Election - Attention High Schoolers

[bobrek]

Regardless of the outcome of this election, it has provided an excellent opportunity to learn more about Government, Civics, History, Social Studies and Geography.

Have any of the schools/teachers altered their lesson plans to take advantage of this unique teaching opportunity? Is anyone having to read the Constitution? Are they explaining the Electoral College and its intent?

We need to find all of the positives we can from this situation and this should certainly top the list. For instance, wouldn't it be a good class project to determine (and follow through) on how to persue amending the Constitution for those interested in abolishing the Electoral College? (for the record, I have always been in favor of the Electoral College, but I am not interested in debating its merits/fallacies in this thread) You could start with contacting your state representative and senator(s) to see what needs to be done to start the ball in motion.

I am interested in hearing if your school is teaching this, discussing this or not too interested in this whole situation.

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[DAROckets]

My daughter is a freshman in high school and I was suprised when I ask her the same question she said " no it hasn't even come up in class".Granted she is in World history and not American history but what a wasted opportunity.

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[dc sports]

They do very little current events now. It gets in the way of preparation for the TAAS tests.

My dad did say his students -- everyone -- seemed to be talking about it. I doubt they discussed it in his chemistry class though.

It is sad that opportunities like this seem to be wasted more and more. I remember when the Challenger exploded, everyone really took the rest of the day off, and teachers moved their classes into the classrooms with televisions to watch the coverage. Their arguement is that it's one thing to study the set curriculum, and another to be a part of history.

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Stay Cool...

[This message has been edited by dc sports (edited November 13, 2000).]

[mrpaige]

I know if this had happened my junior year in high school, my Government teacher would've been all over it. (We had a required Government class at my high school back in the day). Sadly, this particular teacher likely would've screwed up the details (she did that a lot).

I remember we did use the Robert Bork nomination to the Supreme Court as an example of how the nominating and approval process works for Supreme Court Justices.

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Houston Sports Board
The Anti-Bud Adams Page

[gr8-1]

My non-govt. teachers at UT were all over it. I think it's a waste for a govt./history teacher not to talk about it. Are teachers apathetic ?

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"There are two players carrying the Rockets right now. Hakeem and Olajuwon." Isiah Thomas

[Zac D]

I'm a junior in high school at the moment. My social studies class is "American Cultures" and we pretty much start every class off with the teacher asking us if any of us have any news we'd like to talk about. Naturally, therefore, we've talked about the election a whoooooole lot. We also talked about it in psych class, and in physics. That was actually kinda cool - we're doing stuff with stats and graphs now, and our teacher showed us graphs of the normal voting patterns for Buchanan in Florida. Palm Beach County came up like 18 standard deviations away from the mean, which is MAJOR statistical anomaly. So anyway, yes, my teachers are incorporating it in lesson plans almost without fail. Of course, I'm in Pennsylvania and not Texas, so I don't know what y'all are doing down there. =)

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"I don't want to join a club that accepts people like me as members."

[Rockets R' Us]

Nothin much here. Our US History teacher doesn't want to talk about it because she thinks we couldn't have worse candidates running for president. It hardly ever comes up. The only time I've heard it discussed is in, get this, Biology!? I dunno, but we asked the teacher who she voted for and she gave us a a whole lecture about who she voted for, why she voted for them, why she didn't vote for the other guy...etc...etc

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Francis out top, 9 seconds on the clock, he gives a no look pass to Cuttino Mobley, 4 seconds left, Mobley passes to an open Langhi in the corner with 1 second left! Langhi at the buzzer.......YES!!! How Sweet It Is!!

[Cold Hard]

Originally posted by bobrek: Regardless of the outcome of this election, it has provided an excellent opportunity to learn more about Government, Civics, History, Social Studies and Geography.

No doubt. This election gave me a worthwhile civics and government lesson...and I found it far more interesting than all my Gov't. classes in high school and college combined. Now, with all of this legal wrangling and the probability of a ripple effect across the country due to the events in Florida, I'm starting to tire of it.

Teachers really should take full advantage of situations like these. I'm pretty damn sure that the students would be quite attentive.

Originally posted by dc sports: They do very little current events now. It gets in the way of preparation for the TAAS tests.

That wouldn't surprise me in the least. I remember when I took my TAAS exit exam back in the tenth grade....it was very easy, a complete waste of time, and I gained absolutely nothing (besides the ability to graduate) from it.

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