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Election is a learning opportunity
Published November 1, 2008
Alvin ISD’s Walt Disney Elementary student Vincent Garcia, 10, thinks playing presidential candidate Barack Obama in a mock debate will be “cool.”
He said he had to learn a lot about the Democratic contender before he could play him in the presentation, though.
“I learned that he’s going to give tax cuts to the middle class and he’s also going to reform the education,” Garcia said.
Walt Disney Elementary student Jena Jones, 11, said she will wear a gray pencil skirt and black shirt Monday as she portrays Cindy McCain in the same program as Garcia.
“I just figured out that she’s 54 years old and her and McCain met in Hawaii when McCain was in the Navy,” Jones said. “I found out that her dad’s business, which she’s now a co-chairman on, they make about $3 million a year.”
Jones said she was surprised at some of the things she learned, such as how the first lady has to be in charge of the social events and charitable works.
“They’re the hostesses of everything they do,” Jones said.
Though students can’t vote, teachers say children at all levels of school are engaged in this election process. Some have watched media coverage, and others have heard their parents talking.
Lisa Virgel, Sweeny Elementary’s Communities in Schools campus coordinator, said the school’s mock elections, which took place last week, got the students thinking about the elections and came out with McCain winning the presidency.
“The comments you got from the kindergartners were absolutely hilarious,” Virgel said.
She laughed as she told of one student who saw the picture of Barack Obama on the kindergarten-level ballot sheet and said, “Oh, he’s a liar.”
NOT JUST PRETTY FACES
School officials at every campus level are using the high interest in this presidential election to identify teaching moments for their students.
In Brazosport ISD, kindergartners are reading books about elections and talking about the election process, they’re also making campaign posters and passing out flyers to voters on Election Day.
To integrate the election into subjects other than social studies, math students throughout the county will vote on Election Day at their schools in mock elections, then take the district numbers and compare them to national voting numbers after the election.
“We’re just trying to instill in children the desire to be responsible citizens and vote, and it’s more than voting for a pretty face, that you have to look at everything about the candidates,” Rasco Middle School fifth-grade teacher Donna Stankovich said.
Virgel said while some older students identified more with the candidates and the issues, younger students seemed to vote based on how their parents felt.
“Some of them were asking who the candidates were,” Virgel said. “Maybe the older ones were kind of wanting to know what some of the issues were and that kind of stuff, but the younger ones, you could tell that they were just spitting out what they had heard at home.”
HOW THEY'RE LEARNING
Columbia-Brazoria ISD Gifted and Talented students will have a mock election Tuesday and have a debate, Executive Director of Curriculum Sena Yates said.
Seventh- and eighth-grade students at Danbury ISD are discussing the electoral college, Danbury ISD Director of Curriculum and Instruction Greg Anderson said.
They “use a source called Scholastic Math,” Anderson said. “In there they talked about how the electoral college works and did the math on adding up how many votes that each state gets for the electoral college and how many it would take for a candidate to become president and looked at some scenarios there.”
The students also learned how the president handles a budget.
Other students in Danbury ISD are learning about the election process and how the Legislature works by voting on a state amphibian to present for consideration by the Legislature, Anderson said.
Some students in Angleton ISD took a questionnaire to decide which candidate they aligned with the best, and the results surprised some students.
“It was kind of neat because one government teacher said some of them thought they were for McCain or Obama and then they filled out this questionnaire and they found out that their candidate really didn’t fit the issues they thought were important,” Angleton World Geography teacher Monica Kotrla said. “They just didn’t know that, so that was neat.”
UP FOR DEBATES
Freeport Intermediate School will have a school-wide election Tuesday, Assistant Principal Nivia Gardner said.
“Our eighth-grade social studies classes have asked two of their students to pose as McCain and Obama in a ‘televised debate’ … followed by the schoolwide election on Election Day,” Gardner said. “Several other students will show ‘political commercials’ during the debate. It should be a great educational experience.”
The school’s debate was Friday.
At Walt Disney Elementary, students will dress up as the McCain and Obama families and as Secret Service members to present biographical information about the candidates to other students.
“We’re going to be walking to our sister primary school and giving them a presentation on the candidates and a couple of their issues and a little background information,” fifth-grade Social Studies and Language Arts teacher Tracy Mathis said.
The students have been researching the qualifications to become president and vice president and biographical information about each candidate, she said. They’ve also researched the duties for the first spouse and campaign managers, as well as the qualifications and responsibilities of the Secret Service.
“The kids are really excited about it and they’re talking about it and they’re talking to their parents about it, which is what my goal was,” Mathis said.
Erin McKeon is a reporter for The Facts. Contact her at (979) 237-0152.
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