our students. I don't think all need to be done on such a a large scale but these are ways to really make the connection for the students.