Even though
this blog entry is a little bit behind current events, I wanted to talk about
it nonetheless. Last week at my placement, three classes learning about
governmental systems were able to participate in the “Student Vote”. At first I
thought that it was going to be similar to my experience with government in
elementary school. As students, we were briefly told about the different
parties and then expected to take part in a mock election. At the time I seemed
confused by everything that was going on and just checked off a box simply
based on the candidate’s name. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I walked
into my placement class on October 6th. The students were excited
not only at the fact that they could participate in a school mock election, but
that the provincial election was taking place that day, specifically with a
polling station in their gymnasium. The students were ecstatic that they were
taking part in something that they knew was extremely important. At one point
during a math lesson, they got off track and into a competitive debate about
which party was going to win. Just a sample of the many remarks I heard:
“Are we
going to see the winner’s on TV when we go home?”
“Can we
find out our class results today?”
“Will
our class results be on CHCH news?”
 |
| Posters that were displayed at our school |
It was
great! We set up the Student Vote in the gymnasium on the opposite side of the
actual polling station. Students came in as a class, received a ballot, went
behind a polling screen and voted. We even had official ballot boxes where they
could submit their votes! I thought the whole process was amazing and left
school feeling exhilarated. Aside from the fact that the students were
interested in politics, I think it had more to do with the fact that this was
my first experience seeing students excited about learning. It was humorous yet
serious, and 100% inspiring to see young students completely immersed in an
educational topic.
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