Archive for June, 2010

Last month I had the opportunity to go into a North Carolina classroom to teach civics. Gets your heart racing, doesn’t it?

If you are in high school today, you may not get civics education. Over the past 30 years, civics education has been systematically cut from public schools. Opportunities to learn about politics and government are rare and programs to register newly eligible high school students are not widespread. Rock the Vote is working hard to change that with Democracy Class.

Very few times in my life have I described anything related to class as “fun.” In my own experience in school, most presentations and campaigns about voter and civic engagement were either boring or downright threatening (Vote or Die anyone?). Democracy Class is different. It is interactive and leaves room for student questions and apprehensions about voting. I have to say that it was, in fact, fun.

The class presentation that I made gave a quick history on when certain groups gained the right to vote. Students were surprised to learn that 18 year olds didn’t get the right to vote until 1971. I talked about the percentage of young people that voted in the 2000’s and then we talked about the merging of pop culture and politics (a Rock the Vote specialty). We talked about a Nas song with a Tupac sample called “Black President.” In the song Nas raps about some of his apprehensions about finally having a black president of the United States. I played the song for the class and began a discussion about how politics affects music. The class exploded with interpretations of what Nas’ lyrics meant and about how Tupac may have felt in 1996, before the real possibility of a black president actually existed. For the students and for me this was the turning point of the class. It seemed as though the students realized that politics can be interesting and isn’t limited to boring speeches.

Revved up by a hip hop interlude, I registered some students to vote and then told them that we would be holding a mock election in the class. Students were enthusiastic about volunteering to be a candidate in our mayoral election. Two students volunteered and held a “town hall,” answering questions from classmates on issues ranging from school lunches to taxes. Following the to town hall, candidates gave speeches promising flat rate taxes and cars that ran on Kool-Aid (great alternative to gasoline!).

Then came the time for the class to vote for a candidate. I handed out ballots and students wrote down their chosen candidate. But right before submitting their votes in the ballot box I barred a quarter of the class from voting because they, in theory, had not registered. Met with groans and shouts of “that’s not fair!” I carried on and counted the votes of the students that had successfully registered. Ultimately the fourth of the class that didn’t vote would have changed the outcome of the election. To me this exercise was so effective in teaching students the importance of voter registration and active voting. They actually felt their voice not being heard, they felt the loss of power that came with not being able to vote. At the end of the class I’m sure that every student not only understood the importance of voting, but also felt the power of their voice and their vote.

Want to empower some young people in your school? Visit our online hub at democracyclass.com to find out more!

•