Tip of the Week: More Election Resources Than You’ll Ever Need But Will Probably Look at Anyway

For a former poly sci major, a presidential election year is like one long Super Bowl party. Polls. Data. Ads. Commentary. Analysis. Policy discussions. Lots and lots of analysis. Throw in the Senate and House races – not to mention the state and local stuff going on here in Kansas – and it doesn’t get any better.

And the cool thing is that there are tons of online resources available to help me, you, and your students understand and participate in the process.

Your first step should be to browse through the article titled Have Politics Become So Ugly That Educators Are Afraid To Teach Civics? It might be easier to pretend the election is already over and try to ignore all the ugliness that can happen when we see so much polarization in the process. But we can not ignore our task as social studies educators – preparing students to be thoughtful, engaged, and informed citizens.

2016 #SOTU, word clouds, blackout poetry, and thinking historically

“He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

Article II, Section 3, US Constitution

Back in the day, George Washington delivered the first state of the union address to Congress in New York City in 1790. Thomas Jefferson believed that a face to face version was too much King George the IIIish and so began sending written reports instead. Other presidents followed suit with the report being read to Congress by a clerk. Woodrow Wilson re-started the face to face idea in 1913.

Other #SOTU trivia?

Jimmy Carter delivered the last written message to Congress in 1981. Of course, it was also the longest message at over 33,000 words, so maybe that was a good thing. Nixon’s 1972 speech was the shortest at just over 28 minutes.

But enough poly sci nerd talk. How best to use last night’s festivities? Some quick thoughts:

Tip of the Week: Summer Reading List

My wife is smirking at me. She’s feeling her oats. Yup. Yesterday was her last day of school. As a fourth grade teacher, the last week of school for her is usually pretty brutal and starting today she can relax a bit.

My summer? Pretty busy. Over the next eight weeks, I’ll have the chance to meet all sorts of people around the country. That’s a good thing, I suppose. I like busy.

But right now she’s rubbing it in just a bit.

Cause she knows. She knows I love to read and that summer has traditionally been the perfect time for me to race through my summer reading list. This year, it’s going to be tough.

For as long as I’ve been in education, I’ve had a summer reading list. One of my early mentors (Thanks Mr. Ortmann!) “forced” me to do it and I learned to love the idea. Develop a list of professional and fun books. Commit to reading them. Talk about the content with others.

Of course, in all of the years that I’ve been doing it, I’ve never actually finished the original list. Schedules change. Books aren’t as good as I had hoped. A couple of years ago, I went on a Civil War binge and got completely sidetracked.

But the idea is still a good one. It makes us better educators. And isn’t that part of the job?

So . . . the 2014 Summer Reading List:

#SOTU, wordles, and historical thinking

Tough choice. Today is Kansas Day. Last night was the 2014 State of the Union address.

What to write about? I mean . . . it’s Kansas Day. How cool is that? Renovated capitol building. Cool resources. Buffalo. Sunflowers. Wide open spaces.

But it’s the #SOTU. How cool is that? As an old poly sci major, there’s nothing like listening to a good political speech. Heck, sometimes even the bad ones are fun. And the 2014 State of the Union had the best of everything – all three branches of government in one place, cranky opposition, pundits, social media, Sarah Palin references, multiple GOP / Tea Party responses, and no out of control yelling from the audience.

So today you Kansas Day fans are on your own.

How best to use last night’s festivities? Some thoughts:

How to watch a political debate

For a poly sci major and long time social studies guy like me, presidential elections are the Final Four, Super Bowl, and World Cup all rolled into one. You’ve got the qualifying rounds, the underdogs, press conferences discussing strategy, insider information, accusations of illegal recruiting, poor officiating, and every once in a while some actual game action.

Tomorrow is the first presidential debate between President Obama and former Governor Romney – the first real game action. As a poly sci guy, I know that the debates will probably not really matter that much. The number of people who have already decided one way or the other is pretty large and the number of actual undecided voters who might make a difference in the Electoral College is pretty small.

Some would suggest otherwise but debates make for great television and they’re part of the action so . . . of course, I’ll be watching.

Even if you’re not a poly sci guy (and chances are your students aren’t either), the debates are great teachable moments. They provide an opportunity to discuss and argue about a whole variety of things – systems of government, bias, impact of media and constitutional law not to mention . . . you know, basic stuff like what candidates believe and how they would govern. So don’t blow them off.

The question:

How do I watch a debate? More importantly, how do I use the debate series in my classroom?

There are some handy resources out there:

• I would start with a quick Five Things to Watch in the Presidential Debate from the Yahoo News folks.
• Then I’d move over to the The League of Women Voters site and their great set of resources and suggestions. They also have a video from 2008 that still plays pretty well.
• This guide to debates from the California Secretary of State is pretty handy for teachers – questions, activities, and handouts.
• The MiddleWeb people have put together a nice article titled Presidential Debates are Teachable Moments. It includes a sweet downloadable PDF for kids to use while you show debates highlights in class.
• A nice scorecard and instructions from Lynn University.

You don’t have to love politics as much as I do but getting your students involved in the process is not something to blow off. We need to take this whole democracy, government by the people thing seriously and it starts by getting kids engaged in the actual doing of it.

Give it a try and let me know how you integrate your election coverage!

Kansas Caucus – I was hoping for more fireworks

I was hoping for something.

Nothing.

Along with about 140 others, I arrived at the Community Center in Marion, Kansas for the state Republican caucus ready for action. As a history teacher and poly sci major, I’ve been to primaries and election but have never experienced a caucus. So I was pumped for some political fireworks.

The Romney representative loudly squaring off against the Santorum rep, with a little fingerpointing by the Newt guy. Maybe a few Michelle Bachman t-shirts hanging around. Some pointed questions and yelling by the Ron Paul folks. You know, some excitement.

But . . . nothing.

The county chair read letters from the Romney and Gingrich campaigns and that was about it. We all scratched an X on a piece of paper, dropped it into a box, and went home. The box wasn’t even locked or monitored. Pretty boring. But you know, maybe that’s the point. American democracy should be boring.

There were no armed soldiers monitoring the voting. I didn’t have to dip my finger in ink to prevent voter fraud. I wasn’t afraid of physical intimidation by opposing campaigns. And while it was much less exciting due to a lack of figurative fireworks, I liked the fact that actual explosives were nowhere to be found.

I do have one concern. I may have been one of the five youngest people there. Lots of gray hair. Nothing wrong with gray hair. I actually have some of my own. But the lack of young voters was fairly obvious. A recent article in the Wichita Eagle (and tons of other places) tries to explain this lack of interest.

Whatever the reason, we need to be doing a better job of preparing our kids to participate. Check out some of these tools:

• Vote411
• iCivics
• The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement
• FairVote
• Kids Speak for America
• GenerationOpportunity

(And not that you’re keeping track but I was part of the 252 Other votes. I’m sure that Rick, Mitt, Newt, and Ron are just super nice people but well . . . some would consider me to be a bit of a moderate. Other was really the only option I had.)