Edutopia - October/November 2008 - (Page 12)

SageAdvice {the question} HOW WILL YOU INTEGRATE THE UPCOMING ELECTION INTO YOUR CLASS? Dover Publications offers Barack Obama and John McCain paper dolls that I will use to inform the students about the presidential candidates. We will use the Internet and a Smart Board to research issues that students will have interest in, such as what candidates’ families look like, what their slogans are, and how they feel about hot-button issues. Students will then poll other classes and post a giant Presidential Scorecard in the school hallway with results. On Election Day, we will cast private votes and count and graph our classroom votes. The following day, we will discuss nationwide results and compare them to our school vote and class vote. Joanne Teasdale Kindergarten teacher Blessed Sacrament School Staten Island, New York presidential candidate today and a president who believed in white supremacy—that brings up a good discussion. There are so many areas in which we have come a long way and many areas in which we have not; the students get the opportunity to evaluate where we are today as a nation and what we need from a leader in order not to repeat some of our past. An upcoming election is one of the best ways to encourage students to get out and vote as soon as they are old enough. I instill in them the belief that it is their responsibility and that voting is a way to change what they don’t like. Election years make it easy to make history relevant to today’s world. Val Jones Modern U.S. history teacher Jerome High School Jerome, Idaho I use Scholastic News materials for election content issues (language arts) and ballot materials for assessing party similarities and differences in expository text (language arts), and hold a mock election (social studies) to compare our popular-vote percentage (math) with the nation’s for graph interpreting (science). Vince Rosato Fifth-grade teacher Searles Elementary School Union City, California My marketing class will explore and evaluate the various strategies that the candidates are using to win the vote. We will look at commercials, Web sites, products, and print ads to determine who is using the marketing machine most effectively. Diana Millerick Business teacher Downingtown East Senior High School Exton, Pennsylvania Election years are fun years to teach history. We discuss the way things stay the same over the years—the issues are often similar no matter what the year—and how we have personally changed over the years. Consider a black I plan on having my eighth-grade science students watch some of the debates, as well as do some research on the Internet, in order to identify and discuss each candidate’s proposed policy on issues related to energy and the environment. Working in small groups, students will create a PowerPoint presentation to show their ⇒ndings on candidate’s viewpoints. These presentations would then be used as a source for further discussion and to make connections to our science content. Dan Beltramo Middle school science teacher Vaca Peña Middle School Vacaville, California As a human-development instructor, I will use the election information to show students how democracy and public policy affect their lives. We study Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory and the election is a great example of how the macrosystem (democratic ideology) affects the beliefs, values, and actions of individuals. Regina Rei Lamourelle Human-development department chair Santiago Canyon College Orange, California {what do you think?} What is the most critical skill students should master to succeed? Send responses, and suggestions for questions, to sage@edutopia.org. View more responses at edutopia.org/sage-advice. (Responses may be edited for length and clarity.) GETTY IMAGES 12 EDUTOPIA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2008 http://www.edutopia.org/sage-advice

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Edutopia - October/November 2008

Edutopia - October/November 2008 Contents UpFront Feedback Dispatches Sage Advice Ask Ellen Head of Class Cool Schools Design: Lessons from the Mall The Bucks Start Here Go Global: Virgil Rocks Big Ideas: Powerful Learning Mapping Their Futures Heart & Soul Pop Quiz: Suze Orman

Edutopia - October/November 2008

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